To follow up on last week's review of “Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance,” I'd like to focus this week's Citizen Player on the place of narrative in video games.

Where that place should be, obviously, is entirely subject to the player. Some prefer skipping over cut scenes to go straight to the action and others would rather grab a soda and sit through an hour of the plot thickening.

What I'd like to talk about, however, is how heavily a good or bad story weighs on a game. In the case of “Metal Gear Solid 2,” I think the bloated narrative knocks the game down a few notches despite the game play proving fun otherwise. The reverse occurs with “Metal Gear Solid,” where the story dissolves into the game play more smoothly and the result is a fun stealth mission that rewards progress with the advancement of an absorbing story.

But not every game can be dirtied by a dull story. That of “Super Smash Brothers Brawl” boils down to this: Nintendo characters fight each other. Yet holding the anemic plot against Nintendo's flagship fighting game would sound crazy to most. Who plays “Smash Brothers” for the story?

In fact, this case can be made for just all “Super Mario” games, which almost always follow the same basic outline: Bowser kidnaps Princess Peach, Mario jumps on Koopas, Mario rescues Peach. Some game critics ragged on this tired formula while reviewing “Super Mario Galaxy,” but that criticism rarely was responsible for a lowered score.

So why should “Metal Gear Solid 2” be any different? For one thing, its story occupies a space as prominent as that of the game play. “Substance's” cut scenes total a couple hours in length, and they're no less digestible spliced between bouts of game play.

On the contrary, they detract from the playing experience by distancing the player from the game. With each line of babble about the meaning of truth and the shadow government conspiracy motivating the game's events, I tuned out and found myself walking to the refrigerator or hopping on my computer. Once I even fell asleep.

In the case of “Substance,” a poor story even pollutes the game play itself, but only slightly. My utter confusion about the turns of events taking me through the game's environments often led me to wonder, “Why am I doing this? Why am I continuing to play this game if I haven't the slightest idea what the point is?”

The game could have indulged its interest in breaking the fourth wall by capitalizing on this confusion and allowing the player to choose whether to battle Solidus Snake at the game's conclusion. By this point, it is revealed that protagonist Raiden (pictured) is a pawn of another enemy, the Patriots, and that he has been carrying out their insidious plans the whole game.

With this revelation, allowing Raiden to choose whether to fight Solidus would have tested the player's commitment to game convention: Defeat the final boss, or lay down the sword, literally? Were the story of “Substance” more absorbing perhaps more players likely would have walked away in defiance rather than continue to battle through the game in blind obedience.

As “Metal Gear Solid 2” suggests, the weight of a faulty story upon its game is only as heavy as the story's prevalence in that game. Were “Substance's” narrative relegated to half the time - or better yet, the instruction manual - the playing experience may have felt more fun. Instead, it's an unfortunate strike against storytelling in video games.

Staff writer David Wilcox reviews video games for The Citizen. He can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or david.wilcox@lee.net