by Temujin, the Sexiest Man in the Kingdom

A lot of you reading this will've played either MGS3 or FFX. Those who haven't, bear with me. The graphics in these games are excellent, the FMVs of FFX in particular are mind-blowing, really. They're better than some special effects in top-notch films.

However, because we've got an ever-increasing capacity for graphical improvement (apparently the PS3 will be so damn good you'll be able to see the reflections in a character's eyes) other areas of gaming such as the storyline may be suffering. With graphics, it's usually pretty obvious when it's better, and, because there is little limit at the moment to the advancing graphics, they're getting a lot better quickly.

I remember loading a cassette into my Amstrad when I was about six, waiting 30 minutes for it to load and then moving around a very blocky character in a very simple game. Now, we slip a CD into our shithot console and in 3 minutes we're slitting throats, interrogating guards and watching FMVs that're slightly better than reality.

In the old days, the technology sucked, so to improve, better storylines were more important. Now, storylines can also be excellent or poor, but graphics and gameplay are much easier to improve because they're technology rather than human-based.

Remember FFVII? The characters looked like they'd been drawn by a spastic. And yet, we loved it. Why? Because the music was good or excellent, Sephiroth was a supercool villain and the storyline sucked us in. I know some like FFX, but I don't. The storyline and the characters are stereotypical which means they're boring by and large. The plot is the most important thing in that type of game, but it gets less attention than perhaps it ought to because such emphasis is placed on graphics.