Blinded by the light!
One of the key elements of a good story is the world in which it is told. It could include the setting of a story, be it post-apocalyptic, futuristic, classical, and so on, however, in this case, there is going to be a greater emphasis on the presentation and how it is, and is not, done well in video games.
Atmosphere can either help or hinder the story the developers want to tell. Such was the case in the first three Silent Hill games, which are considered to be the best in the franchise, which also leads to those same fans to sigh in disappointment at the plummeting quality of the later games.
While the how and why of how the protagonists of the Silent Hill games are always different, the consistent idea is that all of these characters are forced to enter the foreboding town against their will and attempt to escape. It is always dark. There is a thick fog that prevents the player from seeing further than they would like. The atmosphere is always oppressive. And that is before the player begins to wonder whether they are truly alone.
While the players do learn about the story through cut scenes and text, the general layout of the game is intentionally stifling to tell the player, without saying anything, that they are vulnerable. The player is vulnerable. There is nothing, they have other than the clothes on their back, their legs to carry them from the danger, and whatever they can carry. Even then, there is no guarantee that even with a weapon, their survival is dubious if they do not keep their wits about them.
And his hair still looks great!
Contrast this with the Metal Gear Solid saga. While certainly an interesting series in its own right, it suffers from director Hideo Kojima’s overpowering vision as to what it should be. That works both for and against it. As stated by many others, the sheer volume of text, both spoken and non-spoken is so intent on explaining every minute detail of the story that it can, and will, drive some to madness, boredom, or both.
Each Metal Gear game has its own little tirade that Kojima is happily willing to explain to someone like a conspiracy theorist in their attempts to validate their paranoia. The first Metal Gear Solid warns about the evils of nuclear proliferation. The second drones on about Information Control. The third is about loyalties. The fourth is about Private Military Corporations and their incessant need to keep everything under control.
On paper and on their own, those subjects can be tackled and given the serious consideration that they deserve, especially given the political situation people face these days. However, when it is in the form of a game, concessions have to be made in order to maintain the attention of the player. As such, it becomes disproportionate to the amount of gameplay to the massive amount of talky cut scenes the player has to go through in order to progress.
Today’s forecast calls for intense bullet rain showers in the area.
As hokey and pedantic as it was, Bioshock was able to handle using the world around it to tell the kind of story Ken Levine wanted to tell effectively. Libertarian utopias are doomed to fail due to human nature, human nature leads to decay without rule of law, and Ayn Rand was a hack. The dying husk of Rapture told so much of the story that the player could find on their own without being pontificated at by Andrew Ryan or Frank Fontaine. That and the hostile splicers or potentially hostile Big Daddys protecting the Little Sisters and the ADAM they covet.
What talking that was being done as the player progressed was done via radio or recordings scattered throughout the world that could be found at the player’s leisure. Overall, there were few cutscenes to disrupt the flow of play, which is perhaps why it is regarded so well. If only they did away with the binary morality system, but that is another subject for another time.
Again, contrast that to what happens in many JRPGs. Yes, trying to compare an action game an RPG is a stretch, however, the story can still flow relatively smoothly enough. One of the problems that comes along with it is expectations. When action players play their games, they would rather the action be paramount and the story not interfere with the action as it is. In an RPG, the player expects there to be time for talking, text, and trifles. However, the main point still stands. The atmosphere of the game can still tell a story without having to bog down the pacing.
But what about the mud?!
As well regarded as it is, one of Xenogears‘ faults was the need for exposition at unwieldy periods of the game. Even with the wonderful music by Yasunori Mitsuda, there is only so much that can be done with a still frame when two characters are talking for pages at an instant. This was compounded in the second disc, when it showed how pressed for time Square was. There was very little action, it seemed as though the story was crashing when all the player got was a long, and tedious, monologue for characters whose character growth seemed dubious at that point and seemed to be nothing more than a pretentious attempt at being deep and philosophical.
That being said, telling an effective story does not necessarily need lots of text, voice acting, or flashy production values. Subtlety is a far more effective means of driving a narrative so as to not condescend, nor beat the point over the head, to the player.
Despite Lusipurr’s protestations on the matter; Homeworld is a perfect example of storytelling through atmosphere. The loneliness of space, the sheer isolation at knowing that the player’s ship is the last of a people who had escaped genocide by a ruthless galactic empire, and a haunting rendition of Samuel Barber’s Angus Dei tells a story in one scene that most JPop performers could only hope to match in their whole game.
In short, a story can be told in a far more compelling manner with some proper and well placed set pieces in less than a minute than a half an hour of unskippable dialogue and cutscenes.
