I believe it is possible to take the highly dynamic nature of strong gameplay (such as the kind in 'Civilization') and create a narrative structure that fits exclusively with how the game is played. A truly dynamic experience where you begin your adventure and all your choices lead to an end that is truly you own. Not like story driven games have done before, where you get a facade of decisions resulting in ending A or B. Instead every ending would be X. An anomaly. 

But how on earth could this be done?!?!? And that question I find so so exciting :)
Because I think it can be done. A game can be designed to have restrictions and rules, and still offer infinite possible endings. An easy example is any arcade game with a score system. When the time runs out, or you run out of lives you have a number tailored exactly to how you performed. A number unique to your experience alone. But, in all cases, like pac man, and geometry wars that is not much of a story to tell. Not by any means an interesting one. "oh i got this many points, because i did etc. etc. to avoid the ghost and get the bonus fruit." In addition the system follows the same rule: get as many points as you can. More points equals better job done. 

So instead, what if a game was designed with a more human aesthetic but still followed the principles of something like geometry wars? You as a character are placed in a world with hundreds of different things that share a relationship with you should you choose to engage them. But instead of glowing pieces of geometry they could be animal or humanoid in nature. Their A.I. could be more than simply 'kill character'. Maybe they're designed to find ways to live. To build houses on their own, hunt others for food etc. And you, in order to survive must interact with these characters. And when the time runs out, or other variables are met (like running out of lives) Your story ends. And the experience becomes  what ever it was you did. 

Maybe your house is attacked by a monster and your family killed and your house burned down.  Now its a story of survival and maybe even revenge. And a story of friendship as you gather other companions to complete the task you can't complete on your own. You do all you need, and one day slay the monster, victory is yours. And in your characters old age, one night in the dead of winter you go to the resting place of your long past family. And then there, reflecting on your quest and trials you die of old age in the snow. Now you, as a player, should have one hell of a story to tell your friends. 

Currently the closest thing the gaming world has to this type of experience is Minecraft and The Sims. but Minecraft lacks the character element needed for good stories. Everything is so geometric and detached from reality its hard to empathize with anything in any meaningful way other than 'i built this structure, and I'm really proud of it. Come see my art!' The structure might be great to look at, but its not a good story. The sims on the other hand, has the human and character element, but lacks the proper conflict or imagination to make compelling stories. 'I grew up, got a job, bought a house, got married, had kids, retired, and then died' Congratulations :P A story, but a pretty boring one. (Fallout 3, and skyrim come close to achieving this because of their sheer vastness, and open ended exploration. But even those don't offer a real 'ending' except for completing a main quest line, which has the same issues mentioned earlier. A pre-structured beginning, middle, and end.)

If there could instead be some sort of melding of the 2 games, mincraft and the sims, set in a universe of say.... such as Dark Souls for example. I think this type of story telling approach would be the start of something very awesome. 'You are thrown into a hostile medieval horror world. The map and its inhabitants are randomized and will react to what you do. Initially you just want to survive for as long as you can. And in your fight for survival you find certain items to be particularly helpful. So you quest to find them. And maybe in your journey you form bonds with the npcs, or maybe even other online players and when they need help, you choose to help them. Or you don't. The choice is yours. 

The entire world you play in would be yours. And the story? The story is most certainly yours. This is what games can do, that movies and books cannot: Provide a way to not only see and hear the impossible, but also become apart of it. :)

The first suspicion that maybe story telling in games isn't perfect is how weak the 2 components feel when separated from one another. Usually when any game is stripped down to the story telling alone, it doesn't stand quite as tall. Maybe this is why there has never been a great movie adaption of a game. If the story is so great does it need the gameplay? It seems most games DO need the gameplay. Hardly any game cutscene has ever provided me with a catharsis as powerful as those I've received from watching my favorite movies. But, when a game reacts to the choices I make? The feeling can be incredibly powerful. 

So I argue, the stories in games aren't actually that good (necessarily). It's because we have some control over how fast or far the story progresses, because we interact in a game, we feel something greater. A new emotional attachment is created. This feeling of interacting with something and the amount of attention that is required to do so, over compensates for how mediocre a game story might be if all you could do was watch. Frankly, if Zelda: Ocarina of time was strictly a movie, it would probably suck. A lot. Have you seen those Zelda cartoons from the 80s? Exactly. In order for it to be a good movie so many things would have to be done differently than they were in the game. Like the graphics for example. I'm not sure how many people would pay to see 2 hours of 64 bit characters interacting with one another in the form of text blocks. 

Or on the flip side: a game story is so good on its own, the gameplay sections just get in the way. I had this experience during GTA 4. I can only shoot so many people before I get bored, but the narrative was so strong I trudged through them any way. And the parts of gameplay in GTA I did enjoy had nothing to do with the narrative at all. They made this grand play ground of NYC to drive around in where I could simply run over pedestrians, hire hookers, and blow up law enforcement. And roaming freely felt fun because of how dynamic it was. Yet, the missions themselves are these very structured set pieces. (which can be fun in their own right, but i digress). So really, even GTA the father of open world games was just two experiences taped together. A sandbox when you wanted, or a movie with gameplay sprinkled in between.  

So this is where our new found medium for story telling becomes so tricky. Is it possible to truly fuse the interactive aspect of game with the story telling parts, and still be able to tell a good narrative? Or any narrative at all? Now surely games have taken steps to try. Even GTA 4, (like many others before it) have tried to implement some sense of choice/interaction in the story itself. In GTA 4 it was done by giving you optional characters to kill. Having to choose between who lives and dies were very engaging parts of that game. And this is one step above a movie; being faced with multiple ending options to your story, based on your choices. But so far it seems this is the closest we've really come to making a game story truly an interactive experience. A game, with a linear movie taped together, with a few key moments that make the difference between seeing ending A or B. Or maybe even C or D if we are lucky. But its always finite. Fallout 3, and Fable probably being the best examples for this. You have options, and some consequences but even with the multiple outcomes, it is'nt much better than a 'choose your own adventure book'. Which can be fun to read, but I believe games have so much more potential. 

Since the beginning of humanity people have loved telling stories. And we especially have loved hearing them. Through the ages story telling has evolved from campfire epics to world selling best novels. Eventually the verbal and written mediums added movies to the mix, which made it possible for us to sit down and literally watch the impossible unfold before us. And these different forms of storytelling have been experimented with and perfected through the years to give us moments that  tap into our very souls and draw out our deepest cares and emotions.

And now we've reached a new cross roads. One where a story can be presented in such a way that you can not only hear it, read it, and see it; you can interact with it. With video games, a story teller has the power to GIVE the power away to the reader. But how often is this successful? Video games have been around for several decades and are only growing in popularity with each passing day. Surely we've all heard people say how much they loved a game for the story it told. Even the critics have praised certain games for this reason. Series like Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto, Fallout 3, Uncharted, Zelda, Final Fantasy. The list goes on and on.

But is the art of story telling in video games really perfected? or is it barely being scratched at? Does our predetermined notion on what a good story is hold us back from turning the interactive experience into something beyond what we see today? Because currently, it seems the best way for a game to tell a story, is to chop up two experiences and staple them into one. A movie and a game diced up into separate pieces and then taped all together as on entity. Watch cutscene. Play some game. Que another cutscene, play some more game, follow this path. Etc. Follow a pre set structure so you experience exactly what the developer wants you to.

And of course this can be great. Some great games have been made with great stories following this structure. But games can be something more....

Movies and Books in all their glory have created a social criteria for what a good story is. And more than often, when video games try to create a story, we see that story structured around the same guidelines. More importantly, the critics have already established their own criteria for what good video game story telling is. So is it possible the games that tell stories in a way only games can, get criticized and punished instead of built upon? And at the same time, do games that mimic the traditional conventions of story telling get praised and rewarded when maybe they shouldn't?

I don't know a simple answer. At least I can't give a reliable one with out a proper explanation. Even I cant deny the enjoyment of a game because of its great story (Metro 2033 being a new personal favorite.) But because one method is the right way, or because one method works, it doesn't mean its the only method that works.