Recently, as games have evolved, emotional involvement with characters, the plot, or the setting has become a more interesting and important part of the gaming experience. Games can now make us happy, sad, angry, frustrated, or any other emotion you can think of. For example: At the end of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, I was so immersed in the story and characters, that I wanted to cry (for those of you who have played through it, you know why I wanted to cry). I was upset.

I think that this is a great thing for gaming. It's not only a cool feature, but it could help with all of the controversy and "video-games are art" things. Emotional involvement gives this medium a whole new makeover. You now have a motivation to do whatever you are doing, and that adds a whole new level of realism.

Forget facial expressions, partical effects, and all other graphics-related things. If a game can get you to become a part of it (through characters, story, or anything else), that is about as realistic as it gets.

Share your opinions on this topic with me. I want to know what everyone else thinks about this subject.