I usually just like messing around in games, not doing what I am supposed to do. It's fun to just sit back, relax, and play a game, but sometimes they can be quite engaging. The level of interactivity has come a long way from jumping over pipes with Mario to swinging high above the skyline of New York as Spider-man. The level of immersion has also seen a drastic change, from simple dialogue boxes to prolific voice-actors providing voices and motion capture to really bring these characters alive. Relatable characters along with strong narratives in games almost makes it feel like you are right there beside them watching as the story unfolds.

These stories can involve almost anything, like a father-son journey through six realms of Norse mythology in God of War, where a man just wants to live a new life far away from his past, but trouble always finds him. It's the trouble that brings these two together in their journey. These characters learn and change as the story progresses, and you as the player want to see them grow and accomplish their goal.

Games like God of War have strong stories that have pushed the medium's ability to tell compelling stories to a new level, but some of the most interesting stories don't always come from the game's narrative. Sometimes the best stories come from behind-the-scenes of video games, like the Atari video game burial in New Mexico, video game censorship and the first amendment, the failure of developers because of market trends, and of course, the current business model of those pesky micro-transactions in AAA video games. These are the types of stories that I will be talking about, so please, have a seat, and stay a while.