It’s interesting when you consider a story as being ‘a sequence of events’ because, when applied to games, it really helps to simplify the approach to narrative design. Any shooter can be considered to have a story. What essentially seperates Half-Life from Quake is the inclusion of actual characters. That bumps Half-Life up a few notches, but it is still a game that is based on the gun mechanic. Same with Mass Effect. I think these developers need to trying avoiding this mechanic right from the outset. It would do wonders for their creativity.

Does anyone else ever watch movies and make mental notes about when some action performed in the movie would actually work well, if not better, within a game?

I believe that linear narrative in games will, at least from a literary perspective, remain more satisfying than dynamic narrative in the near term–not that that’s saying much, in the case of most game fiction. However, as I implied in my Far Cry 2 post earlier, I believe it is extremely important for designers to continue progressing in the realm of dynamic and interactive narrative, as it is a type of storytelling unique to games.

However, what I think is potentially even more important, at least right now, is for game designers and writers to work on achieving successful contextual narrative, such as what is seen in games like BioShock. BioShock’s narrative is not at all dynamic, but it still exploits intrinsic properties of video games such as exploration. The clues throughout the world paint a larger picture for the player, and reward the player’s own active interest. Unlike dynamic narrative, this does not require any more complex technology than what we have, and yet most games still do not exploit it like they should.

So my question boils down to this… would you prefer to see a more authentically interactive experience, where the player might come to different conclusions depending on his\her many choices, OR, an experience more in line with classic adventure dynamics but essentially updated to work with modern 3d technology (3rd or 1st person explorable worlds). For example, in one category we maybe have Fable, Mass Effect, Far Cry 2(?) .. and in the other Kings Quest, Full Throttle, Sam & Max.

My question actually goes out to anyone who would like to share their opinion. Which type of game do you realistically find more appealing?