The golden age of gaming? I hope your not refering to things like Mario Brothers, or better yet Space Invaders. Plot is actually a reasonably new thing in the gaming world. I greatly enjoyed Half-Life. Mostly because it kept me wondering where the story was going. The run around and shoot stuf part was a secondary aspect.

Just to keep you from feeling outdated - I am 25. My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20. Hooked it to my TV!

I have no clue why exactly Half-Life was popular, as I didn''t get it until it was already popular and then only as a result of looking at the demo. But I can say that, had the game lived up to the demo I would be singing it''s praises to this day. I had so wanted to pop that CD in and find an playable story with that much detail throughout -- instead I got the weakest hint of a plot and a bunch of abstract puzzles (unlike the perfectly integrated situations used for puzzles in the demo). The demo shows what is possible with the engine and enough forethought, and what Half-Life could have (should have) been.

However, the engine is also quite specialized and difficult to access by comparison to the alternatives available to developers looking to license. Therefore it''s no longer on my hard drive and I rarely even glance at the box.

On "story" in games. This has been a subject of many articles on game design and theory. Certainly Pong didn''t have a story. But the rudiments of story have been part of popular arcade/computer games going way back... Space Invaders perhaps seems more satisfying than Breakout because it is possible, by stretching the imagination, to get into the "defending Earth from wave after wave of UFOs" when breaking down a wall, though essentially the same task, is more difficult to get excited about.

As games advanced this line of thought seemed to gain popularity: developers worked harder to help the player identify with game tasks or made rewards less abstract. Pac Man got married and had Pac Babies. Text adventures gained popularity on story alone and thus became graphical adventures, ushering in a huge movement in games on the PC.

But nobody could deny the popularity of the purely abstract, either. Tetris, PipeDreams and other puzzles sold record volumes. Therein is the split. Story elements aren''t neccessary to compete, even in a glorious world of 16-colour graphics, after all.

Watching all that from the sidelines, I have come to my own conclusion about what "I" like. And I feel that this is what all developers should do -- gamble that there are others who like what you like. And pursue that.

Fun is good. Fun sells.

Tetris was fun. Every game that did well was fun. If a game isn''t fun, it becomes a chore, doesn''t it? Let''s elaborate:

Tetris: Reflexes, speed, situational-planning. You always had to be one step ahead.

Now that is fun. Seeing how many times you can press space-bar isn''t fun, however. It requires no skill. There is no thought. The player isn''t immersed in the experience.

Trying to escape from a collapsing science lab, with chaos all around, complete with two races and many teams, with no idea where you''re going to end up, just the knowledge that you must run, on the brink of death, is fun. It takes the player to a world he could never be in. Allows him to do things he could never do. This is fun.

Running around an empty level isn''t fun.

Do you see where I''m going here?

The_Minister
1C3-D3M0N Interactive

I enjoyed half life emmensely the first time i played because of the way the story was presented to the player. you aren''t made to watch some cutscenes of action taking place in some lost part of the game world. everything the character sees, the player sees, and no more. the game is revealed by playing the game. the experience of the player very much mirrors that of freeman; neither knows exactly what is going on or where it is going, but what must be done in the imediate future. the tension kept the pace going.

the second and subsequent times throw the game, it became less fun and more a chore, siince i knew where to go and what to do. and i hate the end levels on xen. that is so gay...

i have only played the demo of system shock 2, but i had a great time with that too. what struck me most was 1-the atmosphere, and 2-the way the story was relayed to the player. I felt the atmosphere was awesome, very very creepy. They moans and screams in an empty room, monsters shouting distrubing things; all creepy. I must say that i felt the engine and controls seemed a little sluggish, and this seems to be the case in thief 2 as well, which uses a newer version of the dark engine ss2 uses. i dunno if this is a diliberate move or not, but it did give the game a bit slower a pace.

I thought the way the story was presented in ss2 was very innovative. Again, instead of watching cutscenes, the player uncovers the story by playing and exploring, picking up logs and what not.

One last thing. In both cases i felt the levels were fairly non-linear, but less so in half life. there are some linear sections in half life, but that is done to keep the game moving forward.

<(o)>

Hey, Final Fantasy had story...

Personally, I subscribe to the "gameplay first, technology (and graphics) second" school of thought. I always design my games with an involving story and lots of gameplay. And due to certain things, I always end up releasing games with the mass market in mind, not just hardcore gamers.

BTW, I have a 2 inch thick book that covers how to DESIGN games, not how to code them. Ever heard of "Game Architecture and Design"?

I guess since I''m young, I can adapt to change and new ideas much faster than those old farts who still go with "flying on by the seat of the pants on the cutting edge of technology" and don''t get the fact that formal design process just might be good for them...

P.S. I DON''T WANT A FLAME WAR (just in case you got offended in any way)

- DarkMage139
"Real game developers don't change the rules. Real game developers don't break the rules. Real game developers make the rules!"
"Originality (in games) is the spice of life!"

Ok, this is a little late. Sorry.

Landsknecht, you had a VIC-20 you''re luckey! I wrote my first program in a TRS-80 model 2 at my grade school. I later bought a TRS-80 model 3 which hooked up to the TV, and later upgraded to a Commadore 64.

The first game I ever played was Pong. I remember that back in... I think it was ''82. I still have it somewhere.

Back to the topic, most of the game players I know aren''t serious gamers. Most of them have to turn off the high quality graphics to get the game to play fast enough. So I''d say in most cases, graphics arn''t going to be as impressive durring play as plot is. Sure it looks good on a box though.

I miss those old text adventure games. Sometimes the funnest thing was to figure out what you''re suppose to say. (ie. in one game, you''re underwater. A mermaid keeps swimming up to you and then swimming away. You need to say "follow mermaid", not "go north", etc.)

E:cb woof!