The guy who shepherded the Halo novels through the labyrinthine halls of Microsoft, Eric Trautmann, has made an interesting blog post on storytelling in games. It started out as a review of the new Xbox 360 shooter Lost Planet, but took a u-turn somewhere and ended up with the conclusion that games, so far, are a stunted sort of storytelling:
Even examples touted as "masterpieces" of game story - notably Halo - fall into the same traps, to lesser degrees. This is defended as being "by design," of course. The Master Chief undergoes no emotional growth, suffers no loss or overcomes anything beyond physical challenges in the course of the story, and that's to, if I'm phrasing this right, allow YOU, the GAMER, to use the Chief as a "vessel" for your own emotions. I'm of the opinion that this argument is (in memory of Douglas Adams) a load of dingo's kidneys. But that’s a topic for another day. What remains is this:
There’s no story there. The character learns nothing, changes not one whit, but instead merely moves through plot, and a derivative one at that.
In the case of Halo, it’s the style of the piece, and the pure visceral fun – and the post 9/11 timeliness of the plot that possessed a certain semiotic context to the chaos of the moment – that makes it work. It’s a rare case of the supremely talented craft overcoming the glaring weaknesses of the art.
A very interesting read; those who have been following recent storytelling threads in the HBO forum should head on over for Trautmann's take.
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Anonymous (not verified)
Oh, god. Now I've done
Oh, god. Now I've done it...
;)
-E
narcogen
You KNEW that would happen.
In reply to: Oh, god. Now I've doneSeriously, though. I tend to agree. I don't think it's incompatible to say that Bungie games are amongst the best story-driven titles out there, but then go on to say that they still operate at a very primitive level as far as storytelling goes.
After reading your post, I began thinking about the story of Halo 1 and what might have been changed to rectify that.
For instance: we attempt to rescue Captain Keyes twice in that game. However, there's nothing personal about it. We never get any sense of Keyes as a father figure for the Chief. He's just completing a mission objective. In fact, the way they thaw him out at the start of the game, it's as if the Chief is treated as cargo, which doesn't do much to create a relationship between him and the rest of the crew. The cutscene between Keyes and the Chief is all business, and in front of the bridge crew. No room for a touching moment that would set up any personal stake for the Chief in Keyes' later rescue, in addition to the mission objective.
What if, instead of just ordering the Chief awoken, Keyes had left the bridge and gone down to Cryo himself? I wouldn't say that approach doesn't also pose problems, but there's no real hint of why you need to rescue Keyes. In fact, since his last orders to you were to keep Cortana safe from capture, you spend most of the game in direct violations of those orders!
I don't think the Halo series begins to approach setting up an emotionally authentic motivation for the Chief's actions until the end of Halo 2. We've spent two games watching the Chief and Cortana trade one-liners to be rewarded with one genuine emotional moment, when he promises to come back to get her, and she-- in advance-- forgives him if he is unable to do so. I think they're setting up something for the last game, but how fully it will be developed, I don't know.
The Arbiter's story in Halo 2 has far more depth than the Chief's. He's made a scapegoat, conned, betrayed, and gets revenge. As the Chief, there are plenty of moments where, if you stop and think about it, you might wonder why it is you're doing what you're doing. Most of the time, as the Arbiter, you know exactly why.
The Arbiter also faces non-physical challenges. His entire philosophy and belief system are undermined through the course of that story. The problem is, there's little or no integration of that challenge into the gameplay.
Getting fully realized stories into games I think is just a question of, as you say, getting writers involved from the very start. All you get from that, however, is a companion piece for your game. Integrating the two, so that the act of playing the game is the act of advancing the story, I think should be the real (and quite possibly unattainable) goal.
Rampant for over se7en years.
Anonymous (not verified)
Well said Narcogen.
In reply to: You KNEW that would happen.I would have to agree with your analysis regarding Halo 1's 'story/plot' elements about Captain Keyes. Although I never actually stopped to think about it until now. Funny how thoughts can creep up and bite you in the ass 5 years later about your most loved game huh? LOL!
However, you really got me thinking about Cortana, her possible disloyalty, and how this will relate to the Chief in Halo 3. You are right; this is finally the situation that could lead to some real emotion in the series and I can't wait to see how it plays out.
Respectfully,
Drakkari
Anonymous (not verified)
Heh. Well, part of me hoped
In reply to: You KNEW that would happen.Heh. Well, part of me hoped that, maybe, just maybe, I'd dropped far enough off the radar to avoid it.
I guess I should start begging the Halo faithful to buy my comic, then, huh? ;)
==
As to Halo 2, I will absolutely concede that it was a bona fide attempt to broaden and deepen the emotional impact into genuine story. I just don't think it was successful.
I'm really not sure how I would've tackled the Halo 1 story problem, were it my bailiwick to do so -- I was certainly too close to the problem, which didn't help; I certainly was not a welcomed participant, which also didn't help; and there were, of course, other mitigating factors (schedule, pressure from above, new console launching, etc.) which is absolutely not conducive to creativity for ANYONE.
I think, if it were my baby, I might have started with some of the stuff we grandfathered into the novels -- a bit more origin (and not cutscenes! Halo sets a high bar for feeding you story while still in game and in play, and I think that's a correct example of form dictating content).
Show me WHO this guy is. Show me WHY he fights.
Show me that it hurts him to do this stuff. Show me he's not indestructible.
Of course, this is why I'm more or less a prose guy these days. I can just write this shit, and not have to actually re-invent storytelling paradigms for a medium in relative infancy. Heh. :)
narcogen
Radar
In reply to: Heh. Well, part of me hoped[quote=Anonymous]Heh. Well, part of me hoped that, maybe, just maybe, I'd dropped far enough off the radar to avoid it. [/quote]
No good. I have an exceptionally wide radar :)
[quote=Anonymous]I guess I should start begging the Halo faithful to buy my comic, then, huh? ;)
[/quote]
Couldn't hurt :)
[quote=Anonymous]
As to Halo 2, I will absolutely concede that it was a bona fide attempt to broaden and deepen the emotional impact into genuine story. I just don't think it was successful.
I'm really not sure how I would've tackled the Halo 1 story problem, were it my bailiwick to do so -- I was certainly too close to the problem, which didn't help; I certainly was not a welcomed participant, which also didn't help; and there were, of course, other mitigating factors (schedule, pressure from above, new console launching, etc.) which is absolutely not conducive to creativity for ANYONE.
I think, if it were my baby, I might have started with some of the stuff we grandfathered into the novels -- a bit more origin (and not cutscenes! Halo sets a high bar for feeding you story while still in game and in play, and I think that's a correct example of form dictating content).
Show me WHO this guy is. Show me WHY he fights.
Show me that it hurts him to do this stuff. Show me he's not indestructible.
Of course, this is why I'm more or less a prose guy these days. I can just write this shit, and not have to actually re-invent storytelling paradigms for a medium in relative infancy. Heh. :) [/quote]
You're right. It's a thorny problem. In some ways I think that videogames have come a much shorter distance from their own beginnings, in terms of being a storytelling medium, than film did from its beginnings over the same amount of time.
Perhaps the problem there is that film had theater to fall back on. You could always just film a stage play and you'd have a comprehensible form of storytelling. It wouldn't play to the medium's strengths, but it would at least be coherent.
Videogames can't do that. If you use a videogame engine to duplicate a play or a film, you're doing machinima-- not a game. It ceases to be a game at all. Unlike film, which could begin as an adaptation of a known medium and grow into its unique aspects over time, I think games are going to have to solve this problem pretty soon, or else simply admit it's insoluable.
Rampant for over se7en years.
Anton P Nym
Hmmm...
In reply to: You KNEW that would happen.I don't like the idea of Keyes leaving the bridge during combat, no matter how fond he is of the Master Chief. That doesn't mesh well with the rest of Keyes' personality, at least in my opinion. (Definitely not with the "hands-on" commander element shown by taking the Autumn in manually.)
If I'd wanted to emphasize a father-son type relationship between Keyes and the Chief, I'd probably have focused on body language and dialog instead; much as Cortana's quips set the comrades-in-arms relationship straight in a hurry, I'd have had Keyes be a bit more tactile with a shoulder clasp and a warm personal remark on the bridge.
We got close with the scolding Keyes gave in T&R, but yes it probably should've been set up a bit more in the earlier stages of the game. And the earlier set-up definitely would've ramped up the pathos of Keyes' ultimate fate. (Which actually weirded me out anyway, but I'm a sucker for that kinda stuff.)
-- Steve