Intellectual Gamer

In my last post, which was a review of ‘SW: The Force Unleashed’, I alluded that the game made a huge blunder in my statement “There is one huge blunder however I believe this game has made. Although because it is strictly personal preference (and perhaps philosophically) based I will not include it in this review” Actually this is much more a statement than an allusion, regardless it is something that I feel needs to be addressed.

I believe it is important to ask ourselves when we play games that our story driven why we play them. It is an important consideration to address and evaluate. Myself, I feel the objective of a story driven game is to simply experience a good story. This is an element SW:TFU truly had, a true reason to experience the game. But unfortunately it made, in my eyes, a fatal blunder by, in essence, corrupting its strong story element with a multiple ending.

This may seem silly to more then a few, however allow me to explain my objection before you blanket your mind with disagreement.

My argument is simple. If you play a game that is story driven, and in my opinion that is truly the only element SW:TFU has, it is only sensible to expect a sense of closure as you would find in a good story. Think about it, what differentiates a good story from a bad story? There are many factors of course but one of the main ones is closure. Yet what happens when you play a story driven game with multiple endings; do you think you get double the closure or none? In my belief you get none.

Let’s ask ourselves what SW:TFU really has accomplished for its universe by choosing to provide multiple endings. Is it more story? Perhaps more content? Maybe it adds inventiveness? None of this seems sensible, the simple reality is all it accomplished was adding more speculation to the universe.

Think about it: Which ending was real? Which ending was false? Depending on how you answer this question, you have the possibility of completely squandering the amazing story content that the game attempted to accomplish. Not only are the multiple endings of SW:TFU a huge blunder in my eyes but as well a cop-out. The last thing that the Star Wars universe needs is more speculation! Fill the gaps between the movies already, give the fans something with substance so they can reach true satisfaction with the story. As it now stands such an ending is similar to providing crack to an addict, after the addiction is fed it will soon once again return to overtake the addict. Lack of clear truth and substance simply leads to unfullfilled desires, and thus lack of closure.

But why did this happen? More then likely this happened as the franchise is afraid to commit to an ending that would construe such meaningful events to the series. As this substance would provide closure, as such limiting possible other story lines in the future. Anyone who has played an MMORPG knows that closure isn’t looked upon as a good thing by sources interested in milking you. And frankly I feel like thats all their trying to do! From my own experience all the multiple endings did for me was disrupt my emotional connection to the characters, while at the same time leave me with nothing but doubt.

As I see it, their attempted side step truly resulted in the game SW:TFU discarding its most valuable asset. Simply, if your game is story driven tell a story free from the speculation caused by possible endings. Not only will this make your franchise move forward by adding substance and depth to it, but as well will ensure that the player has the truly emotionally engaging experience you have been striving to achieve through your story.

Without a confirmed ending, a story is incomplete; and thus, any story driven game that does such fails in its apparent task.