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Originally Posted by Crapstorm
Personally, I think writing and storytelling are much better outside of the adventure game genre. You can narrate a lot in adventure games, but it's usually at the expense of puzzles and free exploration. Some other genres, like first-person shooters and role-playing games seem better suited to telling grand tales.
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Just because a story is told on a grand scale doesn't make it better. A story in an action game may give the impression that it's much more dynamic, but a lot of this comes down to the visceral nature of those genres. Many of these stories are stories of ideas or the world setting itself and much less about the characters. Adventures tend to concentrate on stories about the characters, so even when you have a story with a grand scale setting, it can feel much more personal because you're working with the characters in a more sedate manner.
The best storytelling is about drama through character conflict and many adventures have a weakness in this area, particularly as many NPCs are simply too helpful to provide this conflict. Action games are all about conflict, so if a game manages to bring this into the story side of the game it's easy to think that it's a good story.
Sometimes, when we particularly enjoy a game it can distort our appreciation of the story. I really enjoyed playing Final Fantasy 7 and thought the story was okay. However, when you put such a story into a different context - such as FF7 Advent Children - you realise how weak the story really is.
We're all still learning how to tell good interactive stories and while there are elements that we can make high quality (dialogue, for instance), I think it will be a long time still before everything comes together in a truly satisfying way.
