Videogames have bad stories. You know that game you love that has that great story? It doesn’t; and we’re all very sorry for that. While there seems to be a greater push towards the use of games to display a strong, cinematic narrative, it hasn’t brought anyone any closer to creating a story that is uniquely expressed through the medium on a level that matches any other strong piece of fiction. Our views have been skewed by the medium, however, and while we may see minor iterations as quantum leaps in terms of story telling, there is nothing that many game stories offer that would even match up to the seediest and poorly put together script from a Hollywood dust bin, or a pulp magazine. While we often hear the lines regarding “comparable to films” touted with such products as Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, just try sitting down any person to watch the game that whole way through and you’ll sense that it doesn’t grab people quite the same way when it is on display with no reward. It’s clear in the industry, regardless, that games are not respected on the same level that films and literature are, even at their lowest levels.

Of course, Dan Houser of Rockstar Games doesn’t need respect. In fact, he’d sacrifice all the respect that comes along with film in order to have the freedom to mould his own creative content without a container to keep it in. He described the film industry as “codified”, but with games that there is no standard way of going about story telling, which is assuredly a strength of the genre. When you’re engaging people on the level that games are able to, you can have them react to situations differently, more actively than you would if you were sitting and simply watching the events unfold. The biggest weakness with many game stories is the seem to do just that, leaving the player to sit idly while a scripted cutscene determines the character actions and development. It doesn’t take advantage of the medium when your experience doesn’t change, but you are merely moving from checkpoint to checkpoint encountering a set of scripts that almost breaks from the momentum in the game each time.

One of the most glaring issues in game stories, however, is in their focus on deus ex machina elements in order to progress the story along. Insurmountable odds are often solved by an element of the game that is convenient, powerful and absolutely ridiculous in terms of the narrative. Take Gears of War 2, which comes under fire for its outlandish story elements and shallow character development, and often introduces new creatures in order to progress the story into new worlds, something which comes off as a bit confusing and rushed. It’s those breaks that instantly make you realize that the narrative is script-driven and events are going to happen no matter what the consequence of your action, and that’s what almost eliminates the uniqueness of the gaming experience.

Acting out of character is another issue that many have with games. Houser’s GTA IV had a great character in comparison to previous iterations of the series, and one more identifiable and sympathetic than mostly anything produced in games at all. However, when you are given a character who seems to be thrown into a bad situation and gradually make any bad decisions you would make on his part to have little to no consequence on his story or the world that surrounds him, it segments the character between what the player is realizing and what the writer’s envisioned. And when the character changes so drastically, as Niko Bellic does, in a way that shifts the sympathy to just another sociopath in a sociopathic world it lengthens the divide and dissolves whatever story you were building up.

Comparing the stories in games to literature and film, or even talking about the pseudo-intellectual deus ex machina elements in narrative isn’t a fair route, and often isn’t the way that games should be looked upon. Gears works as a game, despite a relatively shallow narrative, because of the seemingly deep lore that surrounds it. Where a film presents all of its information directly in front of you, perhaps shifting into Alternate Reality Games or promo material in order to fill any gaps for the super fandom, many games encourage exploration in order to ascertain the backstory and learn more about what drives the world around you besides the general scenes that happen in between chapters. Game stories aren’t broken by any means, but the focus on cutscenes as a reward, or intermediary for a chapter gap, is something that is certainly becoming codified within the industry. While the narrative that surrounds them may differ, until unique ways to convey the story and engage the player within it are explored, you won’t be tapping into potential that isn’t already seen in other mediums. It’ll just be playing catch-up.