The Video Game Narrative

The Video Game Narrative
The first argument that arose out of the video game world was the debate of video game violence. Still unresolved, this debate has actually allowed for the video game industry to come fully into the main stream. As the din over violence quieted the fans of the game society began to focus on issues more akin to their own style. So then began the debate of game play vs. the video game narrative. The question arose; can a game also be a story? While the semantics would suggest that, no, a game cannot be a story, we do realize that a game can contain a story. However, considering the amount of games that contain a story we can surmise that this question doesn’t further our study, and realizing that the amount of games (mostly of the 1980’s) that had no story and only gameplay we can see that the story is not a required facet for a game to be successful.
So the question is in need of updating. Is the story contained in today’s games the traditional linear story being contained in a non-linear gameplay arena, or do video game stories possess some special qualities that allow a game to be different from a book or movie. To understand the video game we need to look at one of the video game world’s ultimate predecessors: Dungeons and Dragons. Back in the time when teenage guys dressed up as the character that they had spent month after month making stronger, there existed no video games to fool with. No, this was how the nerds of the day hung out. And much like today, where we have “Halo bashes” of anywhere from 4 to 16 (16 being the average), the competition between warlock and dungeon master was only the beginning

Oakley 2 of the excitement. The story that played out in D&D was different every time, depending on how the game was played. And like it’s successor, the RPG’s of today (most notably the Final Fantasy series) play the same way as the games of old. So ...

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... Oakley 4 a necessity? And what other qualities have taken the main stage of video games today?
The video game world is an ever-changing realm, originally it was a staple way to pass the time, then it became what we looked forward to after a hard day’s work. So as the gaming world becomes more complex, new game types emerge to fill our free time. But very rarely does a game like Pac-Man or Pong come out; a game that has no real story in it, it’s just a way to score points. However it is my belief that even when there is no literal story to a multiplayer game we still have a background to the reason we compete. If one were to take the story of the Master Chief and the Covenant out of the game Halo (2001), we would still have a superb multiplayer game. On the outside it would seem that the only reason to play is to kill the other Spartans, there is no deeper story behind it. However, for the players at least, it becomes a contest, and as you play more and more you remember the other games; you want revenge, you want to be better, or you want to do something funny.