I sooner finish an average game with an average story then a great game with no story.
For example this year I finished Alan Wake and Enslaved before even touching Mario Galaxy 2. The storylines kept me going through fallout NV despite all the crash bugs, same for RDR. Without the backstory and character storylines Mass Effect 2 just turns into an average shooter instead of goty material.
The lighter the story the less chance I'll play the game. I already got bored within the demo time of just cause 2 and crackdown.
I would like to see a revival of pre-rendered cutscenes. They used to be a reward and a treat to watch. Nowadays they mostly highlight all the short comings of the game engine, ugly close ups with blurry textures, geometry and textures popping in when switching camera angles, badly rendered shadows. And most of the cutscenes are very timid not to stress the engine.
Final fantasy 13 got the cutscneres right at least. The cutscenes in white knight chronicles where far and few between but they were stunning. Ratchet and clank crack in time also did it right. Turn up the detail, the lighting, the shadows and use some high res textures for the cutscenes, do some crazy stuff, make me want to watch them a 2nd time. Make me look forward to the next gen where the gameplay might look like as good as the cutscenes now.
And don't use bink 'destroy your video' compression ever again ugh.
It's nice to say games can match toy story 2 like graphics, can the cutscenes please strife for toy story 3 / Avatar like quality. It's not 1999 anymore.
