Few things are more exciting than when someone actually asks me to play video games for their entertainment. Let’s face it — video games aren’t as fun to watch as they are to play, except for one: “L.A. Noire.”
“L.A. Noire” really captured something for me that had been absent for countless games on end, and that is the ability to capture the audience who isn’t even playing the game. Games are fun to play by yourself, but not even nearly as fun as it is to play when you have a crowd of five or six people who are watching because they genuinely find the game interesting.
There are several reasons why “L.A. Noire” was able to captivate, and that’s because it isn’t like most games out there. The core gameplay isn’t the action, but the crime solving. It doesn’t matter who is playing, because everyone can voice their opinion on if they think the perpetrator is lying or telling the truth and advise which piece of evidence to throw in their faces. With the game’s attention to character depth and the weaving of the main story through the cases, “L.A. Noire” played out more like a movie.
That might not satisfy most gamers.
Although “L.A. Noire” exceeded my expectations in the power it was able to draw from onlookers, the premise of the game is not one that I would like to see massively repeated. If it weren’t for the crowd that accompanied me each time I played the game, I likely would never have continued after my first few hours into the game.
This is just one of many examples in which games can either place an emphasis on story or on gameplay. Many people debate whether a game should place the most time on one or the other, but I don’t believe there is a right or wrong answer to this dilemma. There’s a reason why genres are so numerous and you don’t have to play every game on the market.
However, I think that genre might have a lot to do with whether or not the game should emphasize one or the other (and when I say emphasize, I still of course mean the other element should be well-implemented).
Let’s take an example: “NCAA Football 2013.” If this game came out and told you that you had to be the Ohio State Buckeyes because EA wanted to follow the storyline of the new coach and how he rallies his downtrodden team to success AND that you could only run the ball because EA wanted to highlight the story of the running back, you probably wouldn’t buy the game. In the sports genre, an emphasis should be placed on gameplay. You simply want to play as whatever team you desire in whichever way you please.
Likewise, if “Uncharted 4” came out and you simply went level-to-level shooting bad guys, you’d probably give up on that game too. A high-profile action game is exactly the same as the next high-profile action game in terms of gameplay. What sets the two games apart is how they portray their characters and the plot of the game.
In the case of “L.A. Noire,” gameplay and story has to be evenly balanced. Sure, being thrown into the game, just going case to case, solving mysteries with a mute character and no interlocking story would still be interesting because I get to be a detective. However, implementing a story that connected cases and helped develop the dynamic characters is what sealed the deal.
The story is what draws you in and the gameplay is what keeps you going. If a game emphasizes too much story for its genre, you are going to get bored watching cut-scene after cut-scene. But if the game emphasizes too much gameplay, you might put the controller down after you master all the basic mechanics. Game creation is a tenuous balance for each genre.
My point is this: There doesn’t need to be a debate about if video games should be artistic wonders or gameplay experiences, nor if they should emphasize story or gameplay. Video games are different things to different people, and that’s how they always should be.