How Not To Do Storytelling

Via GameSetWatch, a story on the site The New Gamer looking into the poor storytelling choices made by Gun. From the article: "I'm sure you get the general picture. From varmit-hunting with Ned to being ambushed by Indians the absolute moment you exit the town boundaries, Gun is a halting, stop/start experience. There's no build-up, no tension, no excitement, just scenes where you're shooting and scenes where you're on the cusp of being shot at. Sure, you can take your own downtime by running aimlessly around the sparsely populated town or saddle on up to a Wanted poster for an unfulfilling side mission but that's devoid of drama and unsatisfying. Instead of the majesty of the epic Western, we get the cheap shoot 'em up."

Comments

Gun's story

[Wilson_6500]

Some games don't even feel like they're trying for a story. Quake, for instance, gave you some text at the beginning and some text at the end. There was no pretense of plot or of a development of a plot other than "You killed them; Earth wins."

Gun, though, felt like it really, really wanted to have a plot: the fastest plot in the West. You meet an important character, one who has traits and characteristics--not a throwaway--and two scenes later they're dead. I can understand if they wanted to go for the "death is ugly" Wild West theme; maybe by, say, having a character you've traveled with for half the game suddenly die without any drama: they're just shot dead, no chance for farewells or dramatic scenes. You _want_ that kind of suddenness, at times, because things can happen that way--people just die in real life, they don't always get to cough out a final message. Still, the game as it was felt too, too rushed. I was out of Dodge in the span of two missions, and out of Empire just as quickly. Considering that there're only two real towns in the entire game, that's some awfully fast progression.