Writers strike for great games

EVER watched a movie and felt moved by the performance of the actors or felt that sense of satisfaction where you just have to say "Wow"?

Films such as Gone with the Wind and Shindler's List have been praised for their exceptional quality in terms of narrative and have inspired new generations of storytellers to give films character and plots that are so complex and yet hit the spot every time.

Video games are now not far behind in terms of delivering compelling stories.

By the early 1990s, gamers had started to see more complex storylines within video games where the happily-ever-after-thanks-for-playing formula was no longer the norm.

What gamers are seeing now is an emergence of constantly evolving narratives which effectively move gameplay.

They allow gamers to actually become involved with the story whether it's the courtroom case comedy/drama/adventure series in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney or making moral decisions such as in Bioshock where players are given the choice of either saving the little sisters or harvesting them for their genes.

An article by Electronic Gaming Monthly stated that for stories to work they "require the expert touch of a talented wordsmith". "Story, dialogue, structure, voice acting, and the actual game flow all fall under the writer's jurisdiction to varying degrees," it went on.

Tom Abernathy, senior writer/designer at Pandemic Studios, is among the expert writers game developers employ to flesh out the content of their games by adding history, nuances of characters and other narrative conventions.

In Japan, storylines have always been important, and the work of talented game developers such as Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear series, have not gone unnoticed. An avid moviegoer, Kojima has translated his effort into the video game medium and has been successful in all his projects.

Another famous game developer who had done it in the opposite manner was Tetsuya Nomura. The man who created enduring characters for Kingdom Hearts directed the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and showed promise of his work as he managed to translate most of the contents of his game into a movie.

Though by theory it is the narrative that moves gameplay, gamers do not, however no matter how good the story is want to play a broken game.

Enter the Matrix or Path of Neo, for instance, had interesting concepts and yet when it came to gameplay, most game reviewers found it bland and filled with bugs, making the game unplayable at some levels.

There are also some instances where the gameplay gets better but the story roughly stays the same.

The most obvious culprit unfortunately comes from Nintendo's Zelda series where only have minor tweaks in the storylines have been introduced, overall making the games far too predictable.

However, on a more optimistic note, open-ended games are fast becoming popular, letting players create their own story on how they had achieved certain goals and developing a more solid background for their character's lives.

Games such as Oblivion and the upcoming Xbox 360 game Fable 2, for example, have a main storyline but it is the thrill of traversing open worlds and seeing what can be done with them which has piqued gamer's interests into creating user-made stories.

And yet, titles such as Shadow of the Colossus have also become cult hits despite having a minimal storyline.

So then, what does it take to strike a balance between powerful narrative and sophisticated gameplay?

"It's like Hollywood in the 20s we're still trying to figure out the economics and what everyone needs," says designer Abernathy.

"It's all about being able to convey story through environment and dialogue."

The Brunei Times