or everybody's gone to the rapture-style "walking simulators"

because their presentation is indeed unparalleled. the cost seems to be gameplay/player agency. ND games appear to split the difference between film and game and both parts suffer as a result. the writing and acting is a touch below good tv/film writing and acting (still better than most VG writing) and the gameplay is kind of outdated and clunky. that's not a good video game experience to me but i can see why others like it

fwiw there is a part of me that wants to work my way through the games so i can see all the lovingly rendered environments and art assets but even thinking about it makes me bored. i can't even make it through lets plays of those games