Honestly I think there's a lot of potential for great narrative effect not only in adventure games, but in many other types of games as well. But that doesn't necessarily mean that ALL games should have stories per se, there are games that don't need them. But I'm more interested in those games that do work with narrative, so let's talk about that.
The thing is (and some of you seem to agree) that there needs to be an improvement in the quality of the writing. I also think originality is sorely lacking. But maybe it has to do with more with the constraints of the media - the gameplay, the technology, the way that WE gamers perceive how narrative is handled in terms of our expectations. We want a story to 'behave' a certain way because we've been so used to our games behaving a certain way.
In other words, the medium seems to dictate how narrative is formed. Does that mean there is only one way of telling a story in a game? And must we follow that way and forget other possibilities? Should it just be all about solving a puzzle just to watch a cutscene? Should it just be only about reading one text exposition after another (i.e., diary entries, letters, etc.), or passively watching your character conversing with an NPC? What other ways are there to unfold story in ways we've never experienced before, beyond what we originally thought were the limits of the medium?
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Originally Posted by Oncesie
I honestly can't think of a game outside of the adventure genre that can compete with a Gabriel Knight game...
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Gabriel Knight 3, and Silent Hill 2.
I thought GK3 was one of the best - finest! - handling of story I've ever seen in any game type, not just adventure games. It presented story and characters in surprisingly subtle ways, thanks to excellent writing, voice acting, and to an extent, direction. Another one very good handling of story, though imperfect, was Silent Hill 2. The story there seemed to just ooze out more in atmosphere, and that, I think, is a very tricky feat. The writing was just typically cliche but there are definitely other ways to communicate the story to us, to tell the story to us - characters' facial expressions and body language, environments, art direction, sound, visuals, and even the force feedback in the controller.
