Living the Experience

It's pretty obvious that games want their users to connect to the experience, to "live" it in the way of suspending their disbelief. Just like books create elaborate worlds in order to transport the reader, video games, like movies, show them the world. The user interacts with the game in a way that he can't with a book or film, but the interesting thing is that the game functions as sort of hybrid of novel and movie.

On one hand, you have the graphics. Developers spend most of their time rendering environments and building a coherent and believable world. Since the game is meant to be seen, the visuals are greatly important. On the other hand, the story of the game must be addressed. Often, the story is written separately and then integrated with the graphics. The story gives the plot and general course the game is to take. It's like combining the text of a novel with the images of a film. Of course, there are many shades in between.

Some games focus primarily on the story. The visuals are just enough to show what is meant to be seen, but most of the experience comes from the actual text. Then there are games who have a basic plot outline and everything comes from interacting with the world around the character, which leads us to the actual experience.

Gamers experience the setting in a way that can never be reached in either of the other two media. The game transports the user, by means of an avatar, to this fictional world and then not only does it tell the player what to do, it allows the player to make his own decisions and figure things out for himself ... most of the time. The user wanders around and discovers important elements on predetermined roads. This always leads to the conversation about how "linear" the story line is. Meaning, does the game tell the player exactly what to do next, or can he complete the game however he wants to?

I remember one of the first games I played on the PS2 was one called "The Bouncer." At the time, it was receiving a lot of hype for it's graphics and story, but when you played the game, it was like watching a computer generated movie, but then only controlling the fight scenes. The player would watch one cut scene after another, a fight would break out, the mini movies stop, and then the player would be forced to beat up a bunch of random thugs. All of the fighting was explained in the movies, but it really didn't create the most desirable environment. At the time though, it was one of PS2's launch titles and was created to show off what the new engine could do visually but now, to ease the contention between obvious cut scenes and actual gameplay, many games now use the same graphics of regular play and then add the dialogue on top of them. This way, the transition isn't as jarring.

Then you have games like "Resident Evil 4," which was created primarily for fun gameplay. The story is severely lacking, the graphics are decent, if not good, but the real spotlight is on what your character can do. Another example is "Dead Rising" on the XBOX 360. It was celebrated for having a completely interactive environment in which the player was stuck in a mall filled with zombies and anything he saw could be used as a weapon. The options were limitless.

And finally, there are games like "Resistance: Fall of Man" which puts a huge emphasis on the story. It does pay careful attention to graphics and gameplay, but for this example, what it does with story is incredible. It takes place around WWII, but in this world, that war never happened. Game developers rewrote history, starting around 1898, in order to bring about the world in which their story takes place. They made their story around actual events and then once re imagining those events, thought of the next logical steps. It's like writing a historical fiction novel.

All three media whether they be book, movie, or video game, seek to transport the user into a newly created world. Each one goes about it in a different fashion, but usually the goal is the same. Each has things over the other, books can delve deeply into psyche, movies can literally show things, and games provide actual user experiences. It's interesting to note though, just where and how they continuously cross over with each other. While earlier I claimed that video games were hybrids of books and movies, it's important to note, to use Dr. Jones' "Lost" example, that show (which is essentially nothing but mini-movies) wouldn't have come about if not for video games. The characters behave like a game, the story unfolds like a game, and it's essentially a larger version of "Myst." But, "Myst" was essentially a larger version of Verne's "Mysterious Island." So, in this instance, book lead to game, which lead to show. This isn't the only time we see this. Movies and games become books and games become movies. They're constantly overlapping because they run on familiar themes.

A story is told, a world is created, and a user experiences both.