Not quite an FPS, but Crackdown is a perfect example of a 100% non-linear story. I still need to try a run where I take out the Shai-Gen first (although that may not be possible given orb height/starting dex)
Ich bin burnt!
I’d say Bioshock, except the story spends itself in the first half and has almost nothing to give thereafter, and almost every other example I can think of is driven by the characters and not the story (I don’t consider them one and the same, characters contribute towards the quality of the experience, not the story).
Then I thought Half-Life. The original. It used the medium so well.
However, Call of Duty 4 just stomps everything under its boot IMO. There’s a series I never thought I’d compliment on story telling.
Just reset the gangs/city. Starts the story over from scratch while keeping your stats. Wonderful feature.
Planescape Torment.
Freespace 2
Almost completely linear story, but it was revealed both between and during missions, often causing changes to the gameplay and meaningfully affecting player actions.
- Alan
This. I missed it back when it was new, and I’ve tried to play it again today, but it’s just impossible to put up with those controls and that tiny viewport window.
And besides, for me, the bar for best ever storytelling was set with Starflight.
Like Crackdown in that it’s not exactly an FPS (at all)… if you want story line, you want Mafia.
I can’t tell from your post if you’re saying I was being needlessly hostile, condescending, and argumentative. But if so, I intended no such thing and I apologize if it came across that way. I just found it curious that a) you consider story so important in shooters, and b) you’re so adamant about your judgment of Uncharted after playing for thirty minutes.
-Tom
Thank God I wasn’t the only one annoyed. I actually thought this was pretty well handled in Episode One, the opening hug just said it all (my heart melted :D)and after that we got the odd nod to something more. In Episode Two you couldn’t so much as reload without a compliment. Talk about laying it on thick.
Oh man, I love Outlaws, now I have to go find those discs (disc? maybe I had the soundtrack).
“Where aaaaaaaaare you Marshal?!”
Me neither, and I’d made a note to play it after its first big round of praise, but quickly forgot about it. Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll have to check it out.
- I said that was what I was interested in, no value judgment implied.
- I said the question wasn’t intended to be a challenge.
- I work as a writer and designer for a company that makes storytelling games.
- Every single-player shooter that I’m aware of has a story element.
- The shooters that have gotten the most attention as being genre-defining games for those of us who don’t play every game that comes out (the ones who ask on message boards for recommendations) are Dark Forces/Jedi Knight, the Half-Life series, Halo, and BioShock. All of those have stories. All except for Halo were heavily story-driven, and they were notable for how they used FPS mechanics to tell a story.
- I explained how “story-telling” differentiates a game from something like TF2 or Battlefield.
It’s nice of you to apologize, but not necessary. Since I always come across as more of an ass online than I am in my head, I just assumed it was the same thing. And “penny-ante smears” and “don’t bother asking questions” and “You should try the genre sometime” and “if you’d like to argue that [ something I already called irrelevant ]” weren’t intended to be hostile, condescending, or argumentative. I just think it’s curious that there’s no topic so innocuous that it can’t be turned into a pointless argument where people are quick to tell each other they have no idea what they’re talking about.
Or as I put all this better before, “Never mind.”
I don’t know what else to tell you, and I don’t know why you’re taking it so personally. The time I played got me through the first level, with cutscenes, sliding block puzzles, lighting torch puzzles, jumping puzzles, gunplay, and something of a boss-fight. It could’ve been more than 30 minutes; I wasn’t keeping track because I didn’t expect I’d be audited. What I saw didn’t impress me and gave me no reason to believe that what I was most interested in – story development through gameplay – would change my mind. And even if I’m somehow missing out on the conclusion of that game, it’s not the end of the world.
You did specifically ask about storytelling FPS games, but there are several essential, genre-defining titles that feature very little in the way of story. Narrative can be a very powerful tool, but games are not defined by their stories alone.
This ties in with the idea that I call the “Doom/Myst dichotomy,” highlighting the difference between two well-known games from the early 1990s that achieved mainstream awareness for entirely different reasons. Of the two, I think that Doom is the better “game,” but it’s harder to explain to non-gamers because its appeal lies in the experience of playing rather than its narrative.
- Alan
This is State of the Art:
I wouldn’t say CoD4 has a great or even interesting story. In fact, it is quite trivial.
What is great, though, is the sense of urgency, the execution and the overall level of polish and how everything clicks together. And the quite unique feeling of “playing” a supporting character in a movie.
Also, Bioshock’s strength is mainly in the setting. If you think about it, most of the “story” is actually setting-setup and background info.
And S.T.A.L.K.E.R. probably deserves a random mention in this thread due to its atmosphere and immersion.
I think that the way, as you put it, “everything clicks together”, does make it great. There are twists and tensions, and interesting and well acted characters that you run into.
Also I may be alone here but I also really liked Bad Company’s story and characters. I thought the plot it was straightforward, and the characters were distinctive and well acted and scripted (though I suspect T. Chick may disagree as I seem to remember him disliking it).
But then, that’s how I like the stories in my FPS–easy. As gamespy used to say when it booted, “Let’s get on with the killing”.
Complexity does not a story make, and as I’m sure we all know once you break down stories enough they come down to just two… I forget what.
COD4 works because it makes you believe the story, and more than that, you live it. It had shocks, and near the end my heart was pounding from the urgency. It was a story which, as all the good stories are, was amazingly well told.