Monday, February 20, 2012  A video game almost made me cry  I
recently finished playing an excellent video game, Mass Effect 2
(just before Mass Effect 3 comes out), on the advice of one of
my favorite writers, Tom Bissell. His video game writing on
Grantland is extraordinary and his book Extra Lives is a great
exploration of video games as an art form. In the book he
describes how storytelling in video games has become "formally
compelling" (even if the stories being told are overly baroque
or poorly written) and uses Mass Effect as an example.  I
totally agree with Bissell. There's a pivotal scene halfway
through the game where virtually your entire crew gets captured.
You're given a choice: do you want to go on a high-risk rescue
mission, for which the team you lead is unprepared, or do you
want to continue to prepare so you're ready for the mission? If
you go on the rescue mission at that moment you're also
potentially leaving a bunch of side missions undone.  While some
characters were beseeching me to m