Everyone loves a good story, from films to books a good story has been used to entertain for centuries, but what about these new fangled videogames the kids are all talking about, these things let you shoot aliens and drive race-cars, surely they don't need stories.
Stories are an important part of games today, a lot more than the space invaders era, small games that are for picking up and playing for 5 minutes don't really need a plot but the bigger budget shooters and RPG's almost always have some sort of story even if it is a really cheesy one.
Story telling in games seems a lot harder than a book or a film because the player has to be a certain character and it can feel unnatural for the character who you are playing to be speaking for you, some games like to make the main character a total mute but this can look really awkward. I think half life 2 did this pretty well but there were some wierd moments when people were talking to you and you just waved a crowbar around at them. Also books usually are told from a third person perspective and this isnt possible for games as you cant be telling yourself the story and living it out at the same time.
Every man and his dog knows that RPG's are the main story tellers in games, i don't really play that many myself and most the stories are too fantasy like for me, RPG games are basically big stories with random battles shoved in everywhere and seem to keep some people happy.
To me it is important for a game to have a story, the games i remember most are the ones that keep you interested on whats going to happen next, i don't find it as important as gameplay but it is a core part of a game. Some games are open ended enough to allow you to create your own stories and your own character, these games can be very immersive and sets a story up with a setting and background instead of your father being killed by a big evil man and you have to get revenge or something.
A games setting does a lot for its story and feel, games like half life 2 are good as the background is believable enough for you to think its a real world with its own people and customs. This is created with art styles and some dialogue, games that let you create your own little stories for the extra characters around you gets extra brownie points in my book.
(Everyones going to mention final fantasy... to be honest i dont think that final fantasy 7's story was very good, it had a good setting i guess but the dialogue was horrible, i think its more down to it being many peoples first real experience of a story being in a game and people still remember how fond they where at the time, i feel games have moved on since then.)
