Whoa! It all got a bit quiet around here for a bit didn’t it? Sorry, I was distracted for a few (okay, more) days. I’m back to my (admittedly superb) best now however, with a piece on the best ™ story-telling method used in gaming. NOTE: Spoilers within (Major Bioshock and minor ones for Doom 3 and Dead Space).
It’s like some kind of reverse evolution. In the long forgotten past of gaming, text based adventures would deliver exposition via characters that would be directly interacting with the character. 3D engines, advanced animation and billion dollar budgets later and my favourite way of receiving story is via audio/video logs that I non-sensically pick up off the ground and plug into my magical PDA.
I don’t know what it is, but something about the atmosphere of this method really takes me. Obviously, certain situations are idyllic for it – mostly survival horror or at least creepy games where there is a logical reason for little or no actual contact with other non-aggressive characters. But even during the introduction to these games, for example Doom 3, it can be brilliant for setting a story.
Who better to tell the history of a location and set the scene than the individuals who inhabit that place, before their untimely internal combustion/devouring/demon possession/decapitation? Hell, other than the magical-PDA problem earlier and the often odd location of the diaries (would anyone actually leave those in their workplace, ever?) it makes a little sense. Future-tech-people would keep audio logs right? If Scrubs has taught me anything, it’s that doctors do it already, without that!
Okay, so where have we seen it? The games that came to mind were Dead Space, Bioshock, the afore-mentioned Doom 3 and the recent acceptably allstar Batman: Arkham Asylum. Each used logs in slightly different ways; all of which I’d like to explore. I’ll start with the most recent: Arkham. The interview tapes that are collectible throughout the game serve no purpose whatsoever other than to provide background on the events at Arkham leading up to the game and information on the super-villains that oppose you. Our other examples often use these logs to provide key-pad codes, directions or other help that is useful in the gameworld – either to continue the plot or simply unlock ammo crates or further asides – Arkham does not.
And that is a good thing. Logs in general are easy to miss. In all games, they are usually small and hidden. This means that the “important” ones can sometimes be overlooked or are forced to be no challenge to find at all. Also, the more action-focused players – who may ignore logs in general, simply out of disinterest – take time out of their playstyle to bore themselves. Even those who do are often forced to relisten to the unskippable parts because they forgot the vital code in the 30 seconds it took them to get to the right place.
Arkham’s other major success is something I have never seen elsewhere and demand that EVERY. SINGLE. DEVELOPER. who is planning this strategy implements right away – if you have “sets” of recordings that tell a story, then no matter which order I pick them up in, they should be in the right order. To hell with realism, I don’t like missing out or spoiling something for myself. I realise this isn’t always plausible; particularly if you need certain logs to say certain things about the room or area they are in, but good lord was I happy when I figured this out.
Alright, let’s move on. Bioshock. Much like System Shock 2 (because I haven’t played it, that’s why it’s not the main focus of this paragraph), Bioshock uses logs as one of its main story-telling mechanics. While the main plot can be distinguished without them, there will be holes and pieces that seemingly don’t make sense. There are times when this is very effective – the puppy-killing phrase reveal is amazingly atmospheric; the log found in a room which tells the story of the player character’s brainwashing as a child and the horrific implications. It’s a work of art.
In other areas, these logs simply tell of the life of Rapture, before and after it’s apocalypse. The politics and the violence. It paints an amazing picture of a world that should have been perfect, but simply wasn’t. There are highlights – police officers talking of torture; the story of the main character’s birth leading to an iconic hallucination; the story of Adam. This was just the right way to tell it – signs would make no sense; video would seem too high tech; actual interaction with characters would ruin half the plot.
Dead Space and Doom’s usage are subtly different. There is more game advice here – Doom 3′s immortal sin of codes-for-doors while Dead Space has the slightly more acceptable “don’t shoot them in the head, morons” – but what they have most in common is horror. Both use their audio logs to enhance the scares, allowing the player to experience events which happened elsewhere or elsewhen.
For Doom 3 this is particularly effective, due to the “normality” of the base before the cataclysmic events that occur. It allows that player to be shown that there was always something not quite right about the goings on of certain individuals – most notably the eventual villain. The base is shown to have always been a little eerie, a little strange; as one might expect for an island of law and order in a sea of airless, red Mars dust. Even the video-logs, which are simply descriptions of the on-goings of the base, have a dark foreboding to them: they’re a little too mechanical, a little too clean.
Both games do one thing perfectly however: That “oh shit” moment. That bit where everything goes to fuck. Dead Space has two – when Isaac himself discovers the infestation, and the “original”, conveyed throughout the opening chapters in logs as Isaac discovers the remains of various crewmen. Both the audio and video that Isaac receives play wonderfully into the “no UI” feel of the game, as all is played out in front of the character via his mini-projection unit. This unsettles and heightens the realism of both game and story.
Doom 3′s is a little different: its one “ah hell” moment really is that, a superb bombardment of light and sound; screams of dying men; the ever popular “THEY’RE COMING THROUGHT HE GOD-DAMN WALLS”; flying skulls burrowing into flesh and demons of all sorts devouring an entire human colony. The logs, rather sadly, not live up to it – there is way, way, waaaaay too much “the new keycode is 9182″ and not nearly enough “OH GOD EVERYONE IS DEAD”. There are exceptions: the one marine lost in Hell, the panicked maintenance crew. The purely radio and log contact is a wonderful way to set the scene for those few characters you do meet. Those that look peaceful and are then suddenly floating head-n-spinal-cords all the more jarring after hours of naught but sound.
So, a salute then, the a happily increasingly popular piece of game design. May it long continue and may it learn from itself.
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So I’ve also been working for GamingDaily.co.uk, hence my long silence. This is a really nice piece of work I think. Plays into my voice acting bit well, and is something nice and positive for once. I have no idea when or what I’m going to write next, so don’t hold you breath.