The guy who shepherded the Halo novels through the labyrinthine halls of Microsoft, Eric Trautmann, has made an interesting blog post on storytelling in games. It started out as a review of the new Xbox 360 shooter Lost Planet, but took a u-turn somewhere and ended up with the conclusion that games, so far, are a stunted sort of storytelling:

Even examples touted as "masterpieces" of game story - notably Halo - fall into the same traps, to lesser degrees. This is defended as being "by design," of course. The Master Chief undergoes no emotional growth, suffers no loss or overcomes anything beyond physical challenges in the course of the story, and that's to, if I'm phrasing this right, allow YOU, the GAMER, to use the Chief as a "vessel" for your own emotions. I'm of the opinion that this argument is (in memory of Douglas Adams) a load of dingo's kidneys. But that’s a topic for another day. What remains is this:

There’s no story there. The character learns nothing, changes not one whit, but instead merely moves through plot, and a derivative one at that.

In the case of Halo, it’s the style of the piece, and the pure visceral fun – and the post 9/11 timeliness of the plot that possessed a certain semiotic context to the chaos of the moment – that makes it work. It’s a rare case of the supremely talented craft overcoming the glaring weaknesses of the art.

A very interesting read; those who have been following recent storytelling threads in the HBO forum should head on over for Trautmann's take.