In what sense are you using the word imaginative here? A game doesn’t have to have the most original or complex premise to be imaginative.

Two of your favourite games, Ico and SotC, have incredibly simple premises, but would anyone argue that they’re not imaginative? They’re two of the best games ever made, and yet they are “from a pretty basic background“, so I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make.

This is possibly the most ridiculous statement I’ve ever read from you, and that’s saying something. Aside from anything else I said “one of”.

But go on, give us your list of games whose design is the result of a “lot more effort”. It might be an interesting discussion if you can reign in the urge to post any more nonsense like above.

Oh and no, steampunk is not ‘radical’, who said it was? And why do you think something needs to be radical in order to be good?

They are both from pretty basic basckground.

Dues Ex is very cool, and I would go on record and say it’s way better than Bioshock. And Thief well, that was just special. The creativity behind levels did it for me.

And I recognise what Bioshock did, but like in comparison to something like Morrowind (outside of the genre and admittedly I am a Morrowind fanboy) it’s absolutely samey.

Is steampunk really so radical to everyone, I guess is what I am trying to say. Enough to warrant it being called a masterpiece? Becuase the gameplay alone is just awkward to me.

The only thing that set this apart was the System Shock inspired basis and the underwater setting certainly lent itself to all these designs that are never actually applied because they don’t suit the criteria.

But either way I can tell you a multitude of games that have a far better atmosphere and in terms of design have had a lot more effort put in. Especially when you say let alone for the genre. That’s exactly the kind of hyperbole I was talking about.

I suppose it’s stupid arguing a subjective point but it’s never stopped me before.

Not god, Ken Levine – Looking Glass alumnus and lead designer of System Shock 2, one of the greatest games of all time – bestowed a new game on the earth. A new game inspired by System Shock and the Looking Glass legacy no less.

It wasn’t perfect – in certain respects it was quite disappointing for an old System Shock fan – but it was brilliant, and it had one of the most beautifully realised, original and atmospheric settings in games full stop, let alone for the genre.

You’d think that god just bestowed the greatest and most clever FPS game unto the earth.