Video games for the non-player

[John Crowley's LJ (RSS Feed)]

I heard a nice story on NPR tonight about the music fo rvideo games -- how sophisiticated and symphonic it has become. Real music, in the way that music for films can be and sometimes has been. One of the breakthrough scores was the score for the Myst series. I found the first iteration of Myst compelling -- I thought at first that here was a video "game" that was actually novelistic, that it would function like the best kind of SF novel, a continual surprise, opening outward. I was disappointed that its core was a game, a series of puzzles to solve; myabe if i'd actually solved them all I would have found the game unflding in the way I hoped it would, but I lost interest (well to tell the truth I found the puzzles to hard, and too boring to tackle.) The second iteration of the game looked gorgeous but by then I was leery of a structure I din't think I'd enjoy, and I never took it on.

So given al that, what video game do you think might actually fulfill my vision of what Myst was going to do -- be an open ended novel that develops along many lines? (I am a novice here -- the answers might be obvious.) Are ther eany that don't depend on a) solving puzzles or b) killing people or others? (My hand-eye coordiantion isn't up to the shooter games.)

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