Evolution of Games as Digital Storytellers

The Evolution of console video games as a digital storytelling medium.

Video games are an important part of digital storytelling because they give you active input into the story's outcome. They might seem rather crude initially but even taking a deeper look into the most simplistic game, the potential for storytelling is amazing if not a bit abstract. A game's story attempts to give the player a reason to complete the game. In essence, the player has a direct effect on the outcome of the story. The earliest game consoles such as the Atari 2600 had simple games that didn't feature stories( or if they did, they were negligible) but with a little creativity there could be a story there. Basically, these games were improved if you had a sense of imagination.

                                               I'm sure Cowboy Bill had lasso these bulls to feed his family. Maybe.

In the early 90's I was introduced to my very first video game system, a Nintendo Entertainment System. Back then, most games had a very simple story to tell; You are a hero tasked with saving the world or saving the princess. Most of these NES games usually left the story part of their games in the manual which for most kids meant that the story was mostly optional. Since most of my games were second hand (usually just the cartridge and no manuals) I pretty much never knew the stories of most of the games. There were a few games that storylines were much more important called Role-Playing Games (RPG). These games, such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior, required players to pay attention to story elements in order to know how to proceed to the end and hopefully complete the game. Due to the limited capabilities of NES, these games had rather straight forward stories which started and ended the same no matter how you played the game.

                                                      Pretty much this was the entire story of older games

As technology improved, video games improved, not only in graphical sense but also in story telling. The Super Nintendo (SNES) and Genesis allowed game developers more space to put in text which could better help further out story. Even the simple story of Super Mario World gives up a text based introduction to set the story. RPG's of this generation were allowed to expand their stories, usually featuring deeper characters and more expansive narratives than the older generation. While a large percentage of games focused on getting to a single ending, there were games that had multiple endings based on how you played the game. Final Fantasy 6's ending changed depending on how many characters survive the final battle. Chrono Trigger took this a step further with having endings that are affected by entire decisions during the adventure. Even though these games featured more optional ways to achieve the ending, there still was a general direction the game heads in which gives a rather linear feel.

                                                           The ability to tell stories was much improved

The final part of this look at the evolution of story telling in games will talk about the original Playstation era of games, which would feature the biggest impact to stories in gaming. The Playstation which was much more powerful than the previous generation of games once again pushed storytelling further than it's ever been. The Playstation was one of the first videogame consoles to make use of CD-ROMs which allowed for more information to be stored for usage within games. This allowed Full Motion Video (FMV) , higher quality music, and complete voice acting in games which led to limitless possibilities. FMVs allowed for either real life actors to do scenes or computer generated cutscenes to give a more movie like experience. Unfortunately, in the early life of the system, most of these were terribly written and performed. The best example I can think of is Resident Evil.

However as time passed, the quality of voice acting and dialogue was improved greatly. Metal Gear Solid is probably the prime example of video game story telling done right. It featured professional voice actors, and unbelievable amount of spoken dialogue ( the game needed two disk just to contain all of it). The story had action, suspense, betrayal and love and did a very good job handling each of these themes. It is very close to a movie experience but represents one of the best examples of a story being told on a gaming platform, even to this day. With two endings (one very emotional) based on your choices, it is the quintessential look into video game story telling.

       Graphics are a bit rough but the writing and voice acting are top notch for the era.

Next time blog I will expand on the American made RPG for later generations which offers a completely unique story in terms of freedom and choices in the game. Also, I will talk about video games that can have such powerful stories, they can make you cry.