The Stanley Parable and Story-tellingBy Locke on August 10th, 2011
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 |
Have you played Braid? It’s an amazing game, and the puzzles are just very challenging.
I honestly couldn’t get into Bioshock. Portal yes, Bioshock, no. I haven’t played Arkham Asylum, so I don’t really have any opinion on that.
It really is a fantastic game. Arkham Asylum that is. If you can imagine Metroid exploration with great action gameplay like Ninja Gaiden but less frustrating, you’ve got something like AA.
I wish WoW still required you to read the quest text to be able to know how to complete it, gave questing some depth.
By the way did you learn about the Stanley Parable from Extra Credits?