let me reiterate how far down a good story is on my list of things a game must have before il buy it. its probably not even on the first page. when i want a story, i go to the movies, turn on the tv, or on the rare occasion im not feeling lazy, i read a book. some of my all time favorite games have practically no story at all. doom and quake between them probably had 4 pages of story in the game. carmageddon had no plot at all and was still quite epic, decent 1 and 2 (especially the former) had enough story to tell you what to do, almost every combat flight sim i own has zero story at all.
i think that the role of story in a game is simply to establish your objectives. you need just enough information to tell you what you need to be doing. if it happens to be entertaining or adds to immersion then so much the better. too much story can be just as much of a game killer. i hate games that make you watch a 10 minute cutscene before you are allowed to do anything. especially games where your kicking ass and all the sudden the game cuts to some story content that really just ruins your momentum.
maybe this is because of the era i grew up with. i mean i played atari when i was 5, went through the 8 bit, the 16 bit and the 32 bit eras, and switched to computer games from consoles before i finished high school. i also tended towards action games that had little or no story. i was big on early fps games, played descent 1 and 2 to death. i also liked games for their artistic qualities, always enjoys getting the latest state of the art fps game just to enjoy the graphics. i might play through it 2 or 3 times tops but its still worth it. most of the games i play im bored with after i beat it. usually il play through a second and then commit it to the cd case. time so when i get a game like sc2 and i play it for months straight instead of for a couple weeks, i tend to give that game a rather high rating.
