When Stories Happen on Their Own

Everquest had its own stories, but the
best were those created while
playing with friends.

For the last 30 years, stories have played a big part in video games. It all started as the industry transitioned out of high score focused content a la Pac Man, Frogger, et al, and into saving princess / the world / the universe. Sometimes they could be pretty simple like in Super Mario Bros. where players helped Mario rescue Princess Peach from Bowser, other times things could be a lot more sophisticated with RPGs and adventure games leading the charge.

This has continued to the current day, but all of these have been pre-written stories laden with scripted events, dialog trees, and the like. There's a fairly fixed path laid out before the player with only so many options available to them as to how they can progress, which is a natural outcome of having a game that goes for a passive form of storytelling in the same vein as film or literature. It's been the staple of how narratives unfold in games for decades now, but things have slowly started to change as online multiplayer has cemented itself in the medium. New types of stories are starting to unfold in games, often events that developers never expected for their creations. It's happening as players make their own stories organically by naturally making their way through a game. While still in its infancy, the trend is picking up steam, and making for some very interesting experiences.

Review: Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare (Xbox One)

In 2009, a tower defense game came out that had plants defending their gardens from zombies, a ridiculous premise that worked surprisingly well. The overhead or side view works well in this kind of tower defence game, so there were those who were skeptical when PopCap Games announced that they would be releasing a third-person shooter game based on the franchise. Skeptics, relax.

While this isn't anywhere in the league of a Call of Duty or something similar in size, if you just want to have some sit-down fun this game is exactly what the botanist ordered. There are various modes and while the graphics won't blow the lid off of your Xbox One, they are quite decent and clearly charming at the same time.

Review: Battlefield 4 (PC)

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Battlefield 4 is really difficult to peg with a numerical score because it's a constantly moving target. The game leaps up and down radically over time, which is something the series has suffered from since the start.

Upon its release, Battlefield 4's multiplayer -- the main draw for the series -- featured server instability, inexplicable crashes and lock-ups, bizarre sound issues, and very short stretches of fun. The early going sparked a rant from this writer about how anyone could possibly review Battlefield 4 (at launch) with any honesty because, although it wasn't unplayable, it was close enough that any writer should have had second thoughts about slapping a score on the game and calling it a day.

In my experience, even the single-player campaign featured a plethora of random lock-ups until a few weeks had passed since the launch. Since the single-player campaign is so inconsequential and acts as a training ground for multiplayer -- glimpses of the gadgets, the scope of the conflict, etc. -- the last time it crashed out was the last time I spent any time with it. As much as the campaign is a cool graphical showcase the story is limp with almost no charm and characters I couldn't care less about.