perhaps Ubisoft simply felt that it was time to go in a new direction. Given the great affection of many gamers and critics for Sands of Time, it was perhaps inevitable that Prince of Persia would be scrutinized extensively. Perhaps it was held to too high a standard, as Scott Juster thinks, but fairly or not several of the decisions in the new game's design have proven widely divisive.

…please explain to me again why killing NPCs in games is fine but sticking them with a cattle prod is evil.

The experience of playing the game itself is where I personally find the major innovations of Audiosurf as well as its major problems.

What I'm interested in for this post is not the narrative told by gameplay, optional quests, or personal investment; what I am interested in is the story told in the nooks, crannies, and little details.

I'm immersed in things that say more about me and my avatar than about any Fallout 3 quest line. I am, in important ways, authoring my own story.

While Fallout 3 meticulously recreates a desolate, expansive landscape that is strangely full of activity and experience, it does so by a very specific and often narrow-minded method.

Many games act as the middle man between the game world and the player. Fallout actively refuses to take on this role, instead demanding that the player engage with the game’s environments for themselves.

For a little over an hour my investment in the storyline of Fallout 3 was greater than with any other game. My actions and those of my character were in sync

Bethesda’s Fallout 3 provides an experience different from many other role-playing games. It gives the player the ability to create their own path through its world without a pressing main quest.

Everything I heard about Fallout 3 made me suspect it wasn't as good as the rapturous reviews would suggest.

Instead of playing an assumed sheltered adult thrust out in the harsh, destroyed landscape of the DC wasteland, this is a character you build from cradle on to many graves.

To be sure, Fallout 3 spins a better, less cliched, more coherent set of tales than Oblivion, but the old bugaboos remain: weak writing, animatronic characters with detached voices, and primitive interactions.

The people of Fallout 3 are stiffs. They're like robots meandering from one place to the next with an illusion of purpose. Engaging one is like hitting his PLAY button.

If there's any substantive dialogue or conversation going on in Fallout 3 it's not between the doctors, the raiders or the paladins; it's between the player and the world.

In Fallout 3 there is a character called Mr. Burke. He is a suit who works for a very rich man and apparently revels in nihilistic destruction. Let’s imagine how this character would have appeared in Fallout 1 or 2.

For a wasteland that has been scavenged by survivors for hundreds of years, the D.C. area in Fallout 3 is surprisingly rich in resources.

In Fallout 3, as with many other "Western" role-playing games, the player is an agent of moral choice in a world defined by the developers.

Fallout 3 does a better job, in general, of presenting reasons to be good. The backstory supports the idea of a good character, and the dire situation of most settlements in the wasteland provides the tools to construct a compelling heroic narrative

Apparently I’m a nice guy. At least that’s what my trusty Pip-Boy 3000 (Model A) tells me.

Now that the resultant wasteland exists in one of Bethesda's open and persistent worlds, you're forced to survey the full extent of the destruction.

The wasteland of Fallout 3 represents the state of nature as the war of all men against all men. In so doing, and by connecting the wasteland's state of nature to that between countries, the game argues that the death of governmental and international covenants are fatal to both individuals, and humanity itself.

Early and late in No More Heroes Suda breaks the fourth wall—a sign that the game is trying to say something about its own medium. Suda seems to be illustrating the limits of video games—the borders of what they can do, and the borders of what we allow them to do.

perhaps Ubisoft simply felt that it was time to go in a new direction. Given the great affection of many gamers and critics for Sands of Time, it was perhaps inevitable that Prince of Persia would be scrutinized extensively. Perhaps it was held to too high a standard, as Scott Juster thinks, but fairly or not several of the decisions in the new game's design have proven widely divisive.