On the other hand, your UC2 example isn't really an example of gaming doing anything. That scene is for all intents and purposes just a movie, except a real movie would most likely have been better at it. **** What Kotor has, which goes a long way to making up the shortfall in production values, is player agency. I own that character which just got revealed as Revan. I moulded that character over dozens of hours. But I'm never Nathan Drake. Nathan Drake is Nathan Drake. I'm the other dude that shows up and kills hundreds of people between the cutscenes. ***** I agree that showing is generally better than telling, but I think there are better ways for games to do it than coming to a halt and switching to a passive cutscene. Valve are fantastic at this andit can often be done quite subtly, just showing enough and letting the player's imagination fill in the gaps. ****** Sorry about the formatting - the text editor on ipad is garbage.

Growing up playing video games, you really needed to use your imagination with older game consoles. Heck, just look at the old atari 2600 games. Your imagination would fill in all the spaces where the technology was not capable to do so. As gaming technology got better, developers were able to fill in more of the details which relied less on the users imagination. Nowadays, games are filled with so much detail that, in my opinion, gamers no longer use their imaginations because games now tell and show us everything there is to their game world.

Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. Without the technology we have today, games such as Skyrim, Gears of War 3, and Mass Effect would not be the same. All those games rely on a high level of detail and are part of their success.

I do feel that imagination is still used in games, but in a different capacity. After all, we have to believe that we're playing the role of a dragon master, space marine, pro sport player, etc. We no longer need to use our imaginations to fill in the technological gaps. I do feel that the players imagination should be tapped to heighten the overall game play experience. Cinematics are used to advance the story plot, but how about more interactive experiences where the player must decided in real time the outcome of those story plots. The player would less be told, but is deciding how the story will develop. Games are doing this now, but with simple dialog. I'd like to see this integrated in the main story plots, but kind of like a choose your own adventure book. Imagine if two different play throughs lead you to two very different stories, not subtle differences, but drastic changes in the story and outcome. Games today are still very linear and generally offer you two choices (good or bad), but you still hit the same story/plot points.

I think this is a good discussion and I look forward to seeing how technology in the future game consoles will enable heighten gameplay experiences. Yes, games can always look better, but that cpu power can be used to create intelligent decision making systems where consequences have true impact on your gameplay.

I've said too much and I hope it makes sense. Have a good day!