After having played through Call of Duty: Black Ops, I've realised a few things. First, how a game can take you on an emotional rollercoaster and secondly, how games can take you on an unplanned rollercoaster of emotion.
The first is fairly straight forward, the writers, designers and overall production of the game, in the solo campaign, is there to tell a story and with all good stories, the reader, or gamer, will experience the same emotions that the main character experiences. At least, that's the idea. COD:BO does it very well, the story brings together pieces of the puzzle that, at points, make you really take a step back and say 'Wow, I didn't see that coming.' One issue that videogames face that books or movies can get away with, is the idea of cutting from scene to scene. In books or movies, readers/watchers, are ok with the idea of passively going through the world with whatever character is on screen because that's how the experience plays out and that's how things will come together in the end. However, this doesn't always translate well into story telling for games. As of the recent iterations, the COD installements, have attempted to do a similar form of story telling by going back and forth between main characters and as a result, provided a varied experience to the player. However, what this does to a gamer is create a disconnect between the story and the action. More often than not, gamers will hardly play a game from start to finish in one sitting, making the experience even more disjointed and harder to follow.
Where do you draw the line? It's a double edged sword for games. If the experience is too linear we'll get bored. A nice solution to this situation can be found in Alan Wake or even Alone in the Dark. Everytime you load the game, it would give you a 'Previously on Alone in the Dark' similar to how television shows recap previous episodes. This would help keep the continuity in the story and rebuild the interest the gamer had in the story in the first place.
