Windbane and friends - you can't use acclaim as evidence for the quality of MGS' story. Video game critics seem to like the story, but one has to show why that means anything. In fact, it seems to me that critical approval of a game's story is reason to think that it's unsophisticated and dumbed-down - critics are successful insofar as they can predict the tastes of teenage boys.

A certain amount of elitism is completely justified here. No one with any background in philosophy or literature can look at MGS and say that the story is worth a second glance. It fails miserably as writing (see the script that someone commented on) and it offers the sort of philosophical insight that you might expect from that annoying kid who won't shut up in Phil 101. Anyone holding it up as good is clearly overstepping their qualifications, and in doing so they fail to show proper respect for people who know they're talking about. Anyone in any field is completely justified in being elitist if someone shows a complete disregard for thought in the field. That's not to say that someone couldn't disagree with the consensus of experts, but at least have the courtesy to address the arguments at hand. I assume that everyone agrees that the games tends to sermonize on occasion, so someone who thinks that the game has a good story needs to explain why sermonizing is good story-telling if they want to claim that the games have good stories. If you instead want to claim that they're works of philosophy, then someone needs to explain exactly what novel philosophical insights they contain.

I disagree in general with the idea that games can in principle rival literature as a medium for narrative storytelling. To my mind, games are at their most artistic when they strip as much of the explicit story away as possible. It's the ability to say something without saying anything at all that sets games apart from books.

If there was a way to give you a medal over the internet, I would do so now. I've been through this argument too many times and you succiently stated it for me.

One note I might add; videogames will never challenge a narrative. What they can do is challenge cinema with interactivity. Literature goes into depth that visual media can never achieve for it relies solely on human imagination. On the other hand, games can perfectely challenge movies with more interactivety, more immersion, and more emotion if done properly.

My problem lies in the fact that very few developers have ever tried such a strategy. 

If you want a good and deep anime series, watch Neon Genesis Evangelion. Regarded as one the greatest anime's of all time.

Oh lordy, you just dropped like a rock in my eyes. Don't get me started on that pseudo-intellectual bullshit called NGE.

It's a mess. It's a bunch of whiny teenagers contemplating life and I blame the entire emo movement for that sort of trash being publicly touted as intelligent.

You want real intelligence with undertones about how fucked up the world is? Watch Magnolia. By the end, every character has your sympathy yet you still dislike them for their pathetic nature. To boot, it's a brilliantly told story that draws allusion to coincidence and irony better than almost anything I have seen in years.

Note: If you want anime that doesn't pander to the emo nature, Grave of the Fireflies is where to start. Then, even though I'm not a big fan of it, Spirited Away is another place to go.

Shit, even Lain was better than NGE.

You really don't want to give anything the place it deserves rocketpig; dude, I've had 6 years Latin, and 4 years old-Greek at school, and have read Homer and Vergile in their original languages, we had to translate that stuff till we got sick of it, so don't think I don't understand what you try to tell me with your ''semi-intellectual bullshit'' comments, but you should also understand what I try to tell, and that's that everything has got it's own place and context; no sense in pointing out everytime what an ever better story is, of what is even more intellectual, or even more philosophical. I can see things seperatly, and have no need in comparing different mediums all that time and works (movie, books or games) that usually aren't even made with the same goal in mind..

Fair enough.

In that case, Star Wars: A New Hope is more intelligent than NGE. If you research it enough, you'll realize why I say that.

BTW, I would like to point out that it was done less than ten years ago. Bringing up Latin and ancient text is bad form because good storytelling is good storytelling despite culture, race, or era. You should know that if you bring up languages not commonly used since the 8th century. 

I just saw NGE two years ago and loved it. Every episode is hilarious; I've never laughed so hard as I did when a friend and I watched the last episode together.

Rocketpig, I hadn't considered games as potentially competing with movies. Now that you bring it up, I can see it, but I long ago gave up trying to really 'get' greatness in art, so I'm afraid that's not much of an endorsement. I'd always pictured them as trying to approximate 'The Little Prince'. Something of a "here's a world, now be free" sort of thing. I thought that Mario 64 and Shadow of the Colossus were fairly artistic. The key for me has always been a fully-imagined world that the player doesn't feel constrained by - games, for me, have always been exercises in freedom. I can understand the movie thing, but I just can't feel it.

and pardon my misspells, and also my enterknop is broken, so I'm forced to write everything after each other all the time and can't put spaces in between, very irritating.. anyhow, it's already 8:42 AM here, haven't slept all night, so I'm gonna give it a try.. it's been a pleasure

Don't you think it's sad that we view such an incredible medium in such a fancy-free way?