Josh Ling @ Adopt Me!

I understand your anger, you’re clearly passionate about games, I’m not so fussed. The Last of Us was a great game, I really enjoyed it, but to imply it’s anything other than an interactive copy of George A Romero’s best work is to be wilfully blind.

Dismissing something experiential as "flashing lights" is rather silly. Do you think music needs characters and story to influence people? Of course not, because it's not a novel or a movie, it's its own medium. Games don't need to be movies, even though some get close

The best music does have story and characters, or at least makes you feel emotions as if you were thinking of your own. Experiences are great and can be profound, of course they can.

I politely disagree, some of my favourite music (particularly instrumentals) doesn't make me picture characters and stories and narratives in my head or anything. It just sounds good and makes me feel a certain way. Abstract art is another good example of such a medium

Key word there is ‘feel’

The thing about how video games can have the ability to make you ‘feel’ more is their interactivity. Shadow of the Colossus, for example, which has you hunt giant colossus, only to realise at the end they were peaceful, makes YOU feel guilty. YOU’RE the villain.

I’ve no doubt that’s true, but to say that’s unique to games is piffle. You can be implicit in film or books too. Maniac, Peeping Tom, Game Of Thrones, all have (anti)heroes which do terrible things. You don’t need to press the button to feel the pain.