Quote Originally Posted by Zenicetus View Post
I think the difference here is that if a game developer isn't going to bother to do a really good story, then they should do the minimal story necessary as a rationale for the action, and then keep it out of the way. Don't insult the player's intelligence (and good taste) with a terrible story that just distracts from the gameplay. Dead Space is a recent game that doesn't have a very original storyline, but the devs mostly kept it in the background, so you could enjoy their different take on FPS games.

If the story and game world is compelling enough, I can overlook somewhat mediocre gameplay. The Witcher game is a good example of that. I sure didn't play it for the combat, which was repetitive and too easy. Bioshock was similar... basically just a so-so FPS game, but an interesting story and very interesting environment that kept me playing the game.

It's much harder for the gameplay to be so good that I'm willing to forgive a stale or juvenile storyline. Mass Effect and Fallout 3 are almost, but not quite in that category for me. Assassin's Creed definitely was. That game had some interesting mechanics (the whole rooftop jumping thing), but the story was just terrible; especially that constant flipping back and forth to the modern world. I couldn't finish it, because I just stopped caring about the story wrapper for the action.

Another example would be the two Kohan fantasy RTS games. As strategy games they were great, but the backstory and game world were cringe-inducingly awful. I never finished the campaign for the second game because I just couldn't take it any more (and it still worked fine in the alternate sandbox mode). I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and hoping Stardock has some good writers for their upcoming fantasy TBS game. It's so easy to write terrible fantasy storylines and game worlds, and apparently it's hard to write it well.
THANK YOU! lol, that is exactly it! A game can be great with a get-by storyline and great gameplay, but do not insult one's intelligence with garbage.

Quote Originally Posted by Meneldil View Post

I blame american puritanism rather than any excessive gore or sexual inuendo. I never found the game nearly as gore/disgusting as Call of Cthulhu:DCotE, or even as Resident Evil and some other mainstream games. As for the sexual stuff, I'm not even sure it's worth being called sexual. One of your ally is a succubus, I for one appreciate that the devs didn't made her a blank character for the sake of censorship.
lol, not sexual stuff? In more than one scene she is stark naked bent over you. She is always talking about doing sexual stuff to you. I guess we Americans must be some messed up puritans then, cause I found the gore in that game quite disturbing. :P You argument that other games are more disturbing is damaging for those other games (now at least I know not to check them out :P), but hardly does this one any favors.