Star Wars: Jedi Survivor is an impressive game. I haven't played it, but my two new roommates play it all the time on the Playstation 5 that we have at the house. I like to sit and watch, sometimes for hours, because it is more than just a game but a cohesive story that moves on and on not unlike a movie. Furthermore, the graphics are so good that I have trouble believing it is a game and not a "made for tv" kind of series on Disney +. The main actor for the game is Cameron Monaghan, who I recognized (and liked very much) from his stint on Showtime's Shameless. Here, he plays Cal, a young man who has some pretty fantastical jedi powers. You see things all the time that are obviously built for the game, and would probably not show up in a television show or a movie, and there is always the "respawns" when you do something that ends up getting you killed. That kind of death and instantly coming back obviously doesn't work for a movie or a story well at all. But in a video game, it's a necessity. Watching the video game play out on the screen by my roommates has given me pause to consider how it is that we all structure stories, especially those with any kind of "hero's journey" built into them.
For example, once you get past the glitz and glamor of the look of this stunning video game, you do realize that there are walls that you can climb, and walls that you cannot climb. It's not a completely open world, so there are things that you see on the horizon that you just can't get to because there's an invisible wall there. Additionally, the things that you fight all have a mechanic that you need to figure out. Real things don't act like that, and you wouldn't want to write that into a real story that has a hero's journey. And finally, you would want a story to progress with more than just fighting and solving puzzles that mostly consist of how to get from X to Y. A lot of Jedi Survivor is exactly this. Allow me to explain.
A lot of the time, your character (Cal) ends up in a big room, a big canyon, or a big area. There can be tunnels and many levels of elevation to explore. But inevitably there is an area that you can't get to that has something shiny on it that you can see clearly. To get there, you have to figure out a puzzle. Sometimes you need to cut a wire so that it can hang limply in an area where you can hop to and force pull it and swing over like Tarzan to another area. Sometimes there are batteries you can seize with the Force that are hundreds of feet away, and then you can use your telekinesis to insert them into machines that are also out of reach to erect bridges that you can cross, which then gets you into a better position to achieve your goal. I could imagine trying to write all of that in a story, and how it would seem really boring to go through the minutiae of solving a puzzle like that. But for video games like Jedi: Survivor it is over half the game. The other half is fighting with lightsabers that (for some reason) hit things and don't just saw them in half. In a video game, tons of monsters you fight can take repeated whacks from a lightsaber and not just die. This obviously isn't how the weapon works in a show. But it is what it is.
But what the creators of this video game do get right are the stunning visuals, the motion capture of using a real actor as a Jedi, and the incredible design of not only the sets but the aliens you encounter. There is one alien named Greez that is Cal's friend on a world dripping with western-esque science fiction elements who has four arms and some really bushy eyebrows. I think this alien is a remarkable creation, really well-detailed, and has a great voice actor playing him. There are others (of course), and I do hope we get to run into a Sith that throws some force lightning (as I'd like to see that), but my roommates haven't come across anything like that yet.
Despite the shortcomings and huge differences between a game and a written story, I found myself daydreaming of how much fun it would be to have a story translated into a game that someone could play. It would be so incredibly different from an actual story. However, it would also be its own "kind" of story, in that it would be deeply satisfying in another way. People would get to interact with beloved characters in a way that simply isn't possible if you are just reading a story. But the interaction would most likely be in the form of combat mechanics that are predictable and problem solving. I wonder then what the next step in the evolution of games will be? Are we on a new horizon with the rise of artificial intelligence? Could A.I. break the old model of fight, solve puzzle, fight some more, and then rest to recover? That would be a fascinating step into a whole other world of being able to tell and participate in a story.
Anyone else out there have any commentary to add on the differences in storytelling regarding high quality games like Jedi Survivor and novels?
Not surprisingly there is a tie-in prequel novel for the game. I mean Lucasfilm has been doing that since at least Shadows of the Empire in the mid-90s. Like with books vs movies there are some different things you have to do for a book vs a video game. I mean a lot of video game action can be repetitive so you want to trim that in a book.
ReplyDeleteI've seen it advertised but not played it. I agree the visuals are stunning. The areas you can't get to would be frustrating especially after playing games like Fallout.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me think of Mystic Quest on Apple TV and the character who plays the writer of the game. Clearly these games need writers, but it's a different sort of storytelling, isn't it?
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