Well the three biggest games of the year have been released…Doom 3, Halo 2 and Half-Life 2; and although they might be three fantastic games it’s had to say that they all lived up to what we were all hoping they would be. Now like many other people here have said I think I know why they all haven’t quite been the perfect games we were hoping them to be. That one key element that you will find missing in each of these games and is referenced too in each of Gamespot’s reviews is that the story has been a major disappointment. They have all either depended on a) graphics ie. Doom3 or b) they are just continuing on the original game without adding much more ie. Halo 2, but it seems to be enough for them to sell millions of copies. However these game companies are limiting themselves to what could be millions more and are only creating a video game, nothing more, nothing less (it most cases). But what us gamers want is to be put into a world that has life, which granted all of these three games have done but not given us a point to be there except a) hell has broken loose b) aliens are invading or c) aliens are invading.... but this time we can use a gravity gun to pick up objects to kill them with (sweet!)...hey I'm not complaining but once I make it to the end and utter these words then I'm complaining...

That’s it??...The two words that a game developer should make sure is never said after anyone finishes their game. There’s nothing worse than feeling like the game is not finished when the credits start to roll. Now you ask why exactly wasn’t Half-Life 2 the spectacle that we were led to believe it would be…well it did improve on graphics but it didn’t depend on them either and it is continuing from Half-Life but it’s more a stand alone game than a sequel it seems to me, but the one thing that held it back from achieving that perfect score was it didn’t have the story to make it a perfect game. Now being a film student it seems to me that this problem could easily be solved and we could finally be seeing some perfect scores being handed out. I’m not sure why game companies seem to over look the story of their games. I mean Valve delayed Half-Life 2 by more than a year and based on Gamespot’s review the story was a major disappointment. It obviously wasn’t to add a story. Gabe should email the designers of MGS for some ideas.

Now that I've gone off from what I was originaly talking about...as a film student I find that story is a major factor in making a game. I feel that over looking story is a big mistake. Solutions? Well what game companies should start doing is assigning designers to do nothing but develope the story or what they could do is get what they call a "script doctor" does in the film biz which is to look over the "script" or story of a film and make sure it's what it should or could be and if it isn't they make changes. So we get "game doctors" to go over the story of a game and make sure it's a good one. I also think maybe what games should go is step back from spending all their time trying to put in different gameplay mechanics which by the way all end up being the same but if one minor ajustment (in most cases) and spend more time on the story end of their games, and if I see one more game that throws in slow motion-bullet time i'm going to go insane.