Shadow of the Colossus' simple, spare storyline has been repeatedly acclaimed as a high-water mark in video game storytelling.

Even before Mario trekked through the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue the Princess and Pac-Man was pursued by a quartet of ghosts, video games have been a storytelling medium. As games matured from simple sprites to a multi-billion dollar industry, so the scope of video games increased —in terms of graphical fidelity, size and scope of game worlds, and the potential for storytelling.

The problem, though, is that only two of those three aspects have seen real growth to this point. While our favored medium is still maturing, it’s encountered some growing pains in finding the right way to tell a story — and the right kind of stories to tell.

Warning: Spoilers for Grand Theft Auto IV, Bioshock, Metal Gear Solid, Fallout 3, Fable II, and Shadow of the Colossus follow.

The deep, gritty urban environment of Liberty City created by Rockstar for Grand Theft Auto IV opens up to gamers in a way that both advances the storyline as well as the needs of the player.

While storytelling techniques from books, comics, TV and movies may be applicable to games, the nature of the video game medium means not all of these techniques make best use of the gaming experience. A major difference is that video games are an experiential medium: gamers expect to learn new tricks or techniques, or gain access to new worlds throughout the course of a game. While this may not be as true in sports or racing games, for example, players of single-player-focused games of all genres expect a sort of ramp — both in terms of what skills your character has as well as in difficulty. A game like Ninja Gaiden or God of War would feel stale if your character started the game with the abilities, weapons and skills he or she ended with. In order to increase the difficulty of the game (generally from simple to complex as the game nears its close), those skills are needed to introduce new challenges.

Movies and books do not expect you to make such strides throughout the story— however, the convention of unlocking more and more powerful weapons or abilities throughout a single-player role playing game or action game is a video game standby. An issue games have, then, is telling a powerful story within a framework that also makes sense from a gameplay perspective. Done in a banal or uninspired way, a game feels cliché or trite; but when executed well, games marry storytelling and advancement in a flowing, natural way.

A great example is the post-GTA III Grand Theft Auto games. The game world in Rockstar’s flagship series opens up as missions unlock; the key is that it feels natural. An attempt on the life of GTA IV protagonist Nico Bellic and his cousin early in the game forces them from the first opening area of the game to the next one; while it’s still shepherding the player from one area to another, it makes sense in the context of both gameplay (moving from one level to another) and storytelling.

Another challenge to story is in level structure for many games. While movies and novels go through crests and valleys of action and story progression, games take it to another level and build levels around specific action scenes as well as new mechanics. Take a game like Gears of War 2 as an example. Most every level in the two Gears of War games introduces a new technique or experience — whether that’s riding on a giant excavator and firing from mounted turrets, or working your way through a giant worm, the story is oftentimes molded in such a way as to naturally introduce new scenarios for gamers.

Many aspects of Gears of War and Gears of War 2's storyline rotate around the game's level design, crafting the story around what the designers want the gamer to experience. The chainsaw duel, however, is just badass.

The problem that arises from this is that parts of the story can be cut due to difficulty with getting a level functioning properly. If the game’s engine just flat-out can’t handle a level, or the developers lack the time to finish a scene to their desired quality, it gets cut. Compare this to movies, novels and TV shows, where content is cut in the interest of brevity or relevance — scenes are deleted or pages are cut because they’re excess, not because the director or writer doesn’t know how to shoot them or put them into words.

It’s not the case with games because many story-focused games hone in on gameplay first, with the story built to fit. The Gears of War series is guilty of this, with story built to explain away gameplay concepts, but it’s certainly not the only one out there.

Regardless, the medium is still blossoming in terms of finding new and inventive ways to tell stories. There have been advances in taking the best of post-modern storytelling and combining that with the interactivity of gaming to create something that can only be told through the medium of the video game.

A game like Bioshock is a step in this right direction. It takes a rather ordinary story idea, with a relatively simple plot progression throughout, but throws the player for a loop by manipulating the story within the context of gaming. Bioshock doesn’t succeed because its dystopian, Ayn Rand-inspired story is groundbreaking, but because it takes certain video game tropes — that gamers have a choice, have control, and that a person giving them instructions can be trusted — and uses them to bring meaning to the player. It takes the idea that the narrator and guiding voice in a game can be taken for gospel and stands it on its head. While it’s a simple concept (and one explored in books like The Catcher in the Rye or Catch-22), it’s one that has not been explored in detail in videogames.

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima utilized many interesting technical tricks with the PlayStation, including reading from the memory card for other Konami games in the form of Psycho Mantis reading Solid Snake's mind.

You think you have the game figured out, then it turns out you’ve been a pawn all along. Metal Gear Solid did this, too — along with other mind-tricks that took advantage of the medium. This is best exemplified in the battle with Psycho Mantis, a specially trained super-soldier who could read the protagonist’s – and the player’s – mind. How was that achieved? Psycho Mantis could “read your mind” and counter all of your actions if you left the PlayStation controller in the first control port; this boss also read the PlayStation memory cards to see if there was any save data for other games by Metal Gear Solid’s publisher, Konami. Players had to learn to either adapt to the fight…or just move the controller to the second port.

Fortunately, more games are playing with the structure of the narrative for dramatic effect. PlayStation 2 classic Shadow of the Colossus uses bare minimalism to create an emotionally meaningful experience. It’s gaming structure at its simplest — the protagonist must go defeat a series of bosses to save his beloved princess — but the sparseness of the world that the player rides and hunts in creates a stillness, a narrative white space that contrasts with the brutal climbing and killing of the gentle yet gigantic colossi the player must slay. It’s powerful and moving in ways few other games are.

Bioware’s RPGs, including the Baldur’s Gate series, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect, all seek to evoke emotion through a different method: choice. Knights of the Old Republic popularized a trend towards good/evil choice in games — actions and dialogue in KOTOR affected your character’s development and standing within the game’s community, as well as storyline options that were available. Some characters’ quests were only available if you were good or evil enough, and the theory was that gamers would go for one path or another but must live with their decisions.

Fallout 3's Broken Steel downloadable content retroactively changes the ending to the game from a hard, final conclusion, to a jumping-off point for more end-game content.

Other games, like the Fallout series and the Fable series, have highlighted this as well, but the concept of choice and decisions making last affects on characters hasn’t been executed as well as possible. Why? Gamers right now do not want these choices to be permanent. Downloadable content for Fable II allowed gamers the opportunity to shortcut around the game’s end-of-storyline decisions; everything from weight (gained or lost by diet) to the story’s final impossible choice are reversible now, albeit for a price. A similar effect is achieved in Fallout 3’s Broken Steel downloadable content, which ret-cons the game’s ending, adds new storyline content, and allows the player to continue playing with their character. In Fallout 3, enough good (or evil) karma will balance the other side out; some choices are permanent, but many aren’t. The emotional impact choice and living with decisions can have is washed a bit when it lacks permanence.

One of the highest achievements for all art — including television, music, movies, and, yes, video games — is to convey a strong emotion. Whether that’s happiness, sadness, fear, joy, or whatever the case may be, if a song moves you to tears or a movie makes you laugh for days, that piece of art has succeeded. With gaming, there is a unique opportunity to provide an even stronger emotional connection with a medium because of the interactive nature of video games. While games have not had that watershed storytelling event — there hasn’t been “a Citizen Kane of gaming” as of yet — watch how developers continue to find new ways to tell powerful stories that utilize interactivity and personal choice.

The funk of 40,000 nerds awaits Nick at this year's Penny Arcade Expo. Expect the show floor to look much like this, a scene from the exhibit hall at the 2008 Penny Arcade Expo.

Here we are. The beginning of a three-day holiday weekend, the first day of the Penny Arcade Expo up in Seattle, and time for another week’s worth of gaming recounted in our Backlog. It’s been the calm ahead of the storm here, with Nick preparing for a feast of gaming at PAX, Aaron enjoying some comfort gaming, and Doug preparing to dig into some modern classics.

This is Nick's base of operations from the Bring Your Own Computer room at the Penny Arcade Expo. Updates from the expo and probably some good ol' PC gaming will be happening RIGHT HERE all weekend.

Nick

There hasn’t been much time for gaming this week, but that’s only because I’ve spent most of my time preparing for the Penny Arcade Expo: printing resumes, making business cards, packing up my computer and driving up Interstate 5 to Seattle. I just arrived and set up my computer as a base of operations, and I’m about to head down to the show floor. I’ll be posting when I can, but please follow me on Twitter (@sasquatchgaming) for up-to-the-minute impressions.

Some games I’m looking forward to playing include:

Diablo 3

The Beatles: Rock Band

Brütal Legend

Scribblenauts

Nostalgia

Battlefield Bad Company 2

If you’re at PAX, be sure to say hi!

Aaron informs me that while it's not his best game of Team Fortress 2, he's rather proud of the dominations handed out during this match. Can't say I don't blame him.

Aaron

I’ll have to disappoint everyone this week and confess I spent most of my gaming time playing in two separate three-hour-long Rock Band 2 sessions. Just one of those weeks, I suppose. It’s interesting though considering I’m the least enthusiastic toward the rhythm game genre compared with fellow Sasquatchers Nick and Doug, and yet I spent most of my free gaming time this week playing a title I’m sort of “meh” about. The plot thickens!

Otherwise I perused snippets of Castle Crashers here and Team Fortress 2 there — the general standbys when I need a strong dose of videogame fun. I also tried the exclusive Joker challenge room content for the PlayStation 3 version of Batman: Arkham Asylum, and I have to say to you owners of the Xbox 360 version: you’re not missing much. It’s a cool idea, but the challenge rooms are a hardcore-only affair already, and after playing the game as a nimble martial arts master in a batsuit, playing as the lanky, goofy Joker feels awkward. That’s my take though.

Readers of our site may or may not notice we have a favicon now! Check your address bar for a very small (but very awesome) sasquatch face. It’s not that exciting compared to a full redesign, but hey: I felt giddy about it.

Oh, I almost forgot. Next week brings us The Beatles: Rock Band.

Now that’s a rhythm game I can get back to.

I'm finally going to get around to finishing Shadow of the Colossus off, making me quite possibly the last hardcore gamer in the world to do so.

Doug

While I hate to be a spoil sport and overly sarcastic, I’ve been playing games like Finish My Summer Term Classes and Study For Finals, which I’m sure you’ll recognize as international bestsellers. I’m also partaking in the cult classic Follow Xbox 360 Repair Status Online.

Joking aside, I look forward to the silver lining of my Xbox 360 being sent away — being forced into playing some classics. I set my original Xbox up for the first time in ages, and hope to find time to play Beyond Good and Evil, which I’ve never finished, and NBA Street Vol. 2, which is a great arcade basketball game. Also please note that both of these games are not backwards compatible (*shakes fist angrily at Microsoft*).

Add PS2 classic Shadow of the Colossus to that list and you have the games I want to finish before my 360 returns from beyond the grave.

Of course, The Beatles: Rock Band drops this week, too, and I cannot wait to get my hands on that.

Marge would be proud

It’s been a bit of a difficult week for the Silicon Sasquatch staff. Nick spent much of the week reformatting and fine-tuning his computer before hauling it up north for the sixth annual Penny Arcade Expo and its thousand-seat LAN — a stressful experience, and one that leaves precious little time for gaming. Doug’s third Xbox 360 fell under the alluring spell of the Red Ring of Death and is currently drifting towards Valhalla. And Aaron? Well…Aaron’s the lucky one who actually got to sit down and play through Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Biff! Pow! Zing! Bort!

Aaron:

I’ve spent a wonderful portion of my week with Mr. Bruce Wayne in Rocksteady’s amazing Batman: Arkham Asylum. To be honest, I didn’t expect the game to turn out as masterfully as it has. Thankfully I misjudged the project, because this game has it all. The pacing’s perfect, the combat is always fresh and the various cameos from Batman’s rogues gallery are worthy of giddiness. Even someone like me, who hasn’t read a Batman comic in years, can feel like they’re the Dark Knight and become absorbed in the comic icon’s universe.

It’s baffling how Rocksteady makes creating the best Batman game ever look like child’s play. Why couldn’t anyone do this sooner? Oh well, at least we have Arkham Asylum now…and, if the ending pans out, a sequel to come!

Read our final thoughts on the game when we post our review next week.

Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do

Doug:

Well, the week started off on a sour note as my Xbox 360 succumbed to the throes of Red Ring of Death failure in the midst of playing Fallout 3. Since shipping it out on Tuesday, I’ve turned my attentions to playing some games on my PS2 instead. I fired back up Winning Eleven 9, still my absolute all-time favorite soccer game, which is what I’ll probably also play tonight; I also popped my copy of Gran Turismo 4 back in and took to the virtual track.

What’s on the docket now is to finish Shadow of the Colossus. It pains me that I haven’t given this game as much attention as it requires, but hopefully I’ll be able to wrap it up before I receive my fourth Xbox 360.

Punch-Out!! – Endearingly racist prizefighting since 1984

Nick: Apparently my Windows XP machine got something called “Spy-Ware” and wasn’t keen on running smoothly. While I spent a couple days backing things up and reformatting, I decided to plow through Nintendo’s latest entry into the Punch-Out!! series on Wii.

While it was a joy to see so many familiar faces, my nostalgia-drunk adoration turned to disappointment by the time I’d claimed my rightful title as world champion of the WVBA. Dropping Glass Joe in the first round felt great, but it was also something I’d done twice before. While sticking very close to its roots was a smart decision, I couldn’t help but feel like the game’s familiar trial-and-error design just wasn’t compelling enough to have justified a full $50 purchase.

But with Punch-Out!! back on its way to GameFly, I’ve got time for two fantastic titles that arrived this week:

1. Dissidia: Final Fantasy — Like most recent Square Enix games, it’s a convoluted, bizarre mess of a story. But thanks to some impressive depth of design and scalability of play modes depending on your commitment level, it’s shaping up to be a fantastic game.
2. Batman: Arkham Asylum — Until we post our review next week, there’s just one thing I want to make absolutely clear: This game is every bit as good as it looks.

So, uh, if you’ll excuse me…

Imagine me presenting the daily news from behind that desk, and with that mustache.

Welcome back to the stage of history. After a weekend away, we’re back at it, and I’m delivering the news updates for the week.

First off, it appears Netflix may be expanding its console reach. Stories surfacing today suggested this may be occurring based off of Netflix posting job listings for “Engineering Leader – Gaming Platforms,” a position which the postings say would require “prototyping, testing and building the Netflix experience for gaming consoles.” Could PS3 and even Wii users know the joy of Netflix streaming soon? Perhaps.

Might Sony be shifting some of its strategy as well? Ars Technica had the scoop, finding from “inside sources” first the rumor (later confirmed by Sony) that the PSP-exclusive rhythm-strategy sequel Patapon 2 will only be available digitally – boxed copies from retail locations won’t contain a UMD, but just a download key for the game. “We’re considering a digital only format for the Patapon 2 release as a one time test case as we continue to explore consumer preferences for digital content,” Patrick Seybold, Senior Director of Corporate Communications at SCEA told Ars Technica.

Brief tidbit on the Ghostbusters game coming out in June: Dan Aykroyd, one of the actors and writers of both the classic movies and now the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 game, confirmed recently to journalists that the game was essentially the third Ghostbusters movie.

Finally, something cool from the Internet: The fine aspiring folks over at NeoGAF have created a thread that’s made its way around the news sites, this time focusing on “Criterion Collection”-style box art for video games. Some of the cases they’ve thrown together in Photoshop are pretty damned awesome, and it’s something I really wish games would get. Here’s a selected few covers.

There’s loads more in the GAF thread, and they are all collected on this site as well.

Another day, another dearth of major developments. But as they say, “no news is good news.” As a journalist, I interpret no news to mean no job. But hey, it’s not like we’re writing for this blog to make any money.

Shadow of the Colossus is destined for theaters thanks to a push from Sony Pictures, according to Variety’s Cut Scene blog. Heralded as one of the best examples of the artistic and emotional potential of the interactive medium, Shadow of the Colossus is perhaps the most eclectic game to be optioned for development into a movie. The movie’s in the earliest of planning stages so it’s definitely too early to pass any sort of preliminary judgment, but fans should bear this in mind: Even in the absolute worst-case scenario where the movie is a total catastrophe, at least the Shadow of the Colossus name will reach an immensely broader audience than before. More support for art-house games can’t be a bad thing, right?

Charging for Internet use by the gigabyte may sound like an outdated pricing scheme to most — it reminds me of the interminable suffering of paying per minute to log into AOL on a 2400 baud modem — but it’s the situation Time Warner Internet customers now find themselves in. Lara Crigger at Gamers With Jobs breaks down the math, and the results are harrowing. Paying $54.90 per month for 40GB of bandwidth might not seem all that unreasonable on paper, but when you consider that a single HD movie weighs in at around 8 gigabytes, things start to look a little spooky.

The return of Rodney Greenblat to videogames wasn’t exactly guaranteed, but the industry ought to be thankful they’ve got his artistic talents back within the interactive realm. Gamasutra conducted an interview with the artist, who collaborated with Masaya Matsuura on the groundbreaking PaRappa the Rapper thirteen years ago, re-emerged with an odd little Wii-exclusive game called Major Minor’s Majestic March.

The battle over digital rights management (DRM) may be far from over, but game developers, publishers and distributors are starting to offer some new and innovative solutions. As Gamasutra reports, Stardock’s latest iteration of its Impulse digital distribution system, dubbed “Phase 3,” ties ownership of a game to a user’s email address. Intriguingly, it also enables users to relinquish ownership of a title, enabling reselling of PC games and hopefully eliminating some of the risk in purchasing games. This announcement arrives hot on the heels of Valve’s Steamworks update that boasts it “makes DRM obsolete.” Consumers will clearly be the ultimate factor in determining which antipiracy measures are the most fair. But, as Stardock CEO Brad Wardell points out, competing systems and services ultimately create a better environment for the consumer.

Konami’s Six Days in Fallujah may have just been announced a couple dozen hours ago, but the game is already generating a significant amount of controversy on the Internet. That videogame enthusiasts have found room to stir up controversy is nothing special, but what little is known about the game’s premise — that it’s a realistic game based on events that took place in the current Iraq War — has drawn the ire of members of the armed forces and their families and public interest groups. Basing a war game on a real-life modern conflict is a risky move, but I’d rather wait until more is known about the game before jumping to conclusions. Still, the thought of a game based on the struggle and suffering of real people who are still involved in a real conflict is unsettling, to say the least.