Bioware - anyone really notice something?

[Arnwyn]

You must try Halo and Halo 2 to see what can be done with a story in a FPS... 8 thumbs up (out of 2) for the story alone!

Well... not Halo 2.

 

[Captain Tagon]

Well... not Halo 2.

Ah, Halo 2 had more story than game. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just maybe not what people were expecting.

 

[Arnwyn]

Ah, Halo 2 had more story than game. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just maybe not what people were expecting.

Too bad it was poorly done and incomplete.

 

[Captain Tagon]

Too bad it was poorly done and incomplete.

Hmm, what?

Incomplete I get your point, but that's your view, not mine. Poorly done? Right.

 

[Arnwyn]

Hmm, what?

You heard me. (And yeah, of course it's "my view" - whose view would it be? Make no mistake, you'll find nothing available in terms of an 'objective truth' here...)

In my view (since apparently you need this clarified for you), the narrative was kludgy, stilted, and didn't flow in any way, shape, or form. Transitions were erratic, and dialogue was vague at best. There's definitely an awesome story in there somewhere, but it didn't show while going through the game.

And yeah, it was incomplete. No conclusion = incomplete.

 

[argo]

All of their games have had pretty much the same type of story outline since Baldur's Gate?

Hero has no memory or a mysterious past that he/she does not know about.
super villian knows but isn't telling
you find nuggets of info all thru the game, then the final mystery is revealed and you kill the bad guy in the end.

While you do have a point, and indeed I have remarked on the same thing myself, I must point out that this also describes (in broad strokes) the set-up for approxametly 60% of all fantasy fiction.

"Raised by his uncarring uncle the young orphan boy with the lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead has no idea of the secret lives his parents lived, what happened on that mysterious night when they were killed or the wonderous destiny that lies before him now..."

Get my drift?

 

[Zappo]

It's a scheme commonly used in fantasy fiction. It's handy because the reader at the beginning doesn't know anything about the setting. You pick a clueless protagonist so that you can explain the setting to the reader in manageable bits, while the protagonist himself finds out about it. Typically, the protagonist only has experience of something the reader can already figure out from the start ("he's a farm boy" is easier than "he's a wizard" which is heaps easier than "he's a Red Wizard of Thay"). It's the same thing for games.

I recognize that it works, but personally I've grown tired of it. Black Company is a fiction series that doesn't do this at all, and it is excellent. It proves that you can make great fantasy without detailing much setting information at all, and focusing on the story and characters instead. I don't have a similar example for videogames.

 

[WizarDru]

It proves that you can make great fantasy without detailing much setting information at all, and focusing on the story and characters instead. I don't have a similar example for videogames.

It also proves you can write a great fantasy series without actually having worked out all the details of the setting, or even a map of the world (which Cook freely admited the last two times we chatted at cons...he's a very cool guy).

There are plenty of games that do this sort of thing, but a good story and setting aren't always widely accepted. Beyond Good and Evil was a fantastic game that didn't use the outsider/amnesiac formula (at least not to the setting), but was universally ignored. Psychonauts has some elements of it, but is also not getting the business it deserves, besides nearly universal praise. But many games add some item to the mix and then go from there. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, for example, has a character who knows his setting, but all the monsters and magic are new, so he has to learn them.

Most games requires expansion and learning, and an RPG expects to send you to places you haven't been. God of War has some RPG elements in it, for example, since you can increase your 'stats' and increase your powers. Your choices do have an effect throughout the game. Mind you, while Bioware leans heavily on that concept, others don't.

 

[shadowlight]

And yeah, it was incomplete. No conclusion = incomplete.

So Empire Strikes Back must have been very incomplete for you

 

[Arnwyn]

So Empire Strikes Back must have been very incomplete for you

Nope, thankfully, for multiple reasons. I needn't get into them, as your statement is not comparable and relatively meaningless (maybe even a non sequitur). Are you going to try that trick with Fellowship of the Ring, too? Wait! I've got a better one! How about Attack of the Clones? Or any Hollywood motion picture designed with multiple movies in mind, guaranteed to be properly completed (as much as Hollywood can guarantee such things, which in any case has been historically proven to be orders of magnitude more superior than the software industry), released for relatively the same price in a reasonable time frame, and still had storylines that were self-contained?