Gaming's two biggest obstacles when telling a story

Can't disagree with your post. I tend to be much more lenient with the medium and its shortcomings, and when I say I'm lenient I mean I'll put up with the garbage to play the game.

I am keen to see how the industry continues to evolve in its storytelling.

@ConanTheStoner: nah , it was a rushed one. That being said games with a few exaggerated aspects are cool and can still be deemed realistic.

Because even the most realistic games have aspects that just as fake.

I mean, the easy answer is make different types of games.

Or realize what you're making and treat it accordingly. People in this thread comparing Uncharted to Die Hard is funny because Uncharted tries SO HARD to be important. I mean, Jesus, Lazarovic actually pulls the "We're not so different, you and I shit" at the end of Uncharted 2 COMPLETELY SERIOUSLY. I about died laughing at the lack of self-awareness. Die Hard knows exactly what it is and pretty much never takes itself seriously.

"Now I have a machine gun, ho ho ho."

@DarkLink77:

Those games you mentioned don't all have conflict in them. And even point and clicks have had violence before. i.e. Walking Dead, Minecraft Story Mode, Wolf Among Us, Beyond Two Souls, Dead By Dawn, you get the picture.

So no, it's actually very true and I was only talking about games involving conflict and violence is a natural result of conflict.

That was easily the biggest fail of the Sony conference to me. And now this "its the same Kratos, just he traveled to Scandinavia"? He was a son of Zeus, a Greek God, basically gave everything to give the world hope at the end of GoW3. It was a sacrificial, heroic ending. Leave it there. Just start the New GoW in Norse with a new Protagonist. Don't get me started on the gameplay shown. As a fan of GoW, my heart broke.

I agree.

Taking one of your examples (Uncharted) I love the game because its gameplay IS literally Indiana Jones meets Rambo turned up to 11; AND I also love the story around the characters and how it's told (with the exception of 4 and parts of 3, it tends to be simple, light and more or less compact). That said, the two don't quite match at points. While I can let myself go and just enjoy it for what it is, it's not hard to see why it "shocks" people per say. On one hand the story is trying to paint all characters as simple human beings, be they evil or good, but on the other "HOLY SHIT, I JUST SURVIVED A GOD DAMN TRAIN WRECK WHILE KILLING AN ENTIRE BATALLION!!". So yeah... something doesn't quite gel there.

TLOU, I feel, is probably one of the better examples (though it does have its flaws) on to properly merge the two. As far as games actively trying to tell you a story and also having some sort of active gameplay go. I might be slightly biased here >.>

Though, I think you're being quite harsh with RPG's. Not all of course, but plenty of RPGS tell their stories through lore (which can be passive or active), quests/sidequests where characters actively tell you in with the info required (through passive conversation or some sort of speech system) or through environmental design (my favourite kind). Add to it that it's quite common to have gameplay mechanics (usually centered on the main character) that are essential to the story/adventure/world the devs are trying to create. Of course some work terribly, but that's just how it is. Some will always be great, many more will be terrible or mediocre, at best. In any case, when all of these work together in a decent-good way, they manage to immerse the player in the game, it's story and it's characters like few other genres manage to.

Granted, having 40h-50h to tell a story + some other 40h-50h to add details (sidequests) and having (sometimes) the players decisions and choices make a real impact in the game makes the job a lot easier, but the point is that RPG's have been managing to merge the two just fine for quite a while.

We can argue on the merits and qualities of said stories of course, but that's a different conversation I feel.

PS: Super Metroid sucks. Fight me.

I'm glad you like arguing for the sake of arguing, but at this point you've to actually accept a point or make one in return. Uncharted is fun, I like 2 plenty, but it's story is absolutely worthy of scrutiny. As big dumb action? Sure, it's a lot of fun. As some treasure of story telling in gaming? It's not that, because it's actually a pretty dumb story.

I don't know why you're hung up on the Metroid thing, when it's painfully obvious I don't play Metroid, shit I don't tolerate Uncharted for its story half the time, sport. Now you're just being whiney about defending Uncharted, a lot of games of its ilk are actually really poor in the story telling department. Gears is wall to wall terrible, Tomb Raider is Uncharted's flaws on crack, Half Life is tripe.

The only praise I would give Metroid in terms of story telling, is that it's narrative is a lot better tied to its systems. It's rarely if ever dependent on a cutscene the way Uncharted is, lore in the prime games is handled through scanning an alien planet to sell the notion that Samus is isolated and on her own. And that's done through systems, not some dialogue. Uncharted's story is average dude discovers the perils of greed, the gameplay is average dude kills 1000 dudes. The story actually isn't expressed through gameplay in any real way.

In contrast, The Last of Us does that stuff better.

Absolutely. That's why I enjoyed The Last of Us as much as I did because everything, from the killing to the gameplay to the... well, everything worked thematically and within the rules of the universe. It took itself seriously because the conceit was serious.

And my biggest problems with the games taking themselves too seriously? They get so bland. champ said it earlier: all tired tropes that in any respectable movie or book would be criticized to no end, but because we're video games... well, because Uncharted is a video game, I truly felt the struggle in Nate's heart about being just like Lazarovic when that quote happened. It tore me apart and I had to put the control down for a moment. As a player, I had a real dilemma about whether to continue playing or not.

@Zassimick: Holy crap, you went and made it better lolol

*the sig I mean XD

Those games absolutely do have conflict. Conflict is as simple as a character wants something and there's something in the way of that desire. There's conflict in Papers, Please. It's just not violent.

And sure, you can have violent adventure games but they don't have to be. Plenty of non-violent adventure games exist.

Games can have conflict without being violent. Good God.

@jg4xchamp:

And I don't know where you got the idea that Uncharted is known mainly for storytelling. I get the cliches and we all see them everywhere. It just feels like we're not even talking about the same things which boggles me. I can even overlook your obvious superiority complex but I honestly believe that you're just over thinking all of your points. For one thing, Metroid 2D hardly had any narrative in the first place, on the exception of Metroid Fusion.

You seem to think that these developers have some ulterior motive where they're trying to add something that's not there. If a game has a story, what do you gain from dissecting it? You don't like it but for some reason, you feel like you gotta point "flaws" that are simply just game mechanics.

The only real difference between Uncharted and Last of Us is just in the style of gameplay. The fact that you can enjoy a slower Uncharted is beyond me. They're both point A to point B, both have you killing people along the way and just slap cutscenes between levels. Or maybe you just like zombie games more.

Pretty much.

It's not even that the tropes are tired. Tired tropes still work if they're presented well. It's that the developers don't know that the tropes are tired, and the people that are critiquing and playing these games don't know it either because they don't read books, watch interesting movies, or go to the theater, so they act like it's the most original thing ever, and most of the time, the execution sucks. Gaming is the most insular hobby in the world. Gamers whine about how it should be taken seriously, but the second someone brings a serious critique to a game it's "Keep that politically correct crap out of my games," or "It's just a game, dude. Don't take it so seriously," or "Well, you just hate fun. Do you even play video games?"

It's laughable.

Your sophistry is noted, we can agree to disagree. Because the point, went way the **** over your head.

All good man, I'm kinda rushing posts together too, a bit busy here lol. I only asked because of the Batman bit.

Like Champ said, Uncharted was just an example. I'd even say it's a poster boy of an example. But truth be told there are countless games with the same degree of disconnect between story and play.

I don't expect my games to be realistic, I don't even want them to be. Touches of realism can be nice, but that's not what I play games for. I expect the stories and the gameplay to be far-removed from reality.

But at a certain point the disconnect can be pretty jarring and I do believe the Uncharted games are a good example of that. The kind of story they're telling, and more noticeably, the main player character that they're developing, flies right in the face of the moment to moment gameplay. It just doesn't add up.

Nathan Drake is the kind of guy you'd go have a beer with, maybe chat about some sports, maybe let him and Elena babysit for you while you go out with your lady for the evening. Yet he can shoot a few dozen dudes in the face every couple of hours, pull off death defying acrobatic feats, then be back to cracking corny jokes like a wise ass in the next scene.

Even when you look at a much more silly and over the top franchise like MGS, you don't get that kind of disconnect. Solid Snake and Big Boss are both supposed to be stone cold trained operatives. Killing is part of their job. Yet they're bothered by those experiences even if (canonically speaking) they're only killing the boss characters. It takes its toll on them.

It's just one of those things that becomes more apparent as video game fidelity and presentation becomes far more sophisticated. Back in the day all of these things were abstractions. Now we see these well rendered characters with fleshed out stories and it just comes off as odd when what you see in the story part is so far disconnected from their in-game actions.

Again, this isn't hating on Uncharted, it just happens to be a good example of what many other games are also doing. Story telling in this medium has a long ways to go in many different facets, but the disconnect between exposition and gameplay is a big one.

Uncharted's characterization and moment to moment writing is fun, when it's a bit more light hearted it's rad, it's when they went for the feels you just look at it and go "lol bitch are you serious?", I don't understand how a one sentence throwaway at Uncharted turned into Champ hates Uncharted, but my paragraph calling out Red Dead for its bullshit is like, eh, whatever lol.

Like the shoehorned storylines?

killered3 said:

If a game has a story, what do you gain from dissecting it?

Just that feeling of righteous justification.

killered3 said:

If you like that then you don't like it but for some reason, you feel like you gotta point "flaws" that are simply just game mechanics.

So the incongruent story is necessitated by the gameplay?

Are you stealth trolling the Naughty Gods right now?

I'm with you 100%. I figured it went without saying about execution and all that. :P

I've had this like two days after you made the image for me! I can't believe this is the first time you've seen it LOL

I'm sticking with this one for quite a while. It's a work of art. :P

You can't be serious. Series certainly isn't known for its groundbreaking shooting mechanics or its linear "parkour" elements, that's for sure. Only thing the series has is its presentation as an interactive action flick. And with it comes the story. Which isn't great. It's cheese at best.

Fusion had more, sure. But Super had some as well. It was just relegated to the opening text crawl and a few "cutscenes" at the very end of the game. But that's all the game needed to establish an atmosphere. And given what Metroid is, it works to much greater effect than a full blown spoon-fed narrative. See: Other M.

Wait. You called out Red Dead for something?

I've always said that #2 is the reason video games stories will never, ever be any good.

@Zassimick: I noticed you had made it your sig, but I didn't notice you that you actually turned it into an animated gif haha XD

It's gorgeous, isn't it? :P

@jg4xchamp:

Agree to disagree, yes. I just heavily dislike people who talk as though they are better than others and feel like their opinion should matter more. ?

Yeah, well, it's video games. You should never deny an opportunity to talk about how shitty the writing is 99% of the time.

I'm pretty sure Drake kills a security guard in UC2.

Emergent narratives are stories that are not authored by a single person or by any person really. They are stories that emerge from the interaction between players and the systems that govern gameplay.

“[T]hat’s where gaming’s strength lies, not as storyteller but as story generator… Only when games accept that unique strength, take pride in it, and stop borrowing the clothes of others, will they truly achieve their potential as the only truly new creative medium of the last 100 years.” (‘Systems Vs. Stories’, Eurogamer, 22 June 2013)

What developers should look into is "emergent storytelling." It is a big factor why gamers continue to play MMOs, STarcraft 2, Dota 2, etc. not just the competitive play aspect.

Uncharted was a bad example champ, it's just bad. That is if you are going to talk about seriously moving the industry to better storytelling, and it's not for the reasons listed in this thread, it's just Uncharted stories are not serious, it's supposed to be a fun summer flick type of game that doesn't need critical thinking.

The whole Nathan Drake is a mass murderer thing is laughable to be honest, the first guy who made this connection is a psycho lol

I bet of 99.9% of people who finished the games, that thought haven't even crossed their minds after they have walked away from playing the game. And the people who made the game never ever wanted this thought to be the message Uncharted delivers like ever, that is never the meaning of Uncharted games.

The guys who crossed their minds and thought of it that way tho? the 0.01% ? high af.

I understand the "supposed" flaw of the story synchronization with the gameplay mechanics and that it should be one rule but Uncharted is not a game to mention in this type of discussion/narrative you going for, not even implying you should edit the post, it's good when you make mistakes champ lol.

I mean if we are really going to go to the game's set of rules...etc, If we're going to add the artificiality of the game then Nathan Drake needs a lot of explaining to do. Why stop at killing? how about the many times he dies in the game then magically comes back to life to continue ? Nathan Drake confirmed immortal! how about the ridiculous amount of hulk strength he has? him and every partner goes with him they climb mountains without breaking a sweat! The amount of total destruction...etc.

These things are never going away, these are exaggerations and few games actually address the situation since the setting and story are completely different it's justifiable and they can get creative, for instance, a dark fantasy like the Souls series actually explains the dying part of the game mechanics but you can't do that in a modern setting based game on real events like a COD, Uncharted or MGS....etc.

Games need some kind of fantasy/sci-fi setting to explain things better in the world to be free with their mechanics/systems OR they have to go the crappy route to minimize stuff to the point developers questions if the mechanic/system even needs to exist in their game? I mean lets go back to Uncharted again, if they minimize it to like total shootouts are 3 or 4 and you kill like 15 to 30 max, is it really worth it to even consider pouring resources to shooting mechanics? they would scrap it all together and the game becomes barebones only climbing, puzzles and adventure just to keep the story and characters more believable through mechanics.

Side-note. Just think of how difficult it is to tell a good story from the perspective of one person. Several genres have you 'become' the main protagonist and if you don't want to cut away from gameplay and harm the immersion you will need to tell the story from his or her perspective alone.

The movie 'Hardcore Henry' is a good example of an effort of trying to tell a story through the eyes of one person in a movie. And I wouldn't say the storyline is the best aspect of that movie but it's an accomplishment in itself that it manages to convey a story at all given the extreme limitations it places on how the story 'has' to be told. They don't cut to different places where the protagonist is not, they don't show anything waiting on the protagonist's path, they can't tell you what anyone in the story is doing at any time if the protagonist doesn't directly know that, too. So you suddenly have to think about how to build up anticipation, how to build up tension, how to explain what is going on and why a person is suddenly somewhere else and what happened to that person while 'you' weren't there. It's so much easier to know what is going on when you are placed on the sideline like in a normal movie.

I find the differences fascinating. When you are 'in' a story, that changes a lot.

@jg4xchamp: I thought you were jethrovegas :O

I've thought about this too:

In a book you start with the first letter and end with "the end". In a movie you start at the 0min mark and at end minute mark 113. It's straight forward. You have no choice in how you follow the story. It's told in a straightforward way. There is zero interactivity. You have no effect on the outcome, or how the story is told.

Games are totally different. How one player plays a game chances a lot from how another player plays the game.

Open world games are a prime example: someone might play Skyrim campaign from beginning to end and just follow the story, and someone might just get lost in the world, not doing any quests even, just fighting random sh1t and have a completely different story.

I've said this a lot and I will say this again: I love how Dishonored told it's story. If you go through it multiple times you actually see that you do have an effect on people around you, how people's fate ends.... Stuff like that. it's something to me a book or movie can't do. I know people think Dishonored's story is simplistic, and I understand the faults in a way. But I loved what Dishonored tried to ACHIEVE.

To try something different with game story's.

A game is your own personal story. So it's cool if people react to how you look in game (like at the start of Saints Row 2). It would be cool if they remark how beautiful or ugly or fat you look because that is how you made your character, your story. The story should be tailored to you.

So linear stories don't work.... they only do in walking simulators.

I think game stories have a lot of evolution to do before they ever get anywhere. Maybe in a hundred years we'll have developed something that is unlike movies, unlike books, unlike traditional storytelling.

And it kind of already is :P

@jg4xchamp: pretty much exactly my point. The connection we make ourselves with games will always be the most grand experience we can have with the medium. Your 2v2 rocket league "narrative" isn't really all that silly when you consider the raw heights the experience provided from start to finish.

Where as with the Witcher youre presented with his experiences and are asked to enjoy being the bitch who rides sidecar.

My guess is that in this money industry, the fictional character, hero/villain etc, is more lucrative and easy to put on a shirt, make a toy out of or simply brand as the franchise than it is to celebrate how f***ing amazing this hobby can be when the emphasis is placed on the player.

1. I pretty much just agree with. That is the challenge.

2. This is the point where I feel people let their brains get the better of them. Of course if you analyze Red Dead and think of the 500+ Marston killed as part of the story it's ridiculous. However to me at least the action sequences and the rest of the story are kind of seperated in my mind. The action sequences just signifies: "Marston did a lot of bad stuff and it was a wild ride". I don't take them "literally". Enemies in games are not full fleshed people, they are just moles you need to whack. So all the killing doesn't really affect Marston's character that much to me (same with Nathan Drake). This is true for some action movies too btw.

I understand that logically this doesn't make any sense, but I'm thankful I feel this way as it allows me to enjoy game stories more.

The ways to solve these problems are all bad imo. Either you have to go with non-human enemies (like zombies). It can be fine for some games, but I don't want ALL games to be about zombies. Or you have to significantly limit the people you kill. But would RDR honestly be more fun if Marston killed just one dude? Or you have to make games that have completely different themes and mechanics. Why would I want that? I love shooting and melee in games.

TL;DR: Things are fine the way they are, turn off your brain and enjoy the ride.

bethesda does this quite well imo

Story in games ... we either have crap gameplay with an exciting action and clever dialogue but poor overall story or we have very crappy story with exceptionnal gameplay.

Uncharted, The Last Of Us, God Of War, The Walking Dead etc all have cool exciting action and sometimes clever dialogue but the overall story is quite meh to ok.

Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Super Mario etc : very poor story telling, you have to dig to find a glimps of story if there is one but the gameplay is there, those game also command a replay unlike the other category.

then you have RPG with a deeper story, often convoluted and the gameplay is hit or miss as it is mostly passive until you have to fight (think JRPG )

At this rate I have little faith that those obstacles will be overcome, and a lot of it has to do with how a lot of these games are approached.

For some reason, we like to believe ranking up a high kill count is somehow synoymous with story/character progression, which is an attitude that needs to be eradicated before video games can be used as a platform to create some genuinely compelling stories. Fundamentally this medium has the potential to be the ultimate narrative device almost solely due to the fact that you are given agency, allowing for more effective first-hand revelations and experiences.

But more often than not, gamers tend to be "bored" by slower moments in games, where it takes a break from the action and uses the gameplay mainly to further progress the character or story at hand. A good example of this would be the last few missions of Red Dead Redemption where you're back on the Marston farm and doing rather menial activities prior to the grand finale. I remember seeing a lot of people complain about that portion due to a lack of action, despite how it builds up the Marston family dynamic in rather efficient time which greatly contributes to the ending.

There are many ways to create stories of conflict without having them resort to violence. To this day, gamers fail to wrap their head around that notion, and it's things like this which stunts the medium's maturity.

Some genres are better for stories than others. RPGs are capable of telling much more complex and interesting stories than action games until now for example. I think storytelling outside of the rpg genre has only been considered important until recently so it will start developing faster now. We already have some nice and interesting examples, say Braid, Heavy Rain or even Journey with its minimalistic but eloquent way to engage you into a narrative, that overall combine storytelling and gameplay nicely. I think we're only seeing the beginning of a major revolution in storytelling and games and the more developers think of storytelling as important they'll start investing more in writers. It's a quite exciting future if you ask me.

Oh god not this tired crap again, "I'm so much better and smarter because I find no game ever has had a decent story, blah blah blah". That line of bs is beyond old and tiresome and not even close to being anywhere near truth or fact.

@Sushiglutton: Agreed.

I think it has been proven many times over now that games are fine medium for storytelling. Games like Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic have a more "tell the story the way you want to vibe" and that's where gaming shines where movies cannot.

Games today (especially Japanese games) seem to take the easy way out and tell/show you the story, rather than letting you create it through interaction with the game. I actually think many games in past gens were better at "story telling" than games today.

I'm playing Digimon Cyber Sluth atm and that game can't seem to get out of its own way having way to many crappy dialog scenes subbed with characters that all have very short and generic animations. This game while new, is worse than a PS2 game in every way other than graphics, imho. That's just one example.

I see nothing wrong with people complaining about slower moments in video games. I'm definitely not against taking a break from violence in games, but putting the brakes on the action can potentially lead to problems with poor pacing and disconnecting the player from the experience. The ending portions of Red Dead are dramatically different from most of the game. They end up feeling rather forced in a game that is mostly action focused. If Red Dead did a better job of balancing its action and slower paced moments, then I would be much more accepting of the games final couple hours. As it is, it feels much more alien and simply reminded me that I was playing a video game.

I agree that more games need to take a break more often. However, when 90% of a game relies on one core gameplay mechanic (In Red Dead's case, cover-based shooting), it feels odd being away from it for so long.

The Last of Us.

The End.

When its in the name of FREEDOM it's justified and should be commended. Nate deserves the medal of valor.

@Heil68: even the lowely security guards at the auction? :( poor guys just working a double shift gets cut down by everyone's favorite freedom fighter.

Okay, so, I actually read through that entire thing, and here's the cliffnotes version of my take on it (I had a longer response ready, got a CSRF token error, so f*ck it now):

• Most video game stories suck: Okay, I take issue with this. I don't necessarily think games tell worse stories than other media, inasmuch as I think core game stories can often be pretty good for their genre (for instance, Steins;Gate is one of the best time travel stories I have had the pleasure of experiencing, and I would argue that The Last of Us is a better treatment of the zombie apocalypse trope than The Walking Dead or World War Z). The storytelling in videogames is whatever, bad most of the times, but nunexpectedly good at other times- it's the writing that I think is the issue. All the games that are lauded for their writing, like Bioshock, Uncharted, and, heaven help me, David Cage games? Terrible to maybe average writing on an objective standard at best. Good for video games, yes, definitely (although David Cage fails to clear even that already very lowered bar), but on an objective scale, judged against the best written book or movie or TV show? Lol, f*ck off with that shit. If someone comes here and tells me that The Last of Us is as well written as Breaking Bad or The Godfather or A Tale of Two Cities, then I know whom to never listen to on anything going forward.
• Gaming is not an organic storytelling medium: Disagreed, again. Gaming can be used to tell great and powerful stories very effectively, but the problem is, most people are not interested in doing that, they're more interested in being knock off movies than in really exploring the potential of the medium for storytelling. As long as storytelling in games continues to be treated separate from the actual game part, this is a problem that will continue to persist, which brings me to my next point
• The gameplay working with the story: Those games that can do this are flat out, without exception, the best at telling stories in the medium. Look at The Witness, Shadow of the Colossus, Super Metroid, Metroid Prime, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, just off the top of my head- these are games where the gameplay is the story, that's why they are so effective at telling stories. Playing the game naturally is a part of uncovering the game's story, which is the only effectual and meaningful way that a game can tell a story while also utilizing the strengths of the medium. Otherwise, we end up with what you point out in the OP: ludonarrative dissonance, and the sometimes hilarious attempts made by games to get around that (best example, Batman: Arkham Knight, that literally a) clears Gotham of all civilians, b) makes most enemies you encounter on the road unmanned drones, and c) adds this weird ass electric cushioning to the Batmobile for the few human enemies you may encounter during the game, just to somehow make the entire open world game mechanic work with the 'Batman does not kill' rule. The story justifications are all fucking ridiculous).
  As long as games keep trying to be movies or comics or whatever, we aren't getting anywhere with storytelling in this medium, the good thing is, we have some instances of actual powerful storytelling in games that could only be done in this medium- and that is the kind of storytelling I want to see games attempt going forward. It's one of the reasons I am as excited for Breath of the Wild as I am, because Nintendo have claimed they are going for that kind of storytelling. From the makers of Metroid, I have high hopes that they will be able to pull something like that off.

Is a terrible example.

Good points. I think it's important to recognize the limitations of each medium so that each can stand with confidence on their own 2 feet.

I'm reminded of one of the best games I ever played last gen, Dragon Age Originis. I loved the story and lore, the 6 different origins was a fantastic idea and each gave you a different perspective. However, despite there being a very strong narrative overall, the dialogue/choice system was done in a way that I felt I had some say in the overall plot. I felt like many of the choices I made had an impact on the cutscenes and the fate of the characters.

It wasn't perfect, nor was MAss Effect, but the suspension of disbelief was there for me and it was a memorable experience. It was one of the first games I'd played that had choices like that so that helped a lot. Now it's alot more common. To me, those are the best examples of how games and movies can be married together: have strong gameplay and a game that is fun to play(action/rpg elements) and allow the player to shape the way the story and cutscenes play out. It's tough to do right, but as some games have shown it can be quite fullfulling when it is.

I agree, which is why I applaud games that manage to tell a story in a way that other mediums can't.

Best example is Majora's Mask. Everything about the story are interwoven into the same cloth. IE you learn about the characters and world through the quests but the quests also provide the gameplay.

I've also found that a more episodic approach tends to work pretty well. Something that instantly leaps to mind is Okami, which presents you with constantly new scenarios that tie in to the overall plot. That way each separate story is well paced and ties into the gameplay but it still manages to tell a fairly traditional story very well.

Collateral damage

I've been playing though Life is Strange (just finished episode 4 last night). I've been enjoying it greatly and wouldn't mind more game following in that game's footsteps.

After I'm done with LiS I did get Wolf Among us free with GwG a while ago, so I'll check that out next and see how that goes.

@charizard1605: Not really.

It absolutely is