I beg to differ. Beautiful and detailed graphics when executed correctly actually enhance the experience rather than dull it. Think back to wonderful epics like the Legacy of Kain series. The dark, gloomy environments and the dying world felt so close to you that you could almost touch it - it really worked on my imagination. You assume that the world of a video game begins and ends within the video game - I think it goes far beyond. The player is always left with questions, always wants more, even when the story theoretically has finished.

Moreover, video games have several advantages over other mediums, but I'll name only two - interactivity and the possibility of non-linearity.

A book evokes suspense, but only on the first read. There is nothing that a book can suprise you with if you're a thorough reader and rarely do people actually read one book several times and find something new in it every single time. A video game can present an open world, a sandbox even, where the player is allowed to create his own adventure... and here's the second advantage - personification.

Players become attached to their character differently than readers become attached to protagonists. A player actively controls the character, and if the game is designed correctly from a story-telling standpoint, the player no longer feels as if he was a spectator watching a story unfold - he becomes a part of the story.

Video games are probably the final step in storytelling before we enter the age of complete virtual reality, and seeing that it's nowhere near on the horizon just yet, we need to put our focus on this medium tenfold. There is immense potential in video games, I actually wrote a paper on this subject. A really "good" video game can leave as much of an imprint on your imagination as any good book - it just needs to be done "right", and it's extremely rare to find those gems in a sea of mediocrity.


This post has been edited by Foxi4, Tue, May 29th, 2012 at 22:24