What's the BEST thing about video games?

[Boneasse]

'Lo everyone! This has probably been done before, but as the search-bar did not yield any recent results I thought it would be interesting to see what people thought is the best thing about video games.

So, what do you think it is? The LAN-parties, time consumement (is that a word?), questing, t-bagging, pwning noobs or simply just being the awesome entertainment-form that it is?

Throw it out here, and let's see if people agree or disagree.

 

[Professor Cubbage]

The awesome moments you have with your friends.

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

You can do whatever you want (well, what the game designers planned anyway) and there is nobody that can stop you

 

[BabyRaptor]

Meeting new people and having moments of spectacularness with them.

 

[DanielBrown]

They help me escape from reality. Swooosch!

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Doing crazy shit like skydiving naked with a pimp cane shotgun in Saint's Row 2, grapple hooking your way around the world in Just Cause 2, and other absurd stuff.

 

[SodaDew]

The feeling playing with a friend and you think its only 9:00 when its really 2:00 in the morning the the priceless "Oh crap!" expression.

 

[Turbulenssi]

They help me escape from reality. Swooosch!

This definitely^^

 

[baddude1337]

Loads of things to choose from, but for me a game with a great story where you become very attached to the characters and actually care what happens to them.

 

[OneOfTheMichael's]

Killing people without being arrested unless your playing GTA

 

[RabbidKuriboh]

being able to see a great intersting and expansive world and immersing yourself in whatever you want, this is where games are better than films or books if you want to explore extra bits in a film its already been lain out for you books are a little diferent but very similar, games however let you focus on what you want to the world, the npcs, the mythology etc.

 

[Jasper Jeffs]

The lulz, mainly. Whether I'm repeatedly mowing down the same guy in GTA IV free roam for no reason, or bouncing off the walls with a rocket launcher whilst running around the enemy's spawn in Unreal Tournament, or smashing my face against the ambush key in World of Warcraft. It's just fun at someone else's expense, which is why I mainly play multiplayer games. Fortunately, I recognise that so I don't ever get stressed out if someone tries to do the same. I take video games about as seriously as football, which is not at all.

 

[TragicHero84]

the hot guys. chris redfield, rawwwr.
oh, and practicing something and getting better at it daily, then using those skills to kick people's asses. it's a good feeling.

 

[BENZOOKA]

The sense of achievement and power when you manage to raise your attack damage from 10 to 11.

Actually: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)][footnote]the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.[/footnote]

 

[smeghead25]

I like videogames for those amazing experiences that they often provide. Even mostly crappy games such as Kane & Lynch: Dead Man had memorable moments that really make you glad to be a gamer

 

[PleasantKenobi]

Too much to mention, but a couple of the top of my head:

Immersion: Someone has said it before, but being able to go off and do your own thing away from the narrative within games such as GTA, Fallout, Oblivion, Baldur's Gate, Just Cause, Battlefield.

Linking in to this is the 'emergent' gameplay/narrative, the cool moments that are completely unscriped that you remember for years to come. THe firsttime I shot down Plane all those eyars ago in Battlefield 1942 only to have it crash into the gunners seat I was in. I dived to saftey, but thought of it as a cool moment because it was not planned, it simply happened through a chain of random events.

Time investment/narrative scope: Een in games where story can be badly written in places, liek Fallout 3, the time investment with the characters trumps other mediums and usually aids to improve your commitment. Mass Effect 2 or either of the Baldur's Gate (PC) ganmes exemplify this clearly. Byt the time I had finished I genuinely care what happens to each character, and the world around them.

Interactivity, interactivity, interactivity: Half-Life 2 is one of my all time favourite games, and I don't think that is just for the narrative and aesthetics. It is the feel of the gameplay, the dynamic combat, the 'emergent' gameplay situations thanks to the grav gun, the aspect fo it that make it uniquely a video-game, and not a novel, movie, poem or short story.

Actually: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)][footnote]the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.[/footnote]

I so get this while playing Geometry Wars.

 

[IceyHawt]

You get to explore places that before you could only dream about. You can do things that in real life you could only think about. And if someone ticks you off... you get the picture