Anyone here prefers story over gameplay?

I'll start off by saying I personally never got people who play video games to mainly enjoy the story. Video games are pretty bottom of the barrel as far as storytelling mediums are concerned but there are none the less people who are drawn to video game stories.

A common description of the easiest modes is even "for those who prefer the story". Why include gameplay segments at all? Just have all the cutscenes in one nicely packaged mode and be done with it.

For those who prefer the story over the gameplay, can you enlighten me as to why you play the game? Do you enjoy reading books and watching movies more than playing video games?

The Uncharted and Witcher crowds should have a field day with this thread.

I love a great game that also has a good story, there aren't many of them though. Some people say that's W3 which I describe as a very average game with great side stories but a fucking awful main story. The closest I've come recently to a great game with a great story is Nier Automata but it's probably too weird for most modern gamers both as a game and a story.

The kind of people I think you're talking to here are Telltale fans, i.e., people who have no interest in games whatsoever and I have no clue at all why they don't read a good book or watch a good movie instead. Uncharted and Witcher fans actually do set out to play a game first and foremost.

Nah. If a game is mechanically great, I'm all for it. I don't demand or expect much from my games narratively. That said, I think the setting of a game can be a major turn off (or part of the appeal) for me.

I think gameplay is certainly more important than stories in video games, but stories are essential as well (to a degree). For me, I usually need a purpose when I play a game. Sure, fighting monsters, men, etc. can be fun and all, but if there's literally no plot driving it, I'll feel the task is mundane or pointless. For example: I thoroughly enjoy Minecraft (say what you will about the gameplay) but it lacks a central plot and for the most part that's fine. Yet, once I discover all the mechanics driving the game, there isn't much left to entice me to stay. I can fight another billion monsters or continue to roam the vast and seemingly endless world, but I wouldn't have much other than my imagination encouraging me to do so.

why not both

A good story doesn't hurt, but a game should be fun to play. There are some games though where a good story carries the game, and if it were just the gameplay, it would be very bare bones. Games such as Phoenix Wright and 999/Virtue's Last Reward come to mind.

Man, for anyone who prefers the story I feel you. I would say quit playing games right now. Take up reading and try some novels written by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I recommend Demons ( also translated as The Possessed) and Crime and Punishment. Dickens is also quite good. Give Bleak House a go. If those old novels don't do it for you try the beatnik stuff like Jack Kerouac or Charles Bukowski. That was my introduction to literature but I grew past it. Or if reading doesn't work try film. Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Kubrick... I can give you a million good stories in film if those don't do it for you. But for the love of God, if the only thing you like about video games is story you need to quit playing them today and move on.

I prefer to have both.

All the game i play have good stories, perhaps you should quit gaming.

I think video games can be great for telling a story, and there are plenty of games were I'm playing for the story primary.

In video games its possible to make the user feel the weight of the characters choices, like in Telltale games, or the better done Life Is Strange. The way some of the outcomes play out on life is strange could not be replicated in a movie, because once its happend I think....oh shit, I did that and I could of done it differently.

In story driven games you spend more time with the characters of the story, and explore the world in greater depth than the time your given in a movie.

Another example of a game I play for Story is Dark Souls, although the gameplay is why I constantly replay it.

The Story and lore of Dark Souls is fascinating, but its not told to the user directly. You have to figure it out by exploring the world and observing the environment, enemies, any information you find. The story of the locations you explore in Dark Souls has already happend, your like a archaeologist trying to piece together whats happend.

When a story in a game is done right, I can loose my self and be more absorbed in the story than in any other media.

Speaking about Uncharted, I do not enjoy a story being told this way, long cut scene followed by climbing and cover shooting, then rinse and repeat. In this instance I'd prefer a movie.

Only in 1 series. MGS. There are no other games/series in which i'll take story over gameplay.

I love games though. I love them to death. But it's because of the gameplay. You know, the thing that actually makes them games. Some of the stories are alright and it is a welcome addition but if you only play them for the stories there are much better mediums with much better stories. I love PacMan for example and don't bother with it's story. Should I quit playing PacMan?

Gameplay will always beat story. That said sometimes it's fun to play something like until dawn also.

Gameplay is way more important to me than story.

Video game stories are not even close to being as good as the stories that I can get from books or my favorite TV shows, so when I want story, I'll turn to movies, TV dramas, and books.

I can count the number of video game stories that I have ever got invested in on just a few of my fingers, but most of the time, too much story in a video game can be a turn off to me since it takes me away from the gameplay which is the reason that I'm playing a game. It's one of the reasons that I was so bored with The Witcher 3... well that and it's bad combat and clumsy movement controls.

You already know about me lol. No fvcks given about story majority of the time. I used to like stories in my games, but over the years I've fully rotated back to how I was when I was a kid, just enjoying video games for the gameplay and not too much more.

Of course gaming can't always be purely mechanical, there are various other aspects of games that can greatly add to the experience. Though personally, story remains at the very bottom of the stack.

Guess I just like my entertainment compartmentalized. When I want to game I want to game, that's that. If I want to enjoy a story, there are far superior avenues for that. It's not even just that video game stories are bad. It's a tug of war between two things that rarely mix well. And it's the game telling me when I'm allowed to interact and when I need to put the controller down and listen to its nonsense.

It'd be some bullshit if I were sitting there invested in some good movie or show and then periodically I need to pick up the controller and play some poorly developed mini-game in order to proceed with what I'm watching. Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? But that's how game story implementation translates for me most of the time.

I think i'm in the transition phase, transition from caring a lot about story to less, tbh the more i watch movies and read novels, the more i see that man videogames are so far behind, and it's the gameplay and interaction parts that should matter more because that's what separates games from movies and novels.

But, as @thehig1 put it, i do love games where i get to choose the fate of the characters, the way that story should evolve, etc. This is good, i mean it feels like you're in control, and that's why i love RPGs because they usually have this feature.

depends.

There's plenty of gameplay in the PS3 Uncharted games. It just so happened there were plenty of cutscenes too. Besides, I treat them as adventure games with action sequences.

I like games ranging from Forza and Demon's Souls to Civilization to XCom to Minecraft to Myst to Day of the Tentacle. I don't give a shit what anyone thinks a game *should* be - if it suits my mood and is well made then I'll give it a go.

Average gameplay + great story >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Great gameplay + average story

That's why the likes of Devil May Cry, Mario and others that rely only on gameplay will never be truly great games.

Gameplay is just the way to experience the story.

lol

Come on now. Troll post? Why not just read or watch a story? The best story tellers are not in video games. Obviously. We all know this. And even you do as well I would assume. But why troll?

Imagine if all these directors were told back in the day: "why make a good story? All you should care is the cinematography, if you want a good story go read a book". Stupid argument.

No. That's what movies/TV is for.

Story is very important, I dont think a game can be a 10/10 without a good story and it can make serviceable gameplay into masterpieces

Talking sense is trolling now? How old is the video games media as we know it? Barely 30 years? You know that filmmaking began in the end of XIX century, right? It took decades to actually make something really great. We already have masterpieces of storytelling in RDR, TW3, TLoU and etc, imagine what we'll get in the future.

Being close minded about the potential of storytelling in games is what i'd call trolling, most mature people wouldn't play games just for the gameplay, it's pointless, you need to add some artistic aspect to it.

In short:

Great gameplay: Mindless fun.

Great story with at least a serviceable gameplay: art.

I'll always go for gameplay over story, but if it has a good story(although that's incredibly rare), then all the better.

@Juub1990:

Thread/Topic title of the year.

I mean reviewers/a lot of people put way too much emphasis on story/character in their opinions on rather a game is good or not.

That's why the PS3/PS4 era has nothing on the NES-PS2 era.

Yes, video games are new and Film is much older. Film has an obvious advantage. So if stories are what you care about go for films and leave video games alone. When video game stories exceed film I will give them their due. Until then, play games for gameplay and view movies for story. If you want a combination then video games are the only choice for that. But to say Average gameplay + great story >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Great gameplay + average story, is to get the video game art form wrong. Why wouldn't "mature" people play games just for the gameplay? I would think "mature" people who want a good story first and foremost would know of better places to look for them than video games.

I never understood why people say games cant do good stories they can, it depends on the person playing and how much they can take in and remember. Hell I love video games stories in say RPGS. Or Uncharted esques type games cause they roll pretty damn well. Plus games can also help with piecing stories together (if you're smart enough to piece stories you find littered around a world)

Both please and I'm not picking one over the other. But if I half to, I want gameplay cause gameplay is the fundamental of video gaming is what playing games is all about.

Gameplay first but whatever the game delivers on is fine by me. Witcher 3 for example combat not so good but I liked the world, the setting, the interactions with npc's, and their side stories. Obviously movie and books have higher standards but that witcher 3 interaction is different.

@Juub1990: I do.

Not necessarily one over the other but i found myself having a great time with a heavily story driven game as much as a more gameplay oriented one.

One of my best games last gen was Walking dead season 1 for example and i would choose that over many "great gameplay" games.

Not disagreeing that the first season of Walking Dead from Telltale isn't solid, the ending is definitely strong, even if the overall season has some noteworthy contrived sequences. But what game? Everything interactive about that game is either mediocre or straight trash. Any action sequence isn't much more than a QTE, or clunky, your dialogue choices don't actually add up to any real differences as most of the main storyline will play out the same regardless, and nothing you do as a player would stop that story from working in any other space.

In fact that game's story being good, is sort of a giant indictment of how bad this medium is at telling a story. That it took basically not being a video game or making the interactive aspects arbitrary at best, to tell a story.

Beyond just being outclassed, they fundamentally can't. For starters video game fail states aren't part of the story, yet they are crucial to what makes a game, a game. Yet we all universally decided "well that's just video game".....you're asking video game logic for the audience that the game didn't happen. That's a massive difference from how the best stories of films n literature works. That's different from how theater works.

Them being enjoyable on a basic level, sure, I think this medium has some fun characters. But at best as a story telling medium, it's been aping other mediums to come close to being okay. It's like the one medium that comes off like it's ashamed of itself.

On one extreme, a medium with only gameplay but without story are represented by most games during the NES and Atari days. On the other end of the spectrum, a medium with only story but with zero gameplay are practically defined as movies. So games and movies are forms of entertainment mediums but what distinguishes one from the other is the level of interactivity.

A game....due to its namesake, should always have more gameplay than story. A game with less gameplay than story is practically an interactive movie. So while i think that gameplay and story are both important in shaping a game masterpiece, the weightage shouldn't be equal. And in my personal opinion, people who prioritize story over gameplay are better off watching a movie than playing a game. That....and those people probably weren't around when games had practically no story. Who played Doom for the story? Despite that, it's still one of the greatest games of its era.

So, going back to the roots of gaming, gameplay is more significant that story. A story is there to accentuate the gaming experience, but not to hijack it entirely

Both would be great but I don't need a story to enjoy a game.

I can forgive a game with a bad story, but good gameplay. I cant say the same for a game with a great story and poor gameplay.

Because good gameplay without a purpose is stupid. And the best games of all time have a great story. A great story doesn't need to be written though, Super Metroid and Souls games have great stories for example. Video games are evolving man, games without great narrative are becoming obsolete, saving the Princess is not enough anymore.

Lol no they don't, they have interesting story telling techniques for their medium, but the actual stories told are simplistic and nothing worth writing home about. Dark Souls has a more interesting lore than it does a story for instance. Ditto Metroid games for that matter.

Super Metroid does not have a great story. It has a great atmosphere. There is only enough story in the entire game for a paragraph. The story is told through the gameplay and that is this mediums strength. Not cut scenes or long winded dialog. Saving the Princess is just fine. Uncharted is not better than Super Mario. It's not even close.

I hope video games improve on how to tell stories. I think the medium is amazing to explore new types of narratives. For example I love how the stories in Journey and Knitt Underground are told. I don't think that kind of narrative is possible on any other storytelling medium (maybe film but not quite). I think gaming has still to find their own ways to tell stories rather than just copying the way other media does it.

Doom, Tetris, Unreal Tournament, Street Fighter, tons of great games, that are every bit as deserving of "the best games ever" do it without a great story to carry the experience.

Another game that I just remembered which told a story in a way only a game could was Braid. I think that along Journey, Braid is also a game that uses the gameplay itself to tell the story. That's quite something I'll say.

Well, you already answered yourself what i was gonna say. This is not a book, the storytelling strategies are specific of the media.

I never said stories need to be told in cutscenes or long winded dialog, although they absolutely can, a game can be good or bad with or without it. No, saving the Princess is not fine, and Uncharted is crap, don't know why you're bringing it up. And yes, Super Metroid have a great story, it has great plot, it has great introduction, it has great development and it has an epic conclusion, a story is what happens between the beginning and the end, how you tell it is the narrative, and Super Metroid is great at both.

This is entirely dependent on the game. The tabletop nerd inside would absolutely prefer a game to perfectly blend the two, and have my gameplay be as much about telling the story as anything else.

However, I know video games aren't at that level, and I'm generally happy with a good story, or solid gameplay, or both. I can enjoy 999 or Planescape or To The Moon as much as I can enjoy Mario or Dark Souls or Doom.

Yeah, but the problem is a technique is just a technique, mildly novel for how it's told, but when you get down to what it told, it didn't tell anything. It's certainly anything nuanced or complicated for that matter, and neither game has anything interesting to say. The plot is still going to matter a ton.

Journey love I at least get, I can get behind that the circle of life symbolism in that game is genuinely earned, and ties nicely with how they tried to convey it with their game.

So you say that the best games of all time have a great story? Okay then, tell me what is the great story in Tetris? Or are you going to try to say that Tetris is not one of the best games of all time?

The story in Super Metroid is mostly told through gameplay. If you want to count gameplay as story than we have no argument. The whole gameplay vs story argument becomes unnecessary. Stories in video games can be told through the actual gameplay and that is how it should be. Still, none of those stories, anyway you choose to look at them, compare to the greatest story telling mediums out there thus far. Games like Tetris that have nothing to do with a story are still great games. I like to stress the "game" part as that is what this medium is supposed to be about. Story can only be a complimenting aspect to a game and if it were to even eclipse the rest of the game it is still done better in it's own medium such as novels or movies. If a story is that great, let's just skip the whole game part and make it into a movie so we won't be bothered with gameplay interrupting our enjoyment of the story.

As a game, its gameplay should come first. Otherwise, why is it a game and not film or literature?

That's not to say I don't play some games for story and story alone. More than a few RPGs I've suffered dull gameplay just to see how the story in it played out. The reason? It's a story that interested me and wasn't available in film or literature.