Over the past few weeks, I’ve been noticing quite a few themes that have been making their way through the industry. Throughout last week at GDC, many of these took center stage in a variety of forms. First, we examine narrative in games.

It’s no secret that I’m a total 1UP fanboy, and while listening to a recent 1UP Yours podcast, Shawn Elliott prompted a discussion about the way stories unravel in games. Shawn said, in reference to Yakuza and its approach to storytelling, “I was saying ‘God, how did I miss this?’ because I’m a fan of games with good narrative but then when you said it was cutscenes it was immediately irrelevant to me because the cutscenes are just like — they may as well not be part of the game.”

This got me to thinking about narrative in games, and I came to the conclusion that there are two opposing kinds of people with polar reactions when they are presented story sequences while gaming.

There are those that are content with putting the controller down at the end of an epic battle to watch a cutscene analogous to something that may be seen in film. Then there are those that are annoyed and angered when they’re taken out of the experience and feel they are forced to watch something that is aped from another entertainment medium– film.

Let me preface the rest of this one-man rant by stating that regardless of which side of the fence you’re on, more power to you. Nobody can criticize you for what you enjoy.

Now, although watching cutscenes doesn’t particularly tempt me to drive off a cliff, I do think that gaming is a unique form of entertainment with a unique opportunity to take storytelling to the next level by telling a story with someone, as opposed to at them.

For the most part, this has been a missed opportunity. The closest I feel gaming has gotten to taking advantage of our unique abilities as a medium is with the Half-Life series, by never taking control out of the players hand and forcing players to interact with the environment. However, as great as Half-Life 1, 2, and the episodes have been, they still leave a lot to be desired.

To continue to use Half-Life as an example, although it comes so close in terms of getting everything right, it falls short at the same time by virtue of the main protagonist being a virtual nobody. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t have a personality, and his interaction with those around him never goes past sight or sound. As far as I’m concerned there is no main protagonist, there is no Gordon Freeman.

That’s no knock against Half-Life, it’s definitely among my favorite games of all time. I’m aware the guys over at Valve made him a blank canvas consciously, to serve the purpose of engrossing you in the experience — but for me, it does just the opposite. And in spite of that, they’ve still delivered the most intense and emotional experience I’ve ever had in a game through the ending of Episode 2; if you played it, I’m sure you’re right there with me.

To step away from Half-Life, 2K Boston’s head honcho Ken Levine made us aware of where he stood during his GDC ‘08 session ‘Ken Levine Speaks: Empowering Player to Care About Your Stupid Story’ by rhetorically asking “What’s the purpose of a cutscene?”, then continuing, “It’s to push information at the player. It’s the same as linear media — it’s not our advantage, it’s not our strength.”

The point that I’m trying to make is: if you’re a developer, I challenge you to think outside the box and make your game something unique that can’t ever be emulated by films or novels. And if you’re just a gamer like me, I encourage you to continue to challenge developers just as I have.

Tags: conclusion, cutscene, games, half_life, narrative, storytelling

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