Amnesia story award

[VaeVictis]

Mostly because it didn't execute its story very well.

So this is the problem I have with AMFP, the story was good, on paper. But in the actual game it was told to you rather than experienced, which is why it fell short in my opinion. I think I wrote about this exact problem in a previous thread: https://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/po...#pid278775

I think when judging the story of a video game, its important to remember that a game is not a book, it should be judged as a game and games have the potential to give some extremely good experiences. A game that tells its narrative through its gameplay is something I admire greatly because it really capitalize on the very thing that make games unique: gameplay. Good examples of games that does this very well are 'Thomas was alone' and 'Brothers'.

In my experiences the best story bits come from games that give the tools to the player to create her own experiences, that's why I really like Skyrim and other Bethesda games, because they give all the power to the player to create her own narrative, and that's some really strong stuff.

That said, the plot of AMFP was great, not denying that, but as a game? it was very poorly executed and there are quite a lot of games that do story a lot better than AMFP. I'm even going so far as to say that the story in Plainscape Torment was fairly poorly executed as it could easily have been written as a book, the gameplay in Torment didn't reinforce the story, it actually held it back some, which was a shame. The plot is superb though, amazing writers, though again, it's important to remember that it's games we're talking about, not books or movies.

I disagree. Personally, I like games that are akin to an interactive novel. But then again, I realize not everyone will appreciate that sort of thing. I will never cease to proclaim my undying love for the Legacy of Kain series in this regard, and I almost always point to it when talking about narrative games. Skyrim was a quest game with no definite ending, and AMfP had a beginning and end and was more story driven, so the two aren't comparable.
AMfP had issues, to be sure, but I don't think it was ever intended to be compared to games outside of its genre.

-AMFP was too short to fully explore its story and themes.

I agree. I loved both of these elements, but I feel it could have been better executed had it been longer.