EGM scores. Some pretty big games.

[A Black Falcon]

No books tell stories completely through lines of dialogue. If it were all just raw dialogue you would have nothing. In movies you can get away with that because the visuals do the narrating. It would not work if it were just two people statically standing in front of each other and exchanging dialogue.

First, games have visuals too. Sure, not real-life-quality, but they do. Like the sets in a film or the surrounding descriptive words in a book they describe the scene. In some games words themselves are also used -- see adventure games and their 'Look' commands, or the textual descriptions you will sometimes find in RPGs (in or before conversations). So you are trying to make a distinction here that does not really exist. Between the images and the words (that weren't supposed to be dialogue), I'd say that conversations in games can be every bit the equal of conversations in books or movies. So no, I am not going to just submit to the idea that because you say so it is So like you essentially say in the reply before that one.

I'm not suggesting that all games should become Citizen Kane. No, we need our simple and entertaining stories. I'm talking about method and execution. Most games do not execute their stories very well, and that is why they are not taken seriously by the mainstream. It may take a bunch more ICOs and MGS2s in order for gaming to gain that respect, but not everything has to be complex. The stories just need to be told well, and currently very few of them do that.

And ICO sold pretty poorly, even though it got major critical acclaim and just about everyone who actually played it for a certain amount of time fell in love with it.

Ico sold poorly... yeah, thought it might have, helps prove that point of mine. :)

And you ignore my point about other media formats, which was the whole focus of those paragraphs (and the ones before them)!

That is actually not true. It's not impossible, but I've yet to see a "comic book game" with the level of quality and intelligence as "Watchmen" or "Sandman".

I wouldn't know because I haven't played all that many comic book games and have read probably even fewer real comic books... maybe it's not true, but for the ones that do come over it seems like they usually try to convert it decently.

Oh, and it probably shouldn't surprise you that I've never heard of those comic books. :)

Fantasy literature can be "high" literature. Good literature is good literature, simple as that. You can enjoy something without it being exceptionally good. Perhaps that is what you're insecure of. There's nothing wrong with you enjoying your fantasy books, after all everything is subjective, right? But there are certain standards that art is generally judged by. It's not perfect, but it is the best way of somewhat objectively providing what is great and what is not.

So how about a response to the point I was making? You almost completely dodge the issue...

I never retreated from anything, I merely stated my opinion more clearly for you, so it was your own assumptions that retreated. On a gameplay level I prefer other adventure games, but on an artistic level (not just in terms of visuals, but on a literary level as well) it is indeed head and shoulders above the rest. It is a shining example of how to tell a story in a video game.

You state things in very certain terms that leaves little room for assumptions.

And I found Grim's gameplay fine... different from other adventure games I had played, mostly (I had played some where you controlled the character with the arrow keys and typed in commands -- in this regard Grim wasn't so much breaking new ground (except for the head-look thing, that was new) as it was redefining old ideas with its control scheme), and the uniqueness was interesting. Interesting you'd say that, I'd think you would prefer it given your strongly worded statements in favor of direct controls that you'd love Grim's control scheme... if you mean other aspects of gameplay (ignoring story, setting, controls, etc), I'd say Grim plays just like most of the other LA adventures I've played.

... enough for now, I'll deal with the rest later probably...