I watched the "2 night premiere" of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I finally got around to seeing T3: Rise of the Machines, which I found on sale at Wal-Mart for $5. I skipped catching T3 in theaters because frankly I was quite happy with the "happy" ending of T2 and I vehemently refuse to believe in pre-destination/fate much less be preached it in bad voice overs, which I was warned about when T3 was in theaters. T3 was a decent action film, and I enjoyed those parts of it. The story was a bit goofy, and that's from a franchise that isn't exactly about continuity or enlightened storytelling to begin with. But personally I still prefer the possibility of hope and change offered by T2. On the other hand, I'll not avoid the upcoming T4 film, as I did T3, as I've happily concluded that T3 and its upcoming sequels are a cute, albeit quaint, alternate timeline from what I've decided is my personal preference.
The Sarah Conner Chronicles was fun. Like a couple of fellow Firefly fans I tuned in primarily for Summer Glau. I thought the two episodes thus far were fun and interesting and the bringing back of the "fight the future" mentality of T2 was what I hoped for, and I'm interested to see where this goes. Unfortunately it is on Fox, so I don't have much hope for its survival. Also, it's currently in "the 24 slot", which means that once everything settles down after the writer's strike it will potentially be challenging Heroes or Chuck, both of which will be higher priorities for my viewing schedule...
So, I was intrigued by the response to the show I found from a very vocal group of people on the internet. It's interesting to me how vocal the T3 fans are in this. Apparently there are some people that liked T3's approach to the series and are disappointed that the show is an alternate timeline skewing from near the end of T2. It amuses me, actually, that people are hating on an alternate timeline/continuity for what is a franchise almost entirely about alternate timelines and a certain degree of inherent lack of continuity.
I've been thinking again recently about iterative storytelling techniques, and the Terminator franchise is an example of a few things not to do to build an iterative storytelling framework, but mostly because it is so obvious how ad hoc the franchise has grown and been passed amongst various writers. As a programmer, iterative thinking is crucial to what I do. But on the other hand the Terminator franchise is probably the most iterative (or at least potentially iterative) franchise out there in films/television. I don't see a lot of iterative thinking in writing, and I think there is plenty of room to experiment there, particularly for games...
I remember recently a "replayability crisis" in which games journalism went through a period in which "all single player only games are useless because they aren't very replayable", and there's still those reviewers that use that as a crutch to beat story-oriented games with. (Hopefully, I think Portal has just about silenced many of those critics...) On the other side are the multiplayer games that have lots of "replayability" through an endless variety of very similar treadmill quests and whose only iterative design is via freezing the world state so that incoming players see the exact same treadmill as older players.
Stories that make sense in "loops" have possibilities for interesting replays for single player games and actual effects in multiplayer games. I'm not the first person to suggest the idea that "quest loops" could be written in about the same amount of effort as current unchanging linear quest progressions and these loops could have huge consequences to the game environment. I'll leave an example as an exercise for another day, but there are a few already out there.
For single player games I think it is an interesting idea to think about making the story have some impact upon replay. What if actions in the end game affect replays? What if knowledge of events in the game can change how those events play out? The only interesting example I can point to of a game that has played with this concept is Shadow of Destiny. It's fairly iterative, involving time loops attempting to forestall the death of the main character as you try to figure out why he's being killed again and again. The game also has an "EX" mode in which you use information gained in the "standard mode" endings to get a final 2 epilogue screens.
So I was thinking about a Terminator-like game that unfolded through multiple replays... each time through the loop being more difficult as technology changes in the course of the temporal "feedback loop". Maybe you present as standard difficulty levels, even, but the player that plays it multiple times is rewarded with extra story elements that tie the various difficulty levels together, and maybe open up new options and abilities over the course of replays...
Anyway, that's just something I've put some small amount of thought into, but I don't really have any real solutions or any finished examples. Take from it what you will. Maybe I'll write a deeper example in a few days.