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Originally Posted by Junkenstein
Atmosphere coupled with intelligent gameplay is what really gets me. Pure distraction is good, but if the story, the deatils and the mood are done in the good way a game can get my heart much faster than any movie.
My favourite games managed to scare me (bioshock), make me feel like a cool mo-fo (arkham), laugh my ass off (All the sam and max games AND obviously monkey island) or at the peak made me feel like what i was doing mattered and the destiny of the characters was important to me (Mass Effect does that).
I think that games help escape from reality, but great games create a new, believable one around you. So, yeah, atmosphere+gameplay.
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That's a good way of putting it, and there's symbiotic relationship between the atmosphere and gameplay - if I'm frustrated, I'm not immersed and if the world is unconvincing or inconsistent, I'm less likely to carry on playing.
I think Batman, like Dead Space, was a clear post-Bioshock game. I suspect Bioshock's legacy is going to be inspiring developers to focus on the setting and, yes, the atmosphere of their games. Too many games focus on the loud bits and forget how important the quiet moments are, I loved Uncharted 2 for it's smart pacing in that regard.
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ADD: A good example that got way overlooked: Indigo Prophecy. Those damn controls took mor3e out of the game than a baseball bat but when you got used to them that game was as closed as living in a david lynch universe as you can get.
And Vampire The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Simple but cool as hell.
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I loved Indigo Prophecy (or 'Fahrenheit', as it's called over here) - a brave and interesting go at something different that largely succeeded, even if it when bananas at the end. Can't wait for Heavy Rain!
Never played Vampire the etc, but I heard great things.