Essay to accompany final major project

How the advancement of technology has altered narrative structure in popular videogames. By Kelly Cantrell.


In this essay I am going to talk about the rise of digital media and its effect on popular videogames, with particular reference to their narrative structures. As there are so many genres and sub genres of games, I will be attempting to focus on the first person action adventure game.
After all amongst the many gaming genres, such as online social gaming, simulation and shooter games, I would say that the first person action adventure game, (and indeed 3rd person also) has the largest and most obvious connection to narrative structures as an underlying core element within the game play.
Naturally however there will be mention of games that fall into 2 or more different genres, for example the tomb-raider franchise is most likely to be classed as a platform/strategy game, however there are also elements of it that fall into the RPG, (role playing game) and action adventure genres as well.
Before jumping to some obvious titles such as this year’s “Heavy rain” for the playstation 3, I would like to go back a bit and start with some earlier titles worthy of mention for their story-driven play, whether good or bad.
Delving into the “horror survival” sub-genre is an absolute must if we are talking about narrative driven gaming phenomena, and the immediate title to come to mind would be “Silent hill”,.
Konami’s first instalment of Silent hill began in 1999 on the playstation one and then went on to spawn another 5 sequels, a prequel, box office movie, and a remake of the first game has now appeared, 11 years after the original release.
Thus demonstrating the games narrative appeal and replay value as a franchise.
As technology advances, games are becoming more playable featuring easier controls, advanced graphical capability and better camera dynamics, thus games are reaching a wider audience and are quickly becoming the worlds number one form of entertainment, now rivalling the Hollywood movie industry with sales reaching over 300, million US dollars.
Initially game-movie tie ins were brought out as secondary sources of profit and went hand in hand with t-shirts, lunch boxes and other forms of movie paraphernalia, now however games are being produced in conjunction with movies in order to gain maximum profit, the same actors, character designers and modellers are now working on both the film and the game to produce a double package that can be released at the same time to achieve maximum sales and coverage.
Also fading away are the cheap cash in attempts of mediocre games being produced after a film with broken narratives and shoddy game play.
But what is it about a game narrative in particular that prevents it from being a smash hit movie? Look at the Tomb raider and mortal combat movies for example, each failing on different levels, then there are the silent hill and resident evil movie spin off’s, both are relatively good but are lacking considerably in the storytelling department, only silent hill can be saved because it so well retains the original feel and atmosphere from the games.
As for this years prince of Persia staring Jake Gyllenhaal I am not going to hold my breath but we’ll see, just using a white American for the starring role has made me weary enough of it, I think it will suffer from the usual “Hollywood movie” conventions of action over plot and too much lacing of patriotic heroism.
One reason for this failure to translate gaming narratives to the big screen could be that gaming narratives also rely on the player’s involvement and interaction with the game itself, gamers typically play a game for several weeks before finish, whereas movie watchers digest the whole thing in a matter of 2 hours, sometimes less.
Gamers actually “become” the character of the story, controlling their actions and movements and also the narrative itself to a degree, or at least that’s what game developers want you to think, but as long as the gamer has this feeling of control within the game, the goal has been met, whatever the non playing onlooker perceives is irrelevant.
Technology has allowed gaming narratives to be played with, altered and toyed with in a way that although achievable on other story telling platforms, does not quite reach the height’s it does on the gaming console.
For example I have read books in the past as a high school student in which the story changes based on your decisions at the end of a given chapter, the book would advice you which page to turn to depending on your choice, you would then turn to the said page and continue the story from the point of view that you had chosen.
I’m not sure if I’ve seen this in a movie, but I’m sure with the capabilities of DVD that there must have been an attempt to skip scenes in a movie, and move around the chapter layers of a disc as you would the book depending on the viewer’s choice? I have seen interactive games on DVD discs, and some very interesting DVD menu’s also that allow the viewer to take complete control of the character or situation on screen.
Or should I say control to the degree specified by the creator, so that regardless of which outcome you get it is still a result of the story tellers own desire to tell a story, no matter which angle you get it from it is still their story and you are not actually changing anything, you are just altering which ending or viewpoint you will ultimately end up with.
I find this to be a very fresh and innovative way of telling stories and find the gaming system to be one of the most dynamic and engaging systems in place today to tell a story with.
Take Heavy rain for a good example, for me, heavy rain was more of a story than a game, an interactive movie that allowed you to control characters thoughts, movements and choices to a degree set out by the developers and writers involved.
You are given a multitude of choices at any given time, some minor and some with larger consequences, the characters are very well fleshed out and you can even go as far as deciding if your character will get a shave or brush their teeth before going about their daily chores.
Of course the player feels they have control but everything that happens has already been carefully thought out and scripted so that no matter what you decide to do the conclusions are already in place. However to the gamer this does not necessarily matter, because they are getting a fresh gaming experience and a new way of inhaling narrative through game play.
I am not one to complete games on a regular basis, because I am a story-driven person I often loose interest in a game because of lack of a gripping narrative, for me it is not about how many head shots I can get or how many puzzles I can solve, but getting to the next instalment of the story and uncovering another piece to the puzzle and this is the reason I enjoyed heavy rain so much and would play it again and again, despite already knowing the outcome and the main “twist”.
Although heavy rain has come under a lot of fire from hardcore gamers who either get bored before the game kicks off due to lack of action in initial scenes, and some who have criticized the story claiming the creator is nothing more than “a wanabee film director with no talent” and “let’s hope he stays where he is”, the narrative has even been compared to the works of M.Knight Shamalan with similar negative responses.
Why the outrage? Well some gamers and movie buffs alike are claiming that the story is weak because you are allowed inside the characters heads, therefore you can see their thoughts at the press of a button, so when it turns out that the killer is a playable character gamers were outraged as throughout the game the “killer” thinks as though he is trying to fool the player into believing he is not the killer and is simply a concerned bystander.
Ok, I think with any movie and game a certain level of suspension of disbelief is required and also narratives should not have to explain every single little detail to you, some level of imagination is also required in many cases to make a good story, (hence the reason Japanese/Korean films are better than most American blockbusters) I mean, did it ever occur to “any” of these gamers that the main character was actually convincing himself that he did not do it? That it was the father’s faults for not saving their children? He is after all, only a deranged killer?
Some gamers felt it unreasonable to show this character, as being compassionate in some scenes, only to later find out he was the killer. Why is this so unreasonable? He is clearly not of sound mind, and clearly felt in his mind he was only searching for a good father, unlike the one he had, it was not his intention to kill the boys, he felt it was a necessary sacrifice in order to find something he felt strongly about. Of course I’m not saying he was right, only that people want these interactive games, they want this added control, and enjoy the experience on a whole new level, (even these “critics” have said they still enjoyed the dynamics of the game) so why then, can’t people be a little bit more open minded and willing to use their own imagination in the equation as well? If you want interactive, how about being a little more interactive with your mind for a start!
Another title set to be a big hit this year and also focussing on narrative but with a bit more freedom in game play and more of an action shooter experience is “Alan Wake” for the xbox 360 console.
Here you get to play a writer on vacation who discovers that one of his fictional characters has come alive in this small town and is seeking to wreck havoc on Alan wakes existence, this reminds me of Jonny Depps character in “secret window”, a movie about a writer who also is being terrorised by one of his fictional book characters. So although nothing new in terms of story, games like this are raising the bar for video game narrative standards and thanks to this we can only hope to see more and more tighter, deeper, interwoven stories coming out of next generation games that will rival if not take over movie standards and become the leading output for some of the most innovative writing yet to be seen.