@genericuser_: It becomes a more troubling issue when you become aware of the rumours swirling around about the toxic environment over at Quantic Dream. There are some things that David Cage has said that are pretty troubling, in particular the way he is reported to have responded to complaints of racism and homophobia at his studio. It's actually been quite disappointing to me and is making me take a second look at the way his stories are written...

@croxus: Have you played any of Quantic Dream's previous offerings? Heavy Rain, Indigo Prophecy, or Beyond Two Souls? The reason people are having a negative response to the flowcharts has everything to do with your very first sentence: immersion.

The more immersed you are into a story, the higher your suspension of belief- which basically means that for a temporary period of time, your outside world drifts away, and the more you are able to project yourself into the story and become the characters on screen. Immersion is something that tends to build up slowly over time, especially with games or movies. The reason that a scary movie is able to scare you or cause you to feel dread, is because of the way the film is paced and timed. If a scary movie was interrupted every 5 or 10 minutes with a technical explanation of the previous scene, the movie would lose a lot of its impact / scariness.

Just in a similar way, when a scene ends in Detroit and the Flowchart comes on the screen- all of the immersion and tension that had built up over the previous scene is instantly released. Your immersion into the story is broken. It's not that people are saying they have a problem with branches or choices in a story, it's that we don't appreciate the fact that it's shoved into our face every 10 minutes, breaking our immersion and flow of the story. Most people just want to lose themselves into the story, without being reminded of the mechanics.

@siarhei: Haha. I really did laugh out loud...

@vblake73: I didn't see very much marketing for this game, it actually surprised me a bit, as I only came aware of it a few months before it's release. Although the gameplay in this game is far from ordinary, really the only other games that use a similar gameplay style are Quantic Dream's previous releases... I also wonder what you mean when you say that if a games story comprises more than 50% of the overall game, that it's not a good sign? Are you meaning about gameplay time versus cinematics time?

@Slinqy: I'm sure if you wait you will find used copies pretty soon. These types of games don't have a lot of replay for most people. I don't think digital copies will have a price drop anytime soon though.

@Warlord_Irochi: It's an interesting thing to ponder, and you're right that people can be oppressed for reasons other than race. I do think that it is possible to understand oppression and discrimination on an intellectual level, but that it doesn't equal the emotional experience.

@croxus: I found your comment a bit hard to follow, but maybe it's my fault.

@Jasurim: I have to agree that I do like this better than Beyond Two Souls. I tend to like stories that are based more in reality than the supernatural. Science and Science Fiction is one thing, but BTS went off the rails a little bit for me.

I agree it's doing a disservice to the immersion and story flow, sometimes I even lose the narrative a bit because of the way it keeps cutting. It seems a step backwards even and I wonder what brought about the developers need to put it in. It just seems somewhat superfluous to the design, at best it should be an optional feature, or a special feature- perhaps something that isn't accessible until you've completed the game. It seems like something that should be included in the extras as oppose to the core gameplay...

I sometimes wonder if Bungie had of concentrated less on billing this game as a true MMO, if it would of gotten a bit less flamed. Taken as a game like COD or Battlefield, which are multiplayer games but aren't really referred to as "MMO's" - with different expectations and perspective, destiny is pretty good game. But with the expectation that it's an MMO that will supply endless amounts of playtime, it falters.