For a little while now, instead of hoarding news stuff in my RSS feed, I've been indulging in less urgent, less disposable, and [hopefully] more thoughtful entries from a good number of sites and blogs.

This opinion piece by Christian Nutt at GameSetWatch approaches the subject of believability (is there such a word anyway?) in both videogame characters, and how this can yield believable game worlds as a result. Careful, some spoilers on GoWIII's ending are in there.

GameSetWatch said:

His response: "I know, right? Partly because so few games are set in a recognizable present." I don't think that's the problem, precisely, though it certainly doesn't help. 

My response was, "So few have characters that you can even imagine having any sort of meaningful inner life."

That's it. While it would be nice to have more believable gay characters in games, it would be even nicer to have more believable characters in games -- period.

But I think there's an important, rarely-considered reason for this. Believable characters make what they inhabit believable. In fact, I'd argue that having believable characters would strengthen games on every front: it would not just make their stories more enjoyable, which is obvious; it would make games more engaging to play, and make their worlds more meaningful and more exciting to explore.

There's talk in there about more games, such as FFVII, Heavy Rain, and surprisingly, Nier, which apparently succeeds in establishing an inviting and involving gameworld/characters despite its conventional and lackluster approach to design. 

GameSetWatch said:

A lot of critics and developers think we should be pushing narrative in games because narrative helps bring us closer to a vaguely defined goal -- of making games art. Schiesel argues that this is, in fact, the outcome with Nier. But my argument is simpler: pursuing meaningful characterization will simply help bring us closer to the goal of making our worlds -- our games. And if it happens that we accidentally make art in the process, well, it's serendipity. 

Looking forward to your thoughts on this subject.

Foolz said:

In before Iga's:

Define art or get the fuck out with this useless discussion

 fixed that

The rest of the article has some good points, but in my opinion is a bit too bloated. 

I just finished playing two games with ridiculously high production values, Mirror's Edge, which has a story that could be written, and only could be enjoyed by, a sock puppet.  It did not decrease the level of enjoyment I derived from the game.  

The other game, Yakuza 3, submerges you into a present day world so much so that when the story kicks in you feel like you are personally invested in the outcome.  This has been the case in all the Yakuza games -- you feel like you are a part of the world, and so whatever happens takes on more meaning.

Another game I just started, Dead Space Extraction, has a decent sci-fi story, and since it is on-rails, the producers are able to tell the story exactly as they wish (as in film).  So the mediocre story seems better because of the total control the creators were enabled from the guided experience.

So all in all, story can help games, but in certain games it's just not required, like the porn comparison, some films really need stories (18th century romantic set pieces), others don't (Bruckheimer).

Mekere said:

And if you don't wear a bra when your breasts are larger than your head, it hurts

You've made my day brighter, and made me a happier man. And it's not entirely because of the breasts.

You just mentioned something that I've wanted to talk about for a while now.  Just let me fix a thread for it.