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Original post by Wavinator /* halflife 2 story */ and I could go on for awhile. Same with Halo. Not saying these stories are great, but what the hell was there to remember about the evil whatever in Quake 1, or the poorly imagined Strogg in Quake 2?

hmm, that really sounds like... hero gets back and the evil aliens is back. he's going to be shipped to some evil place but is saved by an old friend. He then gets his weapons and starts killing goons.

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"Dude with lots of armor and a huge arsenal of guns killing aliens and evil space marines" is crap story and certainly crap motivation and has been done to death. When Half-Life first came out one of the things that made it so noteworthy was the fact that they blended the story directly into the gameplay, making it a fusion of interesting events and unexpected surprises.

From what I recall was that it was making the world seem alive. Aliens and marines fighting eachother, npc's talking to eachother and dynamic worlds. That and good gameplay with responsive controls.

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In comparison, Quake gave you rooms filled with monsters or switches, much like Doom. It was cool for awhile, but it got old really quick.

straight to the point :)

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I suppose you can arbitrary compress anything, but really, the devil's in the details. I think the context matters, and most games these days change the context even if they keep the activities fairly consistent. You might be running and gunning all the way through Half-Life 2, but part of it is in the service of trying to rescue Eli Vance, or get the hell out of Ravenholm, or to lead the (godawfully stupid) revolutionaries against the Overwatch.

That's gordons motivation, not mine. My motivation was enjoying the design and killing goons, but I'm guessing we are all different :)

It's not cliches that are bad as has been said before. It's not plot that is bad. It is the telling of the story and the usage of those cliches that are bad...

For me, games with good stories come down in to two categories:

1) The background. I love games that have brilliant back story and fantastic worlds, eg Bioshock or Metroid Prime

2) Player stories that come out of playing the game - Fable 2 is a great example.

Notice how neither of these mention the actual story quality.

Games are different from books. Books are good for interesting, new stories. However, in a book, creating an entire world is difficult to display without huge chunks of pointless text.

Likewise books can't have little stories unique to the reader.

Games are different to books, the quicker we except that, the quicker we can move on. As a result, responding to the OP (way ago I know), these clichés don't matter as it is other things that matter.

I'm just going to pop in here and say that I really enjoyed the story for Quake 4. In fact I think it's the story that kept me going because it was a very generic FPS otherwise. Why did I like the story? I don't know, it was a very typical space marine story but you get transformed into a cyborg but are saved in the process. So you're a strogg but you're still human. It just felt really cinematic and I wanted to participate in it and get revenge [grin]

There are only 6 (I'm pretty sure it's 6 it may be slightly more or less) original stories... if you can come up with a new one that isn't some contrivance or combination of one or more of them then you will probably be hailed on high by quite a number of people.

Each of the stories have names that they go by too that if you're talking to someone in the know you can point them out. I don't know them myself and never studied them so I don't know but I'm pretty sure at least 2 or named after Shakespearian works... 1 of them being Romeo and Juliet.

Story and gameplay are independent of each other. If you take away the story and everything that hints at the story so you have nothing but, say, point-and-click at a bunch of hitboxes, it's just as fun. It's less entertaining without a story, but what you have after removing the story is still a game. As for the lack of variety of game stories, not only is Durakken's point above correct, but games are restricted to a subset of all possible stories because you can't really make game mechanics out of dialog (too complex) or someone's inner conflict (too abstract).



Off topic:

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"Seeketh blood from thine stone. And if thine enemies bleedth sap, then seek it doubly so" - Knowledge of the Keeper

That quote in your signature appears to mean: "Hit stuff with a stone axe. If you hit a tree, hit it again" - Lumberjack Manual.

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Original post by Durakken There are only 6 (I'm pretty sure it's 6 it may be slightly more or less) original stories... if you can come up with a new one that isn't some contrivance or combination of one or more of them then you will probably be hailed on high by quite a number of people. Each of the stories have names that they go by too that if you're talking to someone in the know you can point them out. I don't know them myself and never studied them so I don't know but I'm pretty sure at least 2 or named after Shakespearian works... 1 of them being Romeo and Juliet.

Quick research shows that the common argument is 7 original stories. IIRC the Odyssey is one of the key ones as well.

Anyways, via google search:

1. Overcoming the Monster - hero vs adversary sort of stuff.
2. The Quest - hero searches for something/some goal.
3. Journey and Return - hero searches for adventure, returns home wiser.
4. Comedy - A twist of fate keeps two heroes apart until they can overcome.
5. Tragedy - A character flaw or sin traps the hero and destroys them.
6. Rebirth - hero suffers until all seems lost and then is saved.
7. Rags to Riches - deserving hero is blessed and strives to stay virtuous.