Narrative in Games

The narrative in games. Since I was young I have found this a fascinating topic. The narrative of a game is the order in which the events are laid out and the story is narrated to the player, and this can rise the standards of the game itself and keep it going. However if the game altogether isn't worth any praise due to its incredibly weak copy of it's former was, despite how entertaining or funny, interesting the story is, because the designers attempted to make it appeal to a broader audience of the gaming market, so they can sell a greater number of copies. In the following paragraph I will begin to go through the difference components.

Whilst dissecting this format one has to remember, computer games are still in it's infantile stage. Especially story wise, meaning there is still a great potential of growth in developing a narrative to suit it.

For example, I remember when I was younger I would watch my older brother play MGS(Metal Gear Solid) on the original PlayStation. I was fascinated by this game, not only because it was science-fiction but due to the philosophy it brings up and how the story plays out. To be fair it sort of is an interactive film, however it was very unique that you had to sneak around the complex in order to complete the goal and not just kill everyone, so it had a similar spy narrative yet there was a plot where the main characters brother was trying to over throw world governments. And the thing was that in the cinematic cut scenes every thing is very well explained. I.e.it explained how the machine you had to defeat (other wise it would nuke the world) was not technically in any violation of any world treaty (which is rather clever in my opinion) and this added an element of fear into it. Also even thought the level area in which you play and the story is set is just one place and it's not the biggest, everything is so closely scripted to what you do you are fully immersed in the story you forget your just playing, but you are living it. However in the original there were a few pivot points, where when you encounter psycho-mantis and you swap over the controller ports you can confuse him and if you let your love interest Meryle die you get the opto-camo in the end, and if you don't do the former she lives and you get a different happy ending but no opto-cammo.

Don't get me wrong there are other well written stories in the franchise such as Mass Effect where you actions in each game influences references and choices reflect what happens in the rest of the saga. When I say this I mean, if you make a certain choice it will effect the rest of the game';s story line itself. Now in my opineon that is real interactivity!

However not all games have a narrative and are fun. E.g. Tetris, even though it's more of a puzzel it clearly doesn't have a narrative yet it's still fun to play as each time round a completely random piece falls form the top.

Another form of narrative is the type which is told to the player like the narrator reading from a novel to give the player a background story. This tends to be in games such as the Elder Scrolls series. This can some times be an easier way to quickly give the world and story more substence yet with out massive drematic effects.

The last type I will describe is the "evolutionary narrative" where the base of the story is told to the user, when when they type into the console (or turn the page for an option(Fighting Fantasy adventure book)) the story steers towards one of the endings but can be easily changed depending on the commande or scentence typed into the game itself to see how it reacts. One example of this is Facade, which is a semi-game that attempts to try this tactic.

Well these are the different types I can currently think of. I've probably missed some but these are the main ones covered for the time being about the different narrations of games. My preferences lean towards evolving narration and the one used in MGS. But that's just me, if there were more games like that the market would be greatly improved.