The impending release of LA Noire and the recently announced-for-US Catherine got me thinking. I love to talk about how games are an art form and about the glories of interactive story-telling, especially to my parents and non-gaming family. So why are there so few of the shining examples I can play beginning-to-end in front of my family?
Think about the games you own that tell a great story. (not "by video game standards") Now remove the ones that are really violent (that bit of blood when an attack lands or a bullet hits is okay) Now the ones with nudity and sex. Now the ones where you're accompanied by female characters that were clearly designed for eye candy (looking at you, Morrigan) now the ones where they're swearing all the time. You're probably not left with much, are you?
Me, I'm left with three. Alan Wake, Beyond Good & Evil and, this may surprise you, Astro Boy Omega Factor. Epic Mickey and Uncharted almost squeeze their way in there, but Mickey is still very black-and-white in terms of its moral choices, and Uncharted is just kind of emulating the Indian Jones style action movies.
Right now, there isn't much in between the kiddy and the gritty in terms of story-telling. In more family-friendly games, you're doing a black-and-white, stop the bad guy save the world, get the girl plot. If the story actually tries to be good, then there has to be gore, hookers and/or swearing for some reason. Why?
Omega Factor's a great example of a quality plot in a kid-friendly game. Astro is pulled into the middle of a conflict between humans and robots and has to choose sides between his creators and his friends. Along the way, you learn that, while there was some evil puppet master behind all the events, most of the antagonists were good people (or robots) driven to do bad things to protect their freedom, their families or whatever was really important. In the end, good people are sacrificed, and those that did wrong face retribution for their actions, regardless of the reasons behind them. All this is done without one swear word, one drop of blood, or... okay, there's this one woman who is technically naked, but she was in surgery and you only see so much of her that the game's rated E. If you considered it fan service, you'd have to be really desperate. (and the game is pretty damn good too, track it down)
My question has two sides: 1: why is it that with such a large audience for DS, Wii, Kinect and Move, so few family games have any ambition for story-telling? When a family gathers around the television, it's not to watch something with the depth of Wii Party. Just because a person's a casual gamer doesn't mean they don't think there can be a good story. My mom doesn't play games at all, and she had some praise for the story bits she saw when I was playing Mafia 2. But she was pretty turned off by the constant swearing.
Which leads me to side 2: why are the games with good stories always so vulgar? There are plenty of instances where you could argue it's supposed to be realistic, but surely people can suspend their disbelief that nobody uses swear words worse than "ass." That, and I don't really see a woman wearing an assortment of belt straps as a shirt into battle as "realistic," Bioware.
Here's what I want to see: a family-friendly, story-driven game that can be played with family present, or maybe it's even meant to be played as a group. I came up with the idea of playing Heavy Rain in a group, and having people assigned to separate characters. Something like that, but a little less dark and a lot less showers and stripping. I also want to see more use of family filters in games. I don't want to have to stop playing Dragon Age in my living room because the next boss is a lust demon. Gears of War has language and gore filters. How the hell has this not caught on and been used in everything? All the other features from that game has!
My point is we're finally starting to reach the people who didn't play games before thanks to the casual market. Let's show them that games aren't just toys and give them a story to remember! without recording their shocked reactions and using them to fuel a marketing campaign that even the franchise's fans will hate. Okay, EA?!... and, um, everyone else?
DISCLAIMER: I'm not a moral crusader here, and by all means, am NOT telling you not to buy games with violent or sexual content. I'm just wishing the industry didn't think it needed those things to sell a good story.
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