10 Artistic Things Video Games Can Do That Movies Can't
10. Oblique Storytelling
Narrative content is key in any storytelling form, and video games are no exception. Where they differ from film in this manner is the presentation of said content. Unlike a film, which must find a balance between action and dialogue, video games have no rigid obligations to keep things balanced. In fact, most video games prioritize action over story, which means that the actual content of the story is divulged more implicitly in the environment and settings. Portal, Half Life 2, and most everything by Valve are textbook examples of this - games that don't spoon feed you a story beat for beat, but rather throw you in the middle of a story without context and leave enough evidence for you to figure out the story on your own - should you feel the need to. Think of the graffiti in Aperture Science Laboratories in Portal - there are whole movies worth of story material hinted at in small details like this, but the casual gamer may just pass it by.
Self-evidently a man who writes for the Internet, Robert also writes films, plays, teleplays, and short stories when he's not working on a movie set somewhere. He lives somewhere behind the Hollywood sign.
