Gamernode: News - Ken Levine: The game world tells the story

I really like what Levine said because I've been a longtime supporter of strong stories, when and if possible, in games. He really hit it on the head when he said it was not about spelling everything out for the gamer necessarily, and leaving the interpretation open for the player as he/she experiences the environment and game world.

Obviously, he achieved his goals with Bioshock. What a great game.

See, this is better explained than the other article I saw on the same subject. I don't disagree, then, with what he's saying. When he starts on about making the story a simple as possible, that something complex won't fly, that's when I have a problem with what he's saying. And, it should be noted, there are a ton of complexities in Bioshock, so it didn't make much sense him saying that... Ah well, maybe that one commenter was right and he was simply trying to stave off the competition by giving them false advice:p Or, one simply needed to hear it in context with the rest of his seminar thing.

I couldn't agree less.

Not that the basic idea is wrong, but BioShock is the worst example of it. Great game, BioShock, mostly thanks to its setting, graphics and atmosphere. But the story is shit, and the narrative balls-out terrible. The reactivity of the world? Zero. Consequences to your actions? Zero. He's preaching something he completely fails to do himself.

I disagree, I thought Bioshock had a wonderfrul narrative. The overarching game-driving plot fell rather weak towards the end of the game, but the story that was Rapture itself was wonderfully constructed, and the relationships between the characters spelled out through the audio logs and their location in the environment pulled both together.

One of the most powerful scenes in that game, to me, wasn't even a scene at all. There was a charred corpse tied to a fence, electrodes from its "shock therapy" still stuck into his skin. While this was gruesome enough, the nearby audio log brought an emotion and a background to the scene that made it more than just "ew that's gross," and made a single shocking set-piece into something even more, er, shocking. (it's hard to make that sound like I want to when stepping over spoilers) Rapture is full of moments like this, relation between the environment and the audiologs that, for the patient and observant, brings both together and makes each more powerful than they stand on their own. A random couple of corpses on a bed suddenly have a story, and that makes them more than just a couple corpses on a bed. You suddenly CARE for the corpses in this seemingly random set-piece.

And that's where I think Levine hits the nail on the head. A good story should provide different levels of reward to anyone who plays, and every individual person can come away with a basic understanding of the story, but those that take the time to be invested into the world, and learn about the world, well, make the payoffs tremendous.

And I agree, Metroid Prime did this really well itself.

Wow, someone actually hated the story in Bioshock? Ok... To each their own... I do agree, though with rtanger that "The overarching game-driving plot fell rather weak towards the end of the game..." And yet, even so, the ending cut-scenes were also very carefully crafted and tied things up in profoundly rewarding emotional ways, for me. But, yeah, when it started becoming almost a cliche by the end, it was a bit of a shame, considering the careful craftsmanship of the rest of the game's story.

And yeah, Metroid Prime and the sequels have this down pretty wonderfully. Well, the last one, from what I can tell, anyway, since I don't have a Wii to actually play it on. Most a pity...

Regardless, rtanger, that is still a one-way information feeding street. It's a bad example of the reactivity you can get in games.

The good/evil endings are another good example: extreme results to meaningless choices you made. I'm surprised any could feel any emotional tie to that.

If you ask me, BioShock draws curtains over your eyes on many points, and it does so efficiently because it does so really well, having a great setting and backstory, but as a game, including in the sense of the player "constructing his own narrative", it is a real failure.

Still can't believe how much the media fell over one another trying to praise it. But hey...gaming media.

I too thought that he made some contradicting remarks, Hylden. The example rtanger gave is one example of a more complex story telling method. When you see said corpse, you may think about how it died. Or maybe why. When I think of simple stories in games, I think of mario. Princess captured, let's platform jump-end story. There are other great examples of shallow stories, but bioshock is not it.

"including in the sense of the player "constructing his own narrative", it is a real failure."

This is where I disagree, and it comes back to my point on the set-piece design and the related audiologs. In my mind, it succeeds here in its mystery and allowing the observant player a chance to build the story and WHY Rapture is what its become, for the same reason that Half-Life 2 succeeds at the same ploy.


THE FOLLOWING WILL CONTAIN BIOSHOCK SPOILERS READ AT YOUR OWN RISK IF YOU STILL CARE
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One person may blow through Bioshock and at the end say "Well, I killed this guy, I don't know exactly why I had to, but he was big and bad and he kept saying bad things about my mother." And what he takes from the story is only what he was given-- Fontaine is apparently a bad guy and needs to die. WHY he's in this underwater city and WHY he's so bad may elude this player.

Then, there's the player who examines the environment and takes time to slow down and listen to each audiolog in context. He learns important history on what Rapture is, why it's here, exactly what started to go wrong, WHY Fontaine is so damn evil, WHERE those damn little girls came from, WHY there's large, dangerous guys in diving suits, and all points in between. Not only is the important backstory unveiled in its entirety, the observant player has a broad understanding of Rapture and the moral stake at hand in deciding "Harvest" or "Rescue," much more clearly spelled out than the run 'n gun player who may only see these girls as obstacles, and will not wrestle with the moral choice at all.

Taken altogether, I completely agree with Levine that two different players could play the game and come away with two entirely different impressions of everything they saw.

Granted, the original promises that Levine made in regards to Bioshocks story being a branching narrative fell incredibly short, but that does not immediately qualify it as "shit," in my opinion. Whether it's a one-way street to one of the two endings aside, what occupies that street on the way to the end is wonderfully crafted, superbly told, and, in the world of "good guy gets gun, shoots bad guy" "me-too" derivative FPS games, Bioshock still stands as a paragon of superb storytelling in the genre, whether you agree with it or not.