Mass Effect 3

I do not normally write much about games that I haven't played yet. But I've been reading a preview of Mass Effect 3 with information about a feature that I found very interesting: You can play ME3 in three different modes; in action mode you get all the fighting and reduced dialogues, in story mode you get all the dialogue and easier fighting, and in roleplaying mode you get both full dialogue and fighting.

Such a feature fits in very well with a observation of mine this year, that some games are increasingly becoming interactive movie experiences. For example I played through Mafia 2 this year, not because of the gameplay, but because of the story. And of course SWTOR is also more about the story than about the gameplay. I even picked up Batman: Arkham City at the Christmas Steam sale, because I read how excellent the story-telling is, although I'm not really interested in that style of fighting game. I also bought L.A. Noire for the story.

Thus if I buy a game because of the story, to me it makes perfect sense to be able to reduce the number and/or difficulty of the fighting sequences. And if somebody else buys the same game for the combat, it makes sense that he has at least the option of getting through all those dialogues faster. It basically allows a game company to develop one game and tune it for the needs of two very different populations of players, as well as those who want everything. So I think Mass Effect is onto something here, and I hope this feature spreads to other future games.