Do you place importance on storylines?

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Most games today feature a storyline. Some games have simple excuse plots--others have storylines that are easily on par with HBO dramas. In my honest opinion, games with poor storylines tend to age poorly--and are pretty much obsolote whenever the sequel hits the shelves. Take GTA 3, for instance; most people stopped playing it when Vice City came out, and it's no secret that the rice paper thin storyline was at least partially responsible for this. After a while, running around and trashing a Miami inspired city just because became boring as well, because the story wasn't really any good there either, and you've heard through all the radio broadcasts and knew all the songs by heart. In contrast, Mafia is still a great game today, largely because of the decent story. Because Mafia II lacked both character development and a compelling storyline, it will probably never reach the status of a celebrated classic and have probably faded into obscurity for most gamers. One of the major dissapointments of Arcania was that it lacked a story as good as the first two Gothic games, thus reducing it to an endless cluster of fetch quests.

Video games where the story is told via the gameplay (like Fallout, Gothic or Shadow of the Colossus) seems to work better than video games where the story is told exclusively through endless cutscenes (Metal Gear Solid, anyone?), though. Because video games are interactive and will place you inside the story rather than outside it, it can be the perfect medium for telling a good story.

How important is the story in a game to you?

I'm probably going against the tide here, but in my case I've never really found story in games to be very important, and almost always not very interesting either. I read *alot* of books, and those are what I turn to when I want a good story; the writing and such in pretty much any game just doesnt even remotely compare. Frankly, I find the writing in many games to just not be very good. Or in some cases, I find it to just be terribly stupid, such as.... well, ANY of Square's games.

Not to mention the way that games tell the stories these days.... long-winded cutscenes. Bah. Give me textboxes that I can just read at my own pace (AKA, muuuuuch faster than having to listen to some voiceover of the text) rather than a dull cutscene that takes too bloody long and is often trying to garner attention by adding as much shiny crap as possible. I dont watch TV or movies, dont like them one bit, so I tend to get pushed away when developers try to make the game like either of those.

Typically though I ignore triple-A games and most console titles and tend to instead focus on PC games, particularly indie titles. Or I have my imported shmups and such on the 360. As a whole games I play either tend to have very little story, or just one that can be ignored, or no story whatsoever. Which is definitely my preference, usually.

Story was important to me to the point that, when I bought Painkiller, I tried to return it the very next day. I was so angry at the game studio. How dare they release a game with no story, just bang bang bang?! The video game store wouldn't take it back so I was stuck with it. Since, at the time, it was my one and only game, I played it. Lo and behold. I began to appreciate it for what it was - a story-less bang bang masterpiece. Yes, I learned to appreciate it. Its sequels blow chunks, though.

Sometimes it takes me so long to finish a game that I lose track of what the story line is supposed to be. Because I have to go to work and do other things, it could take me weeks or months to finish a game. Consequently, I often forgot where I left off and just dive back into the shooting aspect. That discontinuity ruins it for me, but such is life.

Gameplay comes first, then story (and cba about the rest). But for making that ever-lasting impression (which game devs should aspire to create), a deep and meaningful story is KEY, really. My 2 favourite game series ever are Metal Gear and Final Fantasy, and for a good reason...
When I design a game, in most cases I'll write the story first, and build the rest around. So yea, it's very important me.

The story is only important if the game doesn't boast activity and mental challenge. Plenty of great games had minimal story or relied more on lore, snippets, and atmosphere. I have books, movies, and television for stories.

Games that aren't specifically geared towards storytelling but that try to throw you some scraps, anyway, such as recent Pokemon titles, typically have me mashing buttons in boredom without reading the text for the first 5-10 minutes (and later giving it away unfinished). If players don't pick it up expecting story in the first place and you don't have a good team behind it, just leave it out.

Last edited by Cilantro on 09 Aug 2013, 8:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.

In my mind if a game has no story, it doesn't need it. Games like Red Dead Redemption, RDR: Undead Nightmare, they had an unparalleled level of attachment it made you foster to the main character. In the end, when John Marston is betrayed, I actually cried, and killed the backstabbing fed with a semi auto shotgun by switching guns on the start menu, I was captivated by Landon Rickets, and the zombies. I'm pretty sure the RDR series will always be remembered for it's cold truth and dramatic action quality, and I hope they come out on the ps4 and xbox one. My one niche for games, is actually for games that suck (at least now), like Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Doom, Ultimate Doom, Final Doom, Doom 2, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, Golden Eye, Turok (both the xbox 360 remake and Turok: Seeds of evil), Star wars: Dark Forces, Crash Bandicoot: Warped!, Donkey Kong Country, Sonic the Hedgehog (for genesis), Megaman: Legends (I love those cute servbots), legend of zelda (nes), the oracle of seasons/ages (gameboy color)(side note link's awakening is f'd up, so is majora's mask), FF4, Mortal Kombat Trilogy (GET OVER HERE), Jurassic Park (genesis), Doom Final Doom Doom 2 Ultimate Doom (psone), Tenchu (the BA offspring of MK3 and Metal Gear Solid IMI), and of course Super Mario Bros.

I prefer to have games that have rich story lines. In particular the Metal Gear Solid and Yakuza series.

I tend to get bored if there isn't a story line that gets me into the game.

If there is no storyline or barely one, it really has to be a great game with great pacing for me to really get into it.

I don't think a game needs much of a story to be great, but a great story is always a plus. On one end, games like Super Mario Galaxy or Banjo-Tooie are some of of my favorites, whereas others like Metal Gear Solid 3 and Killer7 are also up there. The only thing I really don't like is when it just feels plain unnecessary or awful, like most of the latter Sonic games(06 being a prime example of this).

Of course it does. But, then I don't see a difference of game play and story and tend to use that to make my own story when playing despite a game having a story or not.

Gameplay! Gameplay! Gameplay! It's the only thing that matters in life...

No need for the story, unless it's an RPG or something like that.

how many people play Grand Theft Auto for the story? I never did. I don't play any game for the story. except for Role playing games, such as War craft 3 and StarCraft 1 and 2.
I for one enjoyed the story for Heart of the Swarm, I also Liked the story for Wings of Liberty. Then in War craft 3, I have yet to get very far in either the Reign of chaos, or the frozen throne Campaign. So I can't really form an opinion on that games story yet.

Of course, gameplay means everything to me. lack of variety in gameplay is why I don't play GTA games for more then half an hour. if even close to that. don't get me wrong, I like most the GTA games.
ever since I played Saints Row The Third, well, now I'm like, "Forget the story, I want them SUPAPOWERS" which explains why I had to pre-order SR4.

Yes, I do place an importance on story - however, you can have an amazing story, but if the gameplay is literally painful to do then no amount of story is going to save it.

I generally play MegaTen franchise games.

One thing does not exclude the other. Gameplay in the Uncharted games is pretty much as good as a gameplay can get--it doesn't change the fact that the games still have a good story.



I had massive fun with the GTA III games for the first days, but then I got bored after I had explored every part of the city, driven every car and finished 40% of the missions, simply because the weak plotline made the missions too similar. This also prevented them from aging well.

Eh, I liked San Andreas' story a lot, and I don't think IV was bad for trying to be a bit more serious. The Ballad of Gay Tony was also a fun little side story. The Lost and Damned felt boring in general, though.

I'm referring mostly to the VC and GTA III story. San Andreas had character development and you really felt an intense hatred toward Officer Tenpenny.

Too herpy derp for that, sorry.