I absolutely LOVE the Marvel vs Capcom francise! I've been a huge fan since I played the original in the acrade as a kid! It brought together two of my most adored fictional universes and gave players the ability to wage wars between heroes like Ryu, Captain America, Morrigan, and Spider-Man! It was a nerdy kid's dream come true!
The one thing that has ALWAYS bugged me, though, was that there was never a concrete story to tie the two worlds together. Sure, MVC2 got a comic in Japan, but it was little more than splash panels of heroes in action poses. The third game was just as bad, having a Japanese adaptaion that went only a little farther than, "Hi, I'm a bad guy from another dimension! Want to team up and kill the heroes?" So that's why you can imagine my excitement at hearing the fourth installment is going to feature a full cinematic story mode! Not only do we get that elusive explanation that brings the cast together, but we also get to see a bigger meta-story as we play through the game!
This got me thinking about other games that have followed a similar pattern of "Here's a fun game, but we left the story out of the programming so go buy a book/comic." I know that not everyone is concerned with a good story, but it's a key feature for me. I don't care how good your game is mechanically, if I don't have a compelling reason to doing anything in the game then I don't really have a reason to hang around.
Halo is one of the first series that comes to mind when I think of this style of storytelling (or storySELLING, as I call it). There's a whole universe of stories to be told, but Master Chief doesn't care about anything outside of the aliens currently shooting him in the face. Sure, the books, movies, and shorts are all fantasitc, but I wanted to see some of that development in the actual game. That's why I was so excited for Reach and ODST; new perspectives on several key moments from the lore. But those ended up feeling as shallow as the main games.
Some games aren't as bad, of course. Mass Effect 3 had a great story (excluding the original ending, of course), but they managed to sneak in quite a few references to several novels and comics that were released in tandem with the game. It's really distracting to hear the characters deliver a key bit of information, then immediately explain how it's connected to an event that you have never heard of and they don't have the time to explain it right now. Oh, well; guess I had better read that novel so I know what you're talking about, Anderson.
Overwatch is an insanely fun game, but it is probably the worst offender I can think of! Aside from Winston's compelling speech that plays whenever you boot up the game, there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO story in the game itself! Sure there are hints at potential characters and locations hidden in some of the maps, but if you want to tap into the incredible, rich, and entertaining fiction behind the firefights then you have go elsewhere. There are no character bios, intro cinematics, no explanation of why good guys and bad guys are fighting on the same teams, nothing. And that's a real shame because there is just so much detail in that world and I want to experience it all myself, not just watch it from the outside.
Like I said, not every gamer cares about how good the story is in a game as long as they are having fun. I can totally understand that. But in this age where games are rivaling Hollywood blockbusters as a form of entertainmen I feel that it's just a waste to put so much effort into these incredible storys and then leave them out of the medium they were written for.
But that's just my opinion.