- homocidalham
- |
- Exalted Mythic Member
"That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.
Now try how and why."
Posted by: DeeJ
What do you think is missing from video games right now?
A sense of drive and motivation.
I suppose this next part is the part where you ignore me, but I feel like writing it anyway.
When I look at the vast majority of times I've gotten disinterested with video games, it's not necessarily because the game play has become boring or the story is lackluster. Even though I know that I'm making progress, it doesn't feel like my actions aren't concretely related to that progress. If I had to guess why, it's because the plot has either been set up specifically to allow me to take my merry time, or the conflict that drives the story is vague to the point that my actions feel as though they have little meaning.
I suppose this is a little bit vague, so I suppose I should give some examples.
In the first Mass Effect, the initial driving question is "why did Saren and the Geth attack eden prime?" With in an hour or two, the game then explicitly tell the player that Saren wants to "bring back the Reapers." Without missing a beat, the game then more or less tells the players what the Reapers are. The entire rest of the game is then spent dealing with the threats that the game never bothers building up.
Oh dear, there is a bunch of Krogan being created? Big whoop, I've been fighting them for the better part of the game. The rachni are being brought back to life? So what, I had to mow down several of them before learning what a threat they are. It's all just a bunch of problems that the games makes a big deal out of in an abstract sense, but never gives a mechanically relevant reason for the player to care. The reason is that none of it visibly changes the status quo and none of it can be concretely shown to help resolve the initial conflict.
In Red Dead Redemption, pretty much all of the first half of the game is spent doing a ton of meandering tasks to prepare for an assault that only seems like a big deal because your character gets harmed in a cut scene. The game literally has your character spend the better part of twelve hours mowing down countless individuals left and right, yet the player has to go out of their way to acquire all sorts of help from annoying supporting characters because the game arbitrarily says that the fort can't be taken until an arbitrary number of preparations have been taken.
In Fallout New Vegas, the player is given a fairly compelling task to find out who shot them and why, but the questions are both answered fairly quickly. Once the player finishes their first goal, there are no more open ended questions and the rest of the game is comprised of self contained side quests that all contribute in some vague way to the outcome a battle that lets the player take their time. I suppose it's more conducive to letting the player simply explore the first time through, but it makes the game start to drag on.
In Halo: Reach, the game is pretty good about presenting a number of small problems to be solved that sound good on paper, but the overall importance of them seems miniscule. Everything that does seem important is a forgone conclusion and most of the panicky situations (such as saving the passenger vehicle are too spontaneous and too quickly resolved to create long term drive. Where exactly am I supposed to emotionally invest myself? All of my personal victories are meaningless. None of my fellow Spartans survive because of my actions. Delivering Cortana to Keyes takes place over a single level and there is absolutely no uncertainty of how the situation ends.
Contrast this with what made the first (and at times, the second) Halo so great. Lore aside, Halo's story is fairly simple, but it's filled with tons of long term, short term, and intermediate goals that all have a very understandable purpose. I know that I have to get off the ship because I'll die if I don't. I know that I have to gather up survivors because they'll die if I don't. I know that I have to rescue the captain because everyone on Halo will likely die if I don't. I know that I have to find the Silent Cartographer because I need to find the Control room. I know I need to find the control room because my enemies will have a dangerous new weapon if I don't.
I could go on, but I think the point is clear: My actions need to feel like they have weight and I need to know why my actions matter. Without this feeling, I have no reason to feel engaged. I suppose this might be considered unsophisticated, but unlike books, movies, or tv, I can't be told that I care, I have to be made to care. Not enough video games have been doing this lately.
[Edited on 09.18.2012 10:07 PM PDT]