I wrote my first blog post about how I liked console games more than PC games because console games had or told more of a story than PC games. Then we had our lecture on narratives in video games and things seemed to make more sense to me. I like games where there is a background story because there is a point to the game. But when I was talking to a girl in my tutorial about it she asked me about games such as Tetris and Solitaire where there is no story - they're just games. And I realized that not all games need stories to be enjoyable. And this was the total opposite to how I usually thought about games. I suppose this post could be seen more like an argument against my first blog post - that games needed to have background stories to be fun. I still stand by this point, however, I would consider myself open minded and would now say that not all games need to have stories. I say this because the girl in my class made a good point. Yes, I enjoy playing games like Tetris and Solitaire (even if it is less than regularly), and neither of those games have background stories. There is no real mission to accomplish, no competition, no real goal. And maybe that is what makes these games enjoyable. They are simple and casual and you don't need to be beating anyone else but yourself. You are not going to be spending 30 hours a week trying to complete the games because it takes far less time than that. These games are good clean fun. Because they are not games with characters in them, you are not really engaging with them as if you are inside the space of the game. You can clearly distinguish yourself from the space of the game and everything is ok. I like this. I think this is how games ought to be. When you get to the point in the game where you are so immersed in it that you forget about the outside world, I think that is taking it too far. But others may like that, and that's fine. I think it all boils down to personal preference. I mean, we're only harming ourselves, right? If there is any harm done at all.
I can't remember if I found this cracked article through the blog or if Kevin suggested it or whatever but the third reason "Video Game Storytelling is still at the Level of B Movies" ( http://www.cracked.com/article_18571_5-reasons-its-still-not-cool-to-admit-youre-gamer.html ) is somewhat relevant. Completely agree that it's about personal preference where this whole narrative thing comes into play, sometimes you want to play something without much story, with or without a goal and just straight fun and other times it's about almost living vicariously through the games "narrative". I know for me the games that tend to have the most impact are the ones where I progress forward not only because they are fun to play but because I want to learn more about the story and and have a weird astral-esque involvement in the characters - in which agency is a massive part in that anyway and it has a similar if not stronger affect than film and literature does.
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