Here's Your Fries - Sorry, We're All Out of Narrative

Editor’s Note: I’m not really sure if I agree with Alan’s claim that videogames are more powerful than movies. Hell, I’ve never been as moved as I was when I watched Guile deliver his morale-raising speech in Street Fighter. Show me a person who can watch that and *not* want to immediately do the splits while punching someone in the balls. -Michael

I put down the controller. I’m tired. My eyes are bloodshot from playing 19 hours of Metal Gear Solid 3 in two days. And my mind is whirling. My parent’s call down for me to go to bed, telling me that I have school the next day. But I’m not paying attention, because I had just played through one of the greatest narrative pieces ever made; I had just felt the bone-crushing betrayal that Jack felt as he saluted the man who had ordered his mentor to her death. It was heartbreaking. It was unbelievable. It was the greatest proof yet that I have as to why videogames are potentially better narrative-weavers than movies will ever be.

When you go to a movie, you root for the main character, and when he/she shares a tender kiss you watch vacantly, never really caring. And when they are betrayed, hurt, or beaten, you marvel at the villain’s cunning, at the wounds the hero bare. You are unconnected to the person, you are simply watching their story unfold. You are not part of the experience, you are just a spectator.

But in games like Metal Gear Solid 3, every time Jack is hit, you flinch. Every time he tricks the bad guys, you smirk with the same charisma that he has. When you play games, you are the character, thus you share the same actions. And because of this, any emotions you feel are far greater than those experienced when sitting in the seats at your local cinema. One example of this is just after Jack has bested his mentor in combat — she is dying and begs him to pull the trigger to end her misery.

Watching this scene, I just sat there silent, waiting for the shot to ring out, but I was shocked it wasn’t happening. It was then that I realized that I was supposed to pull the trigger. At that moment I was terrified — the barrel of the gun was steadily pointed at the face of a woman I had grown to know over the last 19 hours. But I pulled the trigger button, and the shot echoed from the TV. Moving stuff.

Another example of the potential of videogame’s superority over films was in Resident Evil 4. It happened early on in the game, when I was in a small rural village where the local populace were crazy cannibals who wanted nothing more than to eat me for dinner.

So I barricaded myself inside a house, the door blocked by a cabinet. I quickly run up the staircase, where I see a man on a ladder outside the window about to climb in. I sprint over and smugly push the ladder away. And as he falls, I hear the guttural crys of a chainsaw starting. My heart stops dead — the chainsaw noise came from downstairs, and I just pushed down my only means of escape. The chainsaw-wielder had a cloth sack on his head and advanced with a terrifying slowness with the chainsaw held above his head. I only had two bullets left in my shotgun, and I blast the first, then second into his head at point blank range. But he didn’t go down. He just kept on coming.

There is no moment in movies that can recreate the complete and utter terror of that moment, as I clumsily tried to pull out my pistol and the man quickily decapitated me. It was simply terrifying.

A truly terrifying moment worthy of new underwear

But not all games are as effective as these two examples, but they are definitely going in the right direction. Compared to movies, videogame’s narratives are akin to movies from the late eighties: full of butch, one-man armies, and plots as flimsy as the chicken necks broken by the hero. I am very optimistic that games are only going to get better, with deeper storylines, more well-rounded characters, and even more axe-wielding bastards with heads like riot shields.

I learned my lesson: Pack more ammo next time!