Historically Important Game Narratives

Jason Moyer on 21/7/2010 at 21:21

I'd include the first Modern Warfare, which had a genuinely interesting way of handling the story arc/plot twists as well as alternating between first person viewpoints of important characters which is fairly unique (obviously done before, even in CoD, but not quite the same way). The second has a completely asinine story where they basically take all of the interesting bits from the first game and assume reusing them over and over will make them even more extreme and awesome.

Phatose on 21/7/2010 at 21:45

Quote Posted by Aerothorn

I'm ashamed to admit that I barely remember the execution scene. Do you have a choice to *not* kill him? It seems like the complicity would be somewhat compromised if you didn't have a choice.

You don't execute anyone in that scene. It's the opening of MW1, and you're playing as the soon to be executed president of the unnamed Middle Eastern country. You get shot in the face.

Aerothorn on 22/7/2010 at 01:10

Quote Posted by Phatose

You don't execute anyone in that scene. It's the opening of MW1, and you're playing as the soon to be executed president of the unnamed Middle Eastern country. You get shot in the face.

Oh, NOW I remember that. Yeah, that (and the aforementioned opening tanker mention) made me really excited to play the game - it was too bad it was mostly downhill from there.

Thirith on 22/7/2010 at 04:57

Quote Posted by Aerothorn

I agree that both the opening level and the gunship level are brilliant moments of subversion, but my impression was that the devs weren't fully committed to it, and it spiraled more into legit hoo-rah nonsense towards the end. I get the impression that the sequel pretty much abandoned the whole subversion thing, too, though I've never played it - any thoughts on that?

If you're looking at historically important game narratives, shouldn't you be more interested in the ones that do something different rather than the ones that are pretty much "been there, done that" but are more polished at delivering a consistent story?

Brian The Dog on 22/7/2010 at 12:06

Quote Posted by Koki

It's all about the Al-Fulani execution. Half Life estabilished the whole "player's perspective" theme but the camera never really left the main character so far. Giving the player a limited control over an NPC in what is essentially introductory cutscene was damn clever as getting shot in the face gets the story across much better than whatever non-interactive movie or dialogue could.

This does remind me of Quake IV, where the character gets "stroggified", which is the main twist in the story. The thing that impressed me was they showed it from the character's perspective (ie still in the FP view) rather than a cut-scene.

Edit - Added Spoilers (oops)

icemann on 22/7/2010 at 13:02

Quote Posted by Brian The Dog

This does remind me of Quake IV, where the character gets "stroggified", which is the main twist in the story.

Gotta love spoilers.

Sulphur on 22/7/2010 at 13:06

So, er, spoiler tag that quote?

Anyway, that bit was hyped up in just about every preview and review at the time. Which was five years ago.

Aerothorn on 22/7/2010 at 16:14

Quote Posted by Thirith

Oh, definitely, it's just hard to get over the memory bias. Assuming I find time to do these intertitles (it's looking like something I may do in post-graduation editing, for time reasons) it will definitely get a mention.

catbarf on 22/7/2010 at 19:01

Quote Posted by Brian The Dog

Another factor in that scene is that it doesn't pull any punches. No convenient objects blocking your view, no white-out to hide what happens, no option even to look away. It is brutal, direct, and visceral.

Brian The Dog on 23/7/2010 at 11:35

Sorry, as Sulphur said, I thought it'd been well-trailed beforehand. I've added Spoiler Tags just in case though.