Best Video Game Stories Ever
by brentweeks on Jul.30, 2009, under Brent Weeks and Joe Abercrombie
Cheater! Since when do you pick reasonable examples, Joe? Gah! Fine, you had some good picks there. Loved Baldur’s Gate and KOTOR. Agh, do you hear the gnashing teeth here? (I am going to throw spoilers around freely in this post. I’m guessing if you haven’t played a game within a couple of years of its release, you probably never will.)
I think that until recently, American and European game studios haven’t treated games as a legitimate medium for adults. Perhaps the Japanese familiarity with anime helped them embrace video games earlier, whereas Americans saw video games as cartoons. (And we all know cartoons are only for children, right? Sort of like that fantasy stuff.)
The game that changed the, uh, game was Final Fantasy VII. Ah, Aerith. Aerith was Cloud’s love interest, cute and naive–and after you spend about 15 hours with her, she gets killed. Now, “death” is part of games, and it usually returns you to the town inn, or at worst the save point you left an hour ago. There’s ALWAYS a way to revive a dead character. Not this time. Aerith was Dead. I heard from friends that they’d actually cried. (Me, I was thinking, are you kidding me? Aerith was carrying my Murasame sword. Can’t I take it off her cold dead body?) Still, this was huge. FF7 was great for a lot of reasons, but that moment–where you couldn’t believe they’d actually done it–was what made it the first great game story in my mind.
More recently, I think the best story in video games was in BioShock. A stroll through an underground grave yard, BioShock did a great job telling lots of little stories through the voice recorders you’d find. Each one crackled with personality (and static). And the twist at the end was beautiful. My criticism of BioShock’s story, however, is two-fold: first, it’s a Choose Your Own Adventure novel with only one choice. Do you “harvest” (kill) the little sisters or don’t you? Second, that choice is robbed of its meaning, because it barely costs you anything to do the right thing. How about some redemption? What if I was tempted at first, and killed one creepy little urchin, but then felt terrible, and rescued the rest? Well, you still get the crap ending. No shades of gray here, folks. Boo. What, just because I kill one little girl, now I’m a murderer? Oh, when I put it that way…
Sadly, great stories aren’t needed to sell lots of video games. Gears of War? Go shoot stuff. (GOW2 was much better.) Call of Duty 4 tried to really hit you in the gut–the nuke actually goes off–but with a big, (pleasantly) international cast, a short storyline, and no time to connect to the characters, the exploding nuke is a nice light show, but I don’t feel all that bad for my wheezing and choking character who survives the initial blast and a helicopter crash, only to die moments later. Sucks to be him, who do I play next? (Great game, don’t get me wrong.)
Back to you, Joe. If you’ve played them–I, for one, will hold onto my ferocious disregard and doubt your gaming chops–what do you think about Fable 2’s and Fallout 3’s stories? (Go on, I dare you to admit you haven’t even played them. N00b.) For everyone else, here’s a little game. I call it, Find Joe. Hint: Joe is on record saying he “weighs more than ten stone.”
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July 30th, 2009 on 11:25 am
Yes, yes, Baldur’s gate is all kinds of win, but this Find Joe game is a serious matter. He clearly wishes he looks like the “get it here” guy (mostly, I should imagine, because he’s a guy), but I rather fear he more resembles the middle woman’s head stitched (poorly) onto the right-hand woman’s body… Do I win?
July 31st, 2009 on 7:47 am
I think the comparison between Japanese and American mentality toward games/anime/cartoons is a valid point. Anybody who watches Bleach, Full Metal Alchemist, and other anime shows can tell you these themes aren’t really for kids. Same goes with games. While I do like the FF series stories - 10 was my personal favorite - ATLUS games are where to go for interesting characters and more twisted story arcs. Shadowhearts 1 and 2 were good (3 was a throwaway IMO), and Persona 3 and 4 both had interesting story lines and well developed characters.
July 31st, 2009 on 9:36 am
My Mate did a film degree and he wrote a paper on the difference between Japanese and ‘Western’ story-telling as depicted in films. He talks about how much the H-Bombs have effected Jap literary culture so that the post-apocalyptic stories really took hold and influenced so much else. Even the super-futures of Ghost in the Shell and Akira are centred about Humanity’s destruction in new, interesting ways. Couple that with a cultural belief in energies and, WHAM, you’ve got a foundation where you can tell an american story apart from a Japanese one easily. And in terms of gaming Jap wins I’m afraid.
Also an interesting difference between Jap and American games? How many Jap plotted games can you create your own character for? Answers on a poast card….
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September 14th, 2010 on 5:57 pm
Nice. Yes Aerith’s death scene filled me with both of those feelings. Distraught disbelief (no tears..*ahem*), and a sense of anger at the lost items–whether it was a Murasame sword or not, I don’t recall.
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