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This. This is the kind of story-telling I can get into. If you haven’t played the Stanley Parable yet, you should. It’s a Half-Life 2 mod that’s nothing short of brilliant. It’s not really a game, really, but it features the kind of forethought I wish all games could have. Like any medium there are shining examples of narrative throughout. Bioshock, Arkham Asylum, Portal, all these games have pushed the boundaries of story-telling and truly led us through a captivating or eye-opening journey. It always makes me excited when I read about something ground-breaking in gaming, whether it be a new graphics engine or alternate reality game concepts, or anything that’s…new.

The Stanley Parable challenges all the notions of story-telling we’ve come to expect. It’s a spy. One that climbs into your brain and plants C4 on your expectations before pulling the trigger later. BLAM. It’s eerie, well thought out, and a short and sweet experience.

The first time I played Portal I was completely absorbed in the mechanic of the Portal Gun in itself. The story was a wonderful surprise, as I am a great fan of mysterious settings. When you take a fun idea and run it alongside great writing, you have a brilliant experience to share with people, as well as a boat-load of potential. Bioshock did this as well, allowing exploration and combat to be combined with a disturbing setting to give us a story that will linger in your brain hours after you’re done.

A long time ago, story was very much an afterthought in a game. It was something that drew a perimeter around out imagination, and told us what we were seeing. Today, lots of games benefit from brilliant writing. TF2, League of Legends, Left 4 Dead, they all have a bit of story to keep the pacing, setting the world and entertaining an audience. It’s no surprise that some people actually have writing for games as their job title. While I might not have that honor ever, I would love to see more games that raise the bar for what we can expect in writing.

-Locke

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 10th, 2011 at 7:08 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the
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