I am a very visual person. I respond so well to moving images, design hierarchies and visual motifs and metaphors that I find it hard to be enthusiastic about anything but. I have tried and tried again to love music as a standalone experience but each time is met with frustration and failure. I seek out new artists and listen to their work and sometimes I’ll find something I enjoy listening to, but I can never seem to feel as deep a connection with the lyrics, the melody or the artist behind it. When I listen to music from a movie soundtrack, everything is different. Everything I felt during the film at the point a particular track was playing comes swelling back, as well as the scene itself. Key examples here would be Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack John Powell’s score to the Bourne trilogy.
The same thing happens for music from games; I can have an entire game’s worth of memorable experiences stored in a couple of tracks that all come flooding back when listening to them. The intro to Deus Ex and theme from Metal Gear Solid carry such unbelievable weight with me that it’s hard not to get goosebumps every time I hear them. Soule’s Oblivion score brings the most vivid and colourful images of Tamriel’s countryside to dance before my eyes; all because the music is so completely connected with the visual stimuli experienced at the time. Play me a track from an artist I’ve never heard of and ninety-nine percent of the time their lyrics will fall on deaf ears – I get nothing.
It doesn’t stop with music. Countless times I have tried to pick up a book that sounds right up my alley but I usually make it about halfway or so before my brain starts begging for visual stimulation. I feel terrible about this as I’m someone who, when presented with a great story, will dive in headfirst and become so involved that it almost reaches the level of obsession. It frustrates me because I just know I’m missing out on so many great adventures, but I just can’t stomach what a chore reading has become for my overactive brain. Perhaps my imagination is fading or I’m just reading the wrong books, but the simple fact remains: I love a good story – when it’s got something I can physically see.
Because of the problems mentioned above I am a strong advocate for the notion of games being viewed as legitimate and unique storytelling platforms. I might as well face it; games are where I get most of my fiction from today, save for the occasional film and television serial. What a pity it is then that ninety-nine percent of the writing in games today is utter shite, but occasionally you stumble upon a gem. It’s actually embarrassing that, as enthusiastic about game narratives as I am, I hadn’t even played this particular gem up until now.
The Longest Journey is one of the greatest stories I’ve ever experienced. It has absolutely everything I’ve ever wanted from a game world and the characters that inhabit it are so easy to empathise with and become attached to. At the center of it all is a cute little artsy chick who, disturbingly enough, I feel I actually know really, really well after getting her through. Female characters open up so much more room for introspection and exploration of relationships with others that I find them infinitely more compelling. It’s not often characters in games come off as real, multi-dimensional people, but despite the fantastical setting these characters are incredibly familiar.
Whilst this is no doubt due to the incredible writing and extremely competent voice acting, what really made me connect with the game were the visuals. The Longest Journey features everything from epic city vistas to quiet wooden cabins and each one has been so lovingly pre-rendered that I really did feel I (and by extension, April) was there. Then the game goes on to show just what the world would look like if dreams started becoming real and reality began to break apart. It’s a concept that intrigues me and is very subtle and so very well done. The game is incredibly long too, having taken me just over a month of casual play to complete. I’ve wanted a game this long for quite some time; when I finished it I’d been absorbed in the game’s world for so long that I could no longer remember how the story began.
Dreamfall, its sequel, is another shining example of how to write a game. In the decade gap between the two games the characters have grown so much and changed so greatly that I didn’t even recognise April until they said her name. Seeing her and all the other characters come to life in the new engine after having been stuck in 640×400 for a month is an incredible experience. Little bouts of joy washed through me as old and familiar characters popped up throughout and I was genuinely glad to see them again. Though the original took me a month to finish, I powered through Dreamfall in three days. For an adventure game it has a pace like no other; once you’re an hour or so in the entire game is non-stop narrative progression and complex character development. It is incredibly stimulating and is one of the best examples of just how good games can be at telling a story, and justifies why I connect with visual and aural stimuli far more than just text.
Unfortunately Dreamfall suffers from Empire Strikes Back syndrome; I’m still reeling from the finale’s reveals and cannot bloody wait for the next installment. Right up until the credits everything you thought was constant gets turned on its head, then fade to black. I can’t believe people praise titles like Half-Life and Halo for their story when games like this blow them out of the water.
So you can keep your music and your novels. There may not be many, but with games like these I have no need for either. These are the kinds of stories I want to tell and the kinds of games I want to make. Hopefully in twenty years time I’ll have done just that.
April 8, 2008 at 1:58 am |
Nice summation of the importance of The Longest Journey games as an example of strong narrative in games. However I disagree with the notion that Dreamfall (and to a lesser extent The Longest Journey) is a good example of how to use games to tell stories.
They both tell amazing stories that even Roger Ebert would have to admit can be considered ‘art’ but the ‘art’ here isn’t the game. It is the story. It is delivered with wonderfully evocative sights and sounds that obviously would not be present in a book format but this could easily have been made in to a long CGI production and despite the lack of interaction I would enjoy it almost as much.
As I mentioned in my Out to Play last month I should not be going around recommending the game to people because as a game it is pretty ordinary. You spend more time running from place to place than actually engaging in ‘game’.
I think if we want to acknowledge games being able to tell a good story by virtue of their gaminess we need to look at more experimental titles such as the one I’m racking my mind trying to remember… you are a guest at a couple’s home and a non-linear conversation can develop which gives insight into the couple’s relationship and how they react to you. Can’t remember the game but it is a step in the right direction to get games to establish ways of telling a story unique to the medium.
April 8, 2008 at 2:50 am |
I can agree with you on the point of the fetch-quests; most of The Longest Journey and Dreamfall were simply moving from area to area, using the right item on the right object then sitting back and listening to a scripted conversation. Dialogue branches were almost non-existent in The Longest Journey but Dreamfall did at least give you a few interesting and polar conversation choices along the way. Even cutting between three central characters, all with their own points of view, has been done before with films like Go.
As such it could very easily be told as a CGI-heavy film or even series, but personally I just would not get as much out of it. What little actual game mechanics may be present, it is still the interactivity that allows me to move at my own pace and take time to absorb the world and the characters in a way that simply would not be possible with any other medium. Of course, now that I’ve become so in love with the story, I’d be very much open to seeing films or reading books based in the same universe because I’ve already made that initially crucial connection by interacting with the world.
All that said, you’re right; there’s definately room for improvement. I would love to see the depth of a Bloodlines style character and conversation system in the next Chapter installment. I think my favourite part of Dreamfall was April’s first meeting with Kian, and how the game would actually let you control both sides of the conversation with some vastly different conversation options. I’ve never seen that in a game before and it was such a cool thing to do. I’m hoping they include more of this in later titles (or if other developers notice it at all) and are still able to find a happy medium between providing the player some significant choices yet still managing to move through the story that Tournquist wants to tell.