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Comment by radmuzom | Hacker News Reader

Graphics is important and I believe we will continue to see further innovations in this space.

However, I believe that we still need to achieve a lot in "story-telling" in games. The Mass Effect series is probably one of the best out there - the setting, characters, interactions, morality and gameplay.

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If you think ME is the epitome of storytelling in digital gaming, I highly suggest you grab Planescape:Torment from Good Old Games[0]. And grab a few mods to modernize the experience[1].

0. http://www.gog.com/game/planescape_torment

1. http://www.gog.com/news/mod_spotlight_planescape_torment_mod...

So true! I still have the game box sitting on the shelf for this! It's been ages since I played it through, but it is still the game I look back at the most fondly!

Never realized there was a push to mod the game so extensively. Gonna have to give these mods a try and replay this one!

I feel exactly the opposite. To hell with graphics and story-telling - I want to play a GAME with good GAMEPLAY

What exactly does that mean?

Maybe he means that, when he wants to be told a story, he reads a book or watches a movie, and when he wants to play a game, he plays a game. I feel mostly this way myself: when I want to do something interactive, I want to do something interactive, not watch cutscenes or listen to or read dialogue. I guess this is why singleplayer story-driven games have never interested me very much, and why I prefer multiplayer games or open-ended singleplayer games (like sports or flight sims back before online games). Sometimes playing singleplayer, story/exploration-driven games feels like more work than play to me. There's 5 different branches in this dialogue tree; if I skip some, what if I miss some important detail, or something amusing? Better sit through all of them...then maybe I can get back to playing the game.

This makes sense from the narrow perspective that a compelling story has to be told through cutscenes or dialogue.

I don't see any reason there can't be interactive story-driven games. I agree though, games with a pre-defined story, and a path you have to follow, tend to lose a lot of the interactivity one would like in a game.

Extremely late to respond but the most simple example that comes to mind is Chess. Chess is all gameplay and does not rely on fancy graphics/art and there is no real story. It's pure gameplay.

I like games with great core mechanics, balance, etc. Hell I actually value soundtracks over graphics or story.

If you enjoy ME, be sure to try Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic I & II, which easily measure up. I'd say even better, but that might be my fondness for that particular universe (the universe of KotOR is much richer than that of the movies).

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