A word of warning: This post came out longer than I think I originally intended, so please take it easy.
@onepiece: Of course, you are right. Certainly there are different types of games and sometimes you just fancy a good shooter or some crazy cars action (e.g. Need for Speed series). You don't need a storyline for these at all. More than that, I believe that some games might have non-orthodox storylines, might be impressions or a bunch of quests, which are not connected. And it's fine. It all depends on the type of the game.
However isn't it that a good storyline makes a game complete and mature? Isn't it that there is a difference between a shooter and a game with an interesting (often deep) storyline?
Perhaps it's good to know the canon to deviate from it, criticize it or modify it? Certainly one can be a storyline genius and might come up with a good script "just like that". Although, to be honest, I usually found that when I try to write a script "just like that" I am stuck and cannot do it right (sometimes even begin). On the other hand, certain story elements and a pre-defined story structure is there to help you. So when you start with a vision of a script, based on the canon, you usually have a storyline ready and you just fill in the slots. And it's not true that your storyline is not interesting if you make it that way.
What I'm trying to say is that I believe that people are
hard-wired for stories. And the folks from Hollywood have good reasons to follow storyline patterns, because those paterns
work.
TBH I didn't play Bioshock (drat, I will get it and play it, since you say it has such a deep story) Yet, many games just amazed me with interesting storylines. Take Lara Croft series or Indiana Jones or Star Wars... You still have all the technical stuff in such games, yet take those brilliant storylines.
I remember that some long time ago I discussed the issue of computer game elements with some of my friends. Other than the storyline, as far as I recall, the following elements were mentioned:
- eye-candy architecture
- good, realistic models (how you present a model with a certain "polygon budget")
- textures
- playability (some bad looking games might be damn playable)
- music and ambient sounds (often neglected)
- VO
Might be something else, I don't remember.
Concerning KB, I certainly liked it and enjoyed playing it. What I was saying is that I believe such a game could benefit a lot from having a storyline script, which is more according to the canon. I found KB
text-heavy. Yes, I read it all as well and found it interesting, but
not everyone will. Look what they do in movies: they cut some great scenes and remove it from the movie entirely, simply to keep the pace (there is no time in the story to fit certain scenes in, despite how great they are).
You have a main KB quest, yes. All fine, but to me it's "just another quest", rather than a full storyline. So KB is a set of quests, usually not connected one to the other.
The bottom line is, it's nothing which development team couldn't do. It's more like they didn't think it was right.
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Originally Posted by Jah
I basically agree that while it would be great to have both good gameplay AND a good plot, the thinness of the plot in the KB games never really bothered me too much. Essentially, I consider KB to be a strategy game with RPG elements, rather than a pure RPG in the traditional sense, and strategy games tend to be pretty light in terms of plot anyway. I think it also has to do with the light, not-too-serious style of KB in general; in a game full of puns and intentional silliness, I wasn't really expecting particularly deep characters or thought-provoking plot developments. While it's possible that the developers simply didn't care enough about the plot to put much effort into it, I think one could also argue that its lightness may have been at least partially a conscious stylistic choice.
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That is a very interesting approach. What you say: "its lightness may have been at least partially a conscious stylistic choice", it's well said and I take your point. Yet I still say that the game would benefit much from a better storyline. KB was silly in parts (fine, I enjoyed it a lot), but consider that some parts were not that silly. Or rather they were based on hard facts. You can't argue that Baal attacking the city and Amelie desperately searching for a remedy is light and silly, isn't it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jah
I think Demenion and Baal would both qualify as "bad guys".
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Alright, but there is a difference between a well developed 3D character, a flat 2D one and a "background character", which is there to fill the emtpy space. It's a matter of how these characetrs were developed, how their role in the storyline was presented. And even more, it's about the whole storyline approach.
What do we know about Baal other than it's a demon, who attacked the city?