Audiomaster G asked a very interesting question during the last podcast. I suggest you go and listen to the show and hear it for yourself. In case your to lazy to do that let me lay it out for you. Basically we were given a list of games that one person felt didn’t need a story. Some of the selections where ridiculous. Like not putting a story in Legend of Zelda or the Elder Scrolls series. I can see how some people don’t care about stories and get the idea that a lot of games don’t need them. I submit if you feel that way you are in the minority and if you will stick with me I will explain how.

First off the price of games alone is enough reason to argue for stories. Games are sixty dollars a piece for fucks sake. The majority of gamers expect to get a value out of that cash and I submit it is impossible to attain that value without a good single player. A good single player had better have some kind of bloody story in it. Even games like COD and Halo better have something going for it in that department. COD Black Ops would have been a total bust for me if the single player wasn’t as stellar as it was. The multiplayer was fucking junk pure and simple. What made Black Op’s compelling was it had a story and a decent one at that.

Even Modern Warfare, where they have ridden the same story formula over and over is still interesting with characters you become attached to. In fact my sole reason for wanting to play MW3 is to see if they bring back Kentucky Fried Ghost(Gaz). I truly want to know how a man, who will look like a burnt wiener is going to do in combat. If the game’s hadn’t had a story I wouldn’t of cared what happened to GAZ at the end of MW1. Stop to wonder how the fuck he survived to become Ghost in MW2 or if is even the same man. I sure as shit wouldn’t care if they going to attempt to bring him back as sausage man the barbarian in the third game.

COD is also a good example, because the story has just copied from the first game to the second and I suspect the third will be more of the same. Even with that, they find a way to make it interesting and entertaining. If that isn’t enough lets move on to games where the story is the main selling point.

Oh where to begin, Mass Effect, Dragon Age (even if it sucks goat nuts), Planescape Torment, Fallout, Final Fantasy, Command and Conquer, Warcraft, Uncharted, Gears of War. I can do this all day people. All of my examples would of sold three copies without a damn good story to drive the experience. Most of these games have characters that the masses love and it should be clear by now why we know and love these characters so much.

To say a story must drive games one hundred percent of the time would be a bit foolish. I sighted Medal Of Honor as one that didn’t in the last couple years and yet we all saw how that went. Gamers need a story and it’s just foolish to think story is becoming less important in video games. A good story that fleshes out and explains compelling characters will always critical to top notch games. I fear an industry where that stops being true.