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The better method would be to drive people toward the games that push their potential. Let games speak for themselves, you know? Better to spent our engery writing about those games than writing about the whole.
...And I probably should have said that in the article, since that was what I was (poorly) trying to get at. Crap. Be right back."
Game music definitely deserves more credit, though. I think it just gets ignored because, as you said, many studios just treat it as something to break the silence with. Pretty easy not to take notice of it, then. People just need to understand the influence it carries. If they did, I'm certain music would get the praise it deserves more often."
Cutscenes are good, especially those that are quick. The less time it takes to actually get playing, the better. Problem is that so few games really make a good intro cutscene. Either they just get the set-up out of the way quickly or just don't manage to enrapture you right from the start. That is the purpose of an intro, right? To capture one's attention at the beginning? I can't think of many games I've played in the past year that managed to do that, but then, maybe I'm just playing the wrong games. I don't know.
I just think that, with such a visual oriented medium as video games, developers should be focusing less on passive storytelling and more on active. That doesn't mean every game should take the Valve approach -- Bastion, for instance was able to tell its story entirely through narration so as to never interrupt play -- just that developers should at least try to find more compelling means of conveying a story other than through five-minute or more long cutscenes.
I mean, I like cutscens as much as anyone else, and I think they certainly have their uses (the cutscenes of Uncharted are one of the best parts, for instance). It's just, I'd like to see developers diversify. Try something different every now and then rather than always rely on cutscenes or long streams of text to convey a story."
Still, these are good tips."