PHJF wrote on Feb 13, 2013, 18:52:

Perhaps it's more accurate to say that gameplay SHOULD trump everything else, because isn't that why we play games?

That's funny because I don't see too many genuinely unique games coming out these days. We have all these games that not only play roughly identically but also present the kind of writing any third grader could muster. Presentation is king.

Yeah, "back in the day" the thing I would remember most about any given game, when all was said and done, was the the gameplay. But games have moved well beyond Pong. Cheap entertainment like that is cultural junk food and ultimately isn't going to make a lasting impression on people. It takes a story with colorful, real, memorable characters to pull that off. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Portal? I'm willing to bet a lot of people, myself included, think of GLaDOS. If Portal were just about portals, would it still be fun? Yeah, sure. But it wouldn't have made a fraction of the impact it had on the community without its quirky writers.