Speak to me in a language I can hear

Going on 17 years and I've played a lot of games. Waited for a lot of big releases, bought consoles for just one game and generally always been excited about what the industry has to offer. Dreamt about saying 'I write about video games' when someone asks me what my occupation is. It's been 17 good years.

17 good years. It hasn't been spectacular, and there have been times where a game has failed to reach my expectations, where a game has made me frustrated purely because of bad design. Who am I to complain though? Developers probably thought it sounded good at the time...

Anyway this is me beating around the bush. As I said before I've played games, played through them, reflected on the good and bad points. I've played games that I've been moved, by the characters, and the cinematics, the rich dialogue. But rarely because of the actual game design.

There's the difference. It's been decades since the inception of video games, countless technological upgrades. Yet a game has ever rarely moved me because of it's game design. Playing through God of War 3, I can be moved by the trials and tribulations of what Kratos has faced, the mammoth goals he's been tasked with. But when it comes to what makes a video game, a video game, God of War 3 more or less has me mashing buttons, square, square, triangle, triangle etc. I'm not moved by pushing buttons.

And even though my friends will know about how I rag on about Silent Hill 2 had sheer emotional depth, it wasn't because of the clunky combat system, or the awkward control mechanics. It was because of the dialogue, the graphics, the haunting soundtrack, the tale it told about a tortured soul. Something that any movie can achieve.

So that's what I'm saying here. The difference between movies and games is that I'm in control. This control is what makes games so appealing. Yet developers have hardly found a way to make game design a way to move the player emotionally.

There's two games in which I can think of that incorporate game design to move the gamer in some emotional way. The first is Batman Arkham Asylum, in which one scene inspires fear into the gamer. Yes actual fear, not because of some lurching monster in the distance, but raw fear that would make any gamer freeze in terror. The other is Metal Gear Solid 4, right near the end, where through mashing triangle, you can feel Snake's pain. The first example is better, and ironically enough, it doesn't require any sort of control, but still manages to tap into the gamer's heart and draw fear.

So that's what I'm saying. Games have the ability to move players, but rarely because of their actual game design. Developers spend truckloads of money on pimping out the graphics abd getting large orchestras, when really they should be focusing on what makes games so different; game design. Games attract me because they have attribute that makes it so appealing. They turn me off when they rely on generic attributes that aren't so different to other art forms.

Surprise me. Move me.