"So what if it sold horribly? It was a darn good game, so we're making sequels!!"

[A Black Falcon]

And there you have it, folks. ABF is now certifiably insane. He prefers complete and utter shit like Gauntlet over a terrific title like BG&E. I really don't think anything else needs to be said on this matter.

Yup, that's exactly what I said, uh huh! ... oh wait, it isn't! I said it was close. BG&E is probably a bit better. And you can insult Gauntlet Legends/Dark Legacy all you want but they are still quite good games. From what I've seen (of people's opinions of the games), it seems like what they are are love or hate games. As in, you either love them or hate them, without a whole lot of middle ground... that does NOT make them bad games. It makes them games designed to be a specific thing that some people like and others don't. Like... oh, a whole lot of games... :) What you can say is that you think they're too simplistic. Okay, fine. You think that. I think that they are simple, but really fun... it's a difference of opinion and because yours is that it doesn't make the games terrible. (not so) sorry.

*sigh*
You act as if being "spoon-fed" a story is a bad thing. It's what us humans call story-telling, ABF. You won't believe how it works! Get this: Good story-telling is usually told in some way, be it verbally, through text, through a movie, etc. Presentation, pacing, and composition are three very important parts of story-telling. Without these three things, even the best concepts can fall flat and become bad stories. With books and movies, people have had plenty of time to perfect methods of story-telling, while with games the only real success in solid story-telling has been when the stories were presented like movies, the closest visual medium to video games. And while it is effective, video games as an art form have a long way to go and will be probably be a while before a method of story-telling unique to video games becomes the standard. A bunch of text in random order--no matter what it amounts to when you put it all together--is most certainly not good and effective story-telling. In fact it's not really story-telling at all. You can get a story that way, and it can work for what the developers were trying to do (as in the case with Prime), but it's definitely not telling a story well. You don't play Prime for the story. You play Silent Hill or Grim Fandango for the story.

No, it's not always a bad thing, I agree with you there. What I really meant was that while in many cases it is fine and works great, it's nice to see some games mix it up a bit. I don't want EVERY game that way. Having more inventive storytelling forms in some games is a good thing.

And actually the story is one of the (many) great things about Prime. I'd definitely say that it increased my interest in the game while I was playing... it fleshes out the world in a great fashion and gives all kinds of depth to a game that otherwise would be much simpler. You don't play Prime just for the story, but it's definitely one of the reasons you play.

Oh, and on a similar note (since I saw it yesterday) if you've seen it you must have hated the anime movie Millenium Actress... it goes pretty much against what you said there. :) I thought it was pretty good...