I am the type of person who is capable of critical thought. I love video games, and find that they are an interesting new medium. They are immediate, interactive, visual, auditory environments that have the potential to convey ideas that books, comics, and movies could not.
Take Rohrer's Passage. Without saying a single word, you have an experience that presents a vague glimpse of the past and future while you navigate the present. There are goals that you can pursue (points, coverage, distance, tricky locations), but the limited time that you have in life only allows you to achieve some of them. You can choose to travel with a companion that makes you happier, but also logistically prevents you from going certain places.
The potential of new media is in the ways in which it is different from previous media. An epic odyssey is better told by a respected elder in a social setting than by a a short, unresponsive, bright, noisy projection in a dark room. Literal emotion and visual environment is better portrayed through the lens of a camera than through a drawing or book.
The problem is that you think that games are a great storytelling medium, and they are not. They are a complicated storytelling medium, and an attractive one, but until we see more powerful artificial intelligence, they are not a great one. The closest you currently get to great storytelling in games is the puppet box of Rohrer's Sleep is Death, where the storyteller is actually another human.
So, go read a book, go watch a great movie, go tell a story to friends and family, and go play a great game. But don't tell me that a sophisticated, visually pleasing, well voice acted choose your own adventure game is a modern classic.
Take Rohrer's Passage. Without saying a single word, you have an experience that presents a vague glimpse of the past and future while you navigate the present. There are goals that you can pursue (points, coverage, distance, tricky locations), but the limited time that you have in life only allows you to achieve some of them. You can choose to travel with a companion that makes you happier, but also logistically prevents you from going certain places.
The potential of new media is in the ways in which it is different from previous media. An epic odyssey is better told by a respected elder in a social setting than by a a short, unresponsive, bright, noisy projection in a dark room. Literal emotion and visual environment is better portrayed through the lens of a camera than through a drawing or book.
The problem is that you think that games are a great storytelling medium, and they are not. They are a complicated storytelling medium, and an attractive one, but until we see more powerful artificial intelligence, they are not a great one. The closest you currently get to great storytelling in games is the puppet box of Rohrer's Sleep is Death, where the storyteller is actually another human.
So, go read a book, go watch a great movie, go tell a story to friends and family, and go play a great game. But don't tell me that a sophisticated, visually pleasing, well voice acted choose your own adventure game is a modern classic.