Announcement of the NSI playWRITE candidacy spots take place this week! With this in mind, we’re turning to you for your expertise and game knowledge to aid in the shaping of various facets of the NSI playWRITE boot camp.
We begin with the question: what playlist should NSI playWRITE participants have under their belts prior to coming to boot camp?
Are there games you feel are absolute ‘must-plays’ for aspiring narrative designers in the game industry? What games should be played solely because they present an example of a terrible game whose mistakes should never be repeated?
This is the first of a series of NSI playWRITE community feedback questions and like your NSI playWRITE votes, your voice on these matters will help shape the final look and feel of the NSI playWRITE boot camp–so pipe up! 
Comments (7)
Metal Gear Solid series - They represent a game where the creator put a lot of thought into the stories and characters. As far as I can tell the internal world is consistent, and the characters truly come alive. Not all the plots are equally well done (3 got a little weird towards the end), the passion of Hideo Kojima is differently something to take note of.
Final Fantasy 7 - It seems to me that most people agree that this is a well done RPG, even if it is mostly linear. The plot of the game is good, but it’s really the awesome and interesting characters that keep someone interested.
Starcraft - Truly an amazing story for a RTS game. Plus a great idea to add a level editor that seems to be almost, if not exactly, on par with the one that was used to build the game. There’s a reason it’s still being played over 10 years after it’s release.
Katamari Damacy - It doesn’t get much stranger than this, but this game really shows you that just a simple concept with a simple story can be mindlessly entertaining for hours.
Tales of the Abyss - The game is nothing really special in terms of gameplay or plot. However, the main character is one of the most developed RPG heroes I’ve seen. He’s never killed anyone before and actually goes through a struggle of morals over killing people even though they are attacking him. Later he also finds something else out that affects him very deeply. Luke at the start of the game is nothing like Luke at the end of the game which I think is too rare in RPGs considering the massive amounts of plot twists and killing that someone that isn’t a soldier ended up having to do.
That covers a few different genres of games. Now…
Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time - Ask me to think of an RPG worse than this and I’ll have a real hard time coming up with something. The characters have a startling revelation about half way or so into the game that changes their entire concept of reality…luckily this doesn’t even phase them, they act completely the same, and there is no character development at all. Basically, the development is the exact opposite of Tales of the Abyss with the characters never changing despite learning mind altering truths about themselves. Plus the opening of the game is about 45 minutes, just enough time to get bored and shut off the console. No game needs to be over 100 hours of game time when this little happens.
Comment by Asclepius | May 5th, 2008 @ 9:39 pm
First Pick: System Shock 2 / Bioshock.
System Shock 2 really set the stage for first-person narrative experiences in video games. Many games with the strongest narratives determine the character that the player will play - take Deus Ex, for example, or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The story is written, and you experience it from a character’s perspective, but that character is ultimately designed and determined by the game’s developers. Other games eschew character narrative entirely in favor of a free-form experience for the player, games such as Fallout or Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, where the player truly comes out of nowhere and a story is loosely crafted around them.
System Shock 2 made the player the character of the game, but told the player their story. While the player was guided by a string of requests that he or she could, ostensiby, ignore, the player’s character itself was developed. This false sense of freedom was capitalized upon in the climax of SS2’s spiritual successor, Bioshock. Both games are fantastic examples of narrative in a free-form, yet structure-limited, game.
Second Pick: Deus Ex / Thief (especially Deadly Shadows).
Never before has a conspiracy story been told so convincingly. The story is plainly epic, from the rough start on Liberty Island through to the secret bases and even more secret societies. The development of JC Denton, along with his relationship to all the other characters around him, was one of the stronger character narratives in American gaming; a strength usually seen in European or Asian games. Likewise with Thief, especially in the third incarnation. Garret has to be one of gaming’s most memorable characters and his conflicts, both internal and external, closely resemble JC’s.
Besides, the one-liners were great. I still live by “My vision is augmented.”
Third Pick: Fallout / Fallout 2
Ahh, Fallout. Need I say more? Really?
These two RPGs showed how free-form un-character-driven games can be so successful by designing such a rich world that the character narrative didn’t even matter anymore. In Fallout, you’re not telling the story of a person, but of an event. The characters that bring the event about are mere footnotes to the tale of the event itself. While this is generally the aim of most game narratives, few achieve it quite as powerfully as Fallout. Queue Maybe by Inkspots.
Fourth Pick: World of Warcraft / Final Fantasy XI (for the particularly masochistic)
These days, with the turn of PC gaming to the online scope, one cannot forgo a crash course in MMORPGs. Game design aside, these two titles have particular poignancy in the narrative department. Both feature very rich worlds with history and drama to fill hours - literally. What’s interesting is how differently both tell their tales. WoW’s lore is more fragmented: players have to seek out much of the story and history on their own, and often outside of the game. The major events play out in real time before the players eyes, often in the exclusive domain of 40-, and later 25-player, raid instances. Take, for example, the fights of Kael’Thas in Tempest Keep or Illidan in Black Temple: both are accompanied by lengthy introductory speeches detailing the game’s lore and the presence of the bosses.
Final Fantasy XI, on the other hand, takes a rather unique approach, at least among MMOs. It’s the only MMO I’ve played that fully employs cut-scenes to tell the story of the player’s unique story withing the world of Vana’diel. What’s particularly odd about it all is that it tells the story as if it were a single player game: while a group of six might complete a quest together, all six see the same cut-scene of their character alone meeting with the NPCs and completing the quest. The end result, however, is rich storytelling on par with the best of the Final Fantasy series.
Fifth Choice: Star Wars: TIE Fighter / Defender of the Empire
One of the very large foundations of the game industry is adapting existing IP to games. It’s a great challenge to capture the spirit and feel of the IP from its original form, be it books, comics, movies, or TV, and produce a viable game from it. It’s particularly difficult when the IP has such a strong following, and few IPs have as strong a following at Star Wars. The original floppy disk version of TIE fighter and its expansion, Defender of the Empire, showed how well good narrative could bring such repetitive gameplay and such a staunch IP to life in a very fun, engaging game.
Besides, having this game under one’s belt adds a nice 14-years-of-experience notch
Comment by Soulrift | May 6th, 2008 @ 12:32 am
Gaming is such a personal experience that its hard to quantify and qualify this question. I’ve played games that I love but that others have despised and vice versa. It’s all about personal preference. And if the NSI playWRITE program is truly looking for something new, something original and something different, then I don’t think you can have a blanket statement that “you should play this game to know how to design something different”. I think that technology is changing, people’s tv and film viewing habits are changing, that its nature to think that gaming will change - from design through to method of playing/interacting all the way through to the user’s experience, that it is challenging to try and state what applicants should have done when they are trying to do something in the future. I have my ideas of “must have played” games, but when I thought more about it, I realized this was just my personal experiences and preferences coming out, and that’s not really what other people’s experiences and preferences are about.
Comment by wpascoe | May 6th, 2008 @ 7:26 am
I think one of the more obvious choices would be a game that includes module design tools. Since BioWare is one of the sponsors, perhaps participants should familiarize themselves with one of the Neverwinter Nights games.
Comment by Amanda Doiron | May 6th, 2008 @ 8:53 am
Asclepius and Soulrift–NICE choices, i think MGS and FF definitely are demonstrative of games which make ample use of cinematic, while System Shock 2 and Deus Ex (a personal fave) speak to not only the integration of narrative with the game medium, but also an integration of FPS mechanics with RPG elements. Anyone play Deus Ex 2 though? blech! hehe
Speaking of Ion Storm games, i think i would also have to vouch for Anachronox–a terrifically creative game and well written game in the vein of Tim Schafer titles such as Grim Fandango and Psychonauts.
Will–I wouldn’t say that the program is asking for you to ‘play this game to know how to design something different’, i think it’s just having a pre-knowledge of the medium…the studio jurors have definitely been advocating for participants to have some exposure to the medium as to become exposed to its affordances and limitations. Although i agree that popular exemplars of what we consider ‘bad’ and ‘good’ shouldn’t guide us to make ‘more of the same’ i think each of those exemplars still teach us something about the medium and game design once critically deconstructed.
Amanda-Good call with NWN.
Not to mention I think Knights of the Old Republic is actually a terrific game to look at in terms of narrative branching and plot twisting done right in games. (i adored KOTOR)
Do we have more ‘bad game’ ideas? What hasn’t worked? I haven’t played Star Ocean 3, i barely knew the series continued after the first one, hehe
Comment by Nis | May 6th, 2008 @ 11:05 am
Nis - I was going to mention KOTOR as my 5th choice but I decided to go with TIE fighter… just to be a bit more “old skool”
Comment by Soulrift | May 6th, 2008 @ 4:28 pm
I would say you’ve got to play Portal, but who *hasn’t* played Portal? And I agree with Wpascoe — it’s hard to pick a “greatest” list when gaming is so individualized. That said, I have little to add to the suggestions that have been made — I think people have covered most of the truly-greats like Metal Gear, Final Fantasy Seven, Warcraft and Katamari. I’d almost want to add Kingdom Hearts here. While it isn’t the best game I’ve ever played, it’s a *very* successful example of fusion and crossover techniques actually working and creating something which stands on its own terms. For that reason alone, it’s worth playing. I think Silent Hill 2 deserves to be on this list as well. Show me a game more genuinely scary and I’ll eat my hat. (But don’t show me Fatal Frame 2. Not only will I eat my hat, I’ll cower in terror behind furniture, shaking and contemplating the futility of the endeavors of mankind).
Games worth steering away from? Generally I get a kind of contrary pleasure from playing bad games, especially if they’re kind of epic in their badness. But let me record for all posterity exactly how much I despise Rule Of Rose, which shamelessly rips off Haunting Ground, Lolita, Silent Hill and Jacob’s Ladder and *still* manages to get everything dead wrong.
Well, the soundtrack was okay.
Comment by Rebecca Blue | May 8th, 2008 @ 3:07 am