Bitmob.com

Bioshock was about more than just shooting everything that moved. Yes, you did a lot of that, but there was more going on. With the whole "Would you kindly" aspect, Bioshock questioned player agency within the confines of a designed structure by asking if the player was in control of the game they were playing, or if the developer was actually in control, reducing the player to a mindless monkey that only does what they're told.

The game also asked if you were willing to murder a little girl for more power. I've played a lot of games (mostly RPGs) as both good guys and bad guys. My Shephard is a renegade. However, in Bioshock (and its sequel) I am physically incapable of fully draining the Little Sisters. I know its a game, this decision has little to no effect on the actual narrative, but that doesn't matter. I can't kill a child.

Is that a comment on human nature as Ken Levine suggests? I don't know, but it is more than just shooting everything that moves until the credits come on.

Also, I don't agree with the notion that a good story can't elevate a "dum action game" to be something more than just dumb. I'm not particularly fond of Metal Gear Solid 2, but as Bitmob editor Rob Savillo pointed out, it is probably the first post-modern game. In a game where you mostly snuck around, shot a lot of people (sometimes from the first-person perspective), and did naked cartwheels, its narrative plays a large role in the reason why it's considered to be post-modern.&nbs"

Preorder bonuses don't neccesarily bother me. With Arkham City, Best Buy offered Robin as a playable character in the challenge mode, which I was all for. It doesn't make a huge difference, but I really like Robin, and the DLC seperatly would have cost $8. In addition, around the time that Arkham City was released, Best buy had a promotion where you preordered 5 games and got $100 back after you picked up all 5 games, so that was a bit of extra incentive to preorder games that I was going to buy at launch anyway.

Amazon also regularly offers $10 or so credit when preordering certain game"

In disk 2 of Xenogears, the plot still moves forward, but the world map is completely removed, characters talk about things that happened or are happening through long bouts of expostition, with occasional gameplay moments. Still though, this happened for the same reason as Evangelion's last episode, they ran out of money.

And Xenosaga isn't really that long though. Sure, it's3 games, but Xenosaga 2 is short by RPG standards. There series is cut scene happy, so you'll be watching more cutscenes than playing the actual game. Then again, the series can't make up its mind about who the main character is, more religous nonsense, and Jesus makes a cameo.

You could probably just find all of the videos on youtube (in fact, I think that Xenosaga II came with a DVD that just had all of the cut scenes from Xenosaga linked together to make Xenosaga: The Movie)"