Invisible wrote:
> Pity they don't make games like that any more...

I thought bioshock had a pretty interesting backstory. It's still a shooter, 
so it's not going to have a whole *bunch* of story, but the story is told in 
terms of you investigating and picking up optional pieces. There's actually 
some deduction to it. The best way, I think, to put a story in is to tell it 
in terms of finding diaries or conversations or something like that, rather 
than trying to force the player into something. But hearing some of the 
descriptions, along with thinking about what's going on, actually lets you 
figure out by deduction a fair number of the surprises before they're 
revealed, which is a lot of fun.

Each of the Thief stories was basically a mystery. Indeed, several of the 
levels were basically "break into place X and find out Y."  The games had 
most excellent stories that were very fulfilling. (Well, I haven't quite 
finished the third, as it's relatively poor compared to the other two, but 
it's certainly a mysterious story that progresses the plot well.)

Myst and Riven and such, of course, were story driven.

There's a game called "The Longest Journey" which is essentially an 
adventure game that's actually just an interactive story. There are very few 
puzzles of note, hundreds of lines of optional dialog giving you backstory 
of irrelevant characters, and it's so linear that it's painful. (For 
example, at one point you crawl out of the sewers into the mall. There's a 
fancy clothing store and a fancy restaurant you're supposed to get thru. You 
think "I better get new clothes."  Character says "That clothing line is 
expensive. I should save my money."  So you try to go into the restaurant, 
they won't let you because you're a mess, character says "I should go next 
door and buy nice clothes!"  Duh.  That said, there was some good humor in 
there, worth playing thru if you don't mind the fact that it's closer to 
watching a movie than an adventure game.)

HL could have had a great story just by putting around notes from the G-Man, 
or passing conversations with scientists about what's going on, etc. It's 
not hard to do if you take the resources to add it in.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Quoth the raven:
        Need S'Mores!

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