I dunno... I thought Mario Paint was pretty fun.

Agree completely! Games should be games. Jump, shoot, think (lot's of other verbs here). No complex stories, no drama - lol, especially interactive drama, that becomes so pathetic it's almost funny! No, it's actually funny! Jaaaaason!

This is so gold:

http://www.dorkly.com/video/30941/dorkly-bits-mario-is-too-mainstream

Even though wrong, because Braid and Limbo have excellent gameplay and settings - and few to no dramatic moments. But the status they've been given is hilarious.

yikes.. watching Jim Sterling makes me wanna go outside and exercise... that's one fat lazy tanless dude..

i really don't get all the hate for QD this last week or so...

Heavy rain was fun. it was also very different from anything else the other studios are doing. i like variety and so should you. there is no one statement for "games should be..." that can be stated as so many people are trying to state. art games should have just as much a place as anything else.

I look forward to Call of Duty 99 where we will undoubtedly be playing the exact same game in however many years time...death to the "art" games.

Of course point and click adventures have always existed (King's Quest, 7th Guest), as have cinematic games (Space Ace, Dragon's Lair), but this part of Koweniki's repost of another of Jim Sterling's reviews is very important:

"If anything, Heavy Rain deserves to be played simply to see the potential of games in this style. In the hands of better writers and the throats of better voice actors, a game like Heavy Rain could be absolutely amazing. This particular game is good in many ways, and is truly a trailblazer, but it falls short of its own ambitions, possibly because it thought it was so clever that it didn't try harder."

And what are its own ambitions? To be as solid as a top movie in terms of story and production.

Jim Sterling is great sometimes and other times he's a bit of a (c word sounds alot like punt) he's making some good points in that video

As for heavy rain i have to say i loved it but it did lack a certain something to make it truely unforgetable and it's failings for me were in the dialog and controls, i didn't have a problem with the decision making system in conversations, the general navigation systems felt alittle well crap which was a shame because the generally it felt well polished. The dialog was a big gripe for me, the voice actors were obviously not native english speakers for the most part and as much as there accents were good they just weren't perfect and some of the dialog delivery was disjointed and it damaged the story which was good if a little predictable.

I beat Space Ace and I think I also finished Dragon's Lair. I remember it was about pressing the right direction and/or action button at the right time within a cinematic sequence. Perhaps King's Quest is more point and click. Thanks for helping me clarify my point.

But, my general idea still stands. If you don't mind I'll go ahead and reword that.

The problem with many art games is that they are artsy for the sake of being artsy. The result is a soulless piece of junk that no one cares about. You can pretty much compare them to all these ordinary and boring paintings that you pass by in search of those few pieces that actually have something interesting to tell.

What a weeny.