Lights Camera, ACTION!: The importance of narrative in Games

I was recently sent an email from someone that I love, cherish and respect. She was having trouble with an essay for uni and asked if I would have a quick read through for her. As I am a good hearted fellow with an deep respect for her chosen field of learning (Film Studies) and wanting to help in anyway that I can, I accepted. As I was reading through I noticed words like”spectacle” “audience” “narrative” which left me thinking. Are games so different from films?

On the surface, yes. Instead of simply watching the scenes and adventures unfold from the comfort of your arm chair, you are making them happen. With every button press and every action that you do having an effect on the world around you, and it does all of this whilst keeping you engrossed and immersed in which ever universe you happen to be populating that that moment in time.

John Marston: One of the most engaging and enigmatic characters ever.

Theoretically, this should happen every time you sit down for a long, hard slog of a gaming session. Unfortunately, the “Good Game Fairy” fails to smile and radiate her magical glow on at every game that comes under the scrutiny of game journalists. Naturally there are going to be bad games, just as there are bad films. It can be a combination of many factors that make a game bad, sometimes those factors aren't even down to the game's development team, technological setbacks or limitations can prove that human error can only count for so much of a game's short comings.

Other times it could be the fan base, abusing all nay sayers that “dare” to have a difference of opinion on a game that has yet to be released and therefore losing a potential fan for the game or the franchise with the possibility even making them go as far as completely boycotting a developer's future titles. It could have been that the QA testers weren't as diligent as they should have been, leaving it to the consumer to find the bugs and glitches that break flow and rip you kicking and screaming from your fantasy world of blood, battle scars and mead.

You will know a good game (if you've played as many as I have) from the offset, take Far Cry 3 for example, the opening cut scene shows a group of American trust fund kids living it up on holiday. Home movies full of drinking, parties, women and adrenaline seeking before it cuts to a bamboo cage with yourself (Jason Brody) and his brother imprisoned within. For an opening scene, this lays the ground work for the rest of the game, you know that Jason has nothing in the way of special forces training due to the fact that he is terrified and is bordering on tears as he flees in to the jungle. In fact his brother, who actually does have military training dies pretty early on (see, being in the marines isn't always a get out of jail free card...)

Watch out for Vaas, he'll enslave your Arss...IT WORKS DAMN IT!

The reason that this is a good, if not brilliant opening. Is because you can immediately connect and relate with Jason. (bar the trust fund frolics) He is clearly terrified, as would any of us be if we found ourselves in the same situation and forced to take another humans' life in the name of self preservation. Although this leads him down a path that sees him crafting wallets from the taints of his enemies within 5 minutes of his first kill, we can still connect with him. He is growing and changing as a person and therefore a character and as players, we grow and change along with him.

This is where films get a “guilt free pass” the characters are set out and moulded to a persona, in very few films have I seen a character start out as a nervous wreck only to reappear an hour later glistening with sweat atop his massive pectorals and picking masticated Nazi out of his teeth. In video games, we are strapped to the person, we become that person (all right, maybe not Max Payne. I have neither, a broken frontal lobe that allows me to slow down time. Nor a lust for diving through windows whilst dual wielding 9mm handguns and chugging cheap whisky) we witness everything that character witnesses, we feel the same emotions as the character. The more time we invest in a game, the more we invest in a character and therefore the story that they are a part of.

Colliding with filing cabinet in 3...2..1...

But this I feel, is a double edged sword. As I previously mentioned, there are such things as bad games, and a notorious staple of a bad game is the lack of a character arc. We have to spend upwards of 5 hours with this character, but instead of becoming this person, we become little imps on their shoulders, pulling at their ear hair to make them move, shoot, cast magic, seduce the blacksmith's daughter, this list could go on and on but you get my drift. Instead of the player growing and changing with the character, we watch a muscle head in power armour move from point A to point B, occasionally pausing to cut a disfigured monstrosity from groin to chin in an exaggerated excuse for a “take-down” and move along the sightseeing tour. (yes I think Gears of War is a bad game, sue me!)

My point is, video games may be more complicated than films, but they are also as restricted. Give the player the chance to roam and do as they please and they will, almost to an unhealthy degree. The story then gets neglected to the fringe of abuse and the point or moral is never imparted, they have to be quite linear, if for no other reason than to uphold the name of “Interactive Story Telling”.

I applaud the developers that create engaging and engrossing games that give me the option of running through a corn field, broadsword aloft and a gaggle of terrified villages running for their lives, but I give a standing ovation to the developers that make me want to stop tormenting NPCs for a second to sit down in front of an open fire and listen to some more stories of old. Without narrative, we have no reason to play games, defiling NPCs can only be done so much before they run me out of town, waving pitchforks and screaming “HEATHEN!”. We rely on stories to bring us back to “reality” and to show us that really the writing in the previous game was just a precursor to this.

Alright lads! All together now!

So next time you feel that a character's progression isn't shifting in any way, shape or form or advancing the story, just check their shoulder. You may see yourself wrestling with an ear hair or two.

A special mention goes to my gorgeous Saff. Without her this piece would have never been written, and I would still be procrastinating by playing more Red Dead Redemption.... Thank you babe! And thank you the reader for reading my rambling scrawl that I call journalism