Video Games are Underrated

Daniel Vitelli

What is a video game? What specifically is it that separates video games from other forms of media? The interactive nature of games makes them something that is not achievable anywhere else. But does this interactive nature make a linear narrative in games unnecessary or even a hinderance? It may not go that far but the story really isn't the important part of the game. A good game as strong gameplay and very good mechanics but there are great games that have narratives the get the player really invested but there are also great games with none of that. Some of the most highly regarded games ever made have next to no story or at the very least do not force you into following it. Grand Theft Auto V is a premium example of this. There is a long and interesting narrative campaign in GTA V, but there is nothing that really forces you to follow it. from moments one, the entire world is open to you if you choose to go explore it, and all of the mechanics and weapons and cars can be reached right away if the player wants to. There are still great games that are completely narrative based though. Firewatch is arguably one of the best games that has been released this year, and there is very little freedom given to the player. The game revolves around the growing friendship of the player character named Henry and a woman on the other end of a walkie talkie named Delilah. The environment is beautiful but the player can not really just explore the world. The thing that these games have in common is the way that the world takes on a life of its own. The gameplay and world are what is really important in games. The story isn't always what is important to a game.

Many people have pointed out how the city of Los Santos in GTA V is a character in its own right. Los Santos is, in many ways, the best character in the entire game. Micheal, Franklin, and Trevor are incredibly interesting and fun to take running through the world, but the world itself is in many ways more interesting than the people in it. In his article “Grand Theft Auto V, one year on”, Simon Parkin points out what he thinks is the reason that the world is so interesting. He points out that, “The idea that cities have personalities is true, but only to a point. They might have an aesthetic… and its inhabitants might have a peculiar temperament… but in truth, we project our own hopes and insecurities onto the cities where we visit or settle. This is true of Los Santos, a city that allows you to take from it what you want. It can be a place of peril and sin as you hold up petrol stations in Davis (the city's gang-torn analogue to Compton). Or it can be a place of peace and leisure as you chase a wild deer through the thin air of a mountain on a bike” (Parkin).

The freedom and mechanics of the game allow you to do whatever it is you want and to explore whatever parts you want to find. If what you want to take from the game is a crime thriller story or the drama of two friends who have grown apart (increased explonecially by one of them being psychotic) then you can follow the narrative. If you want a comedy that makes fun of the weirder parts of our modern society, you can play through a large number side missions. You can also do whatever else you want in the fully fleshed out and living world that was created by the developers.