Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra :: Huh, so you only notice the lack of save-anywhere when you AREN'T having fun?

[quote name="Jerry Whorebach"]I can't escape the feeling that proves someone's point, mine maybe? No wait this guy's. [quote name="<a href="http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/previews/gender/benders.htm">Stuart Campbell</a>"]The second category of modern PC gaming comprises the likes of Bioshock, Half-Life 2, Tomb Raider Legend and so on, as well as more obviously narrative-led genres like point-and-clickers. The unifying feature of these games is linearity, with there rarely being any point in playing through the game more than once and with the plot never going backwards. (Think of quicksaves as the technological equivalent of a nice leather bookmark.) In something like Bioshock, the hero is really only a device for telling the story through – in fighting off the Big Daddies, all the player is really doing is turning a handle to keep a gramophone playing. That’s why you can’t die – nobody wants to have the last two pages of a chapter read to them a dozen times before moving onto the next one, do they? (The likes of Tomb Raider Legend are even more transparent about their railroading – despite the illusion of an open environment brimming with possibilities, levels are always constructed for a single solution, and if you can see a ledge you can be damn sure you’re meant to shimmy across it.) Few human impulses are more inherently passive than the desire to be told a story, even if Mummy won’t read you the next part or let you stay up to watch the next episode until you’ve done all your homework. If you’re an adult and still can’t go to sleep at night until you’ve heard about a brave sword-wielding warrior rescuing a beautiful princess from an evil wizard’s castle in a world of mystical dragons and horrible goblins and altogether too many adjectives, you’re – well, frankly I don’t know what you are, but I sure as heck wouldn’t call it a “hardcore toddler”. Of the three main divisions of PC gaming, adventures (as defined here) are the closest things to proper videogames, but they’re still really just what in the old days we called “interactive movies”. It’s just that these days they’re a little more interactive.[/quote][/quote]