“Sparks flew.” Have you ever heard that expression? It's used to describe a great fight, or a fun date. Farrah, from the Xbox game Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, was a little of both. She was fairly useless, constantly feuding with me and taunting my lack of progress. Though the puzzles were tough, they were fair. I eventually won and Farrah came around. I felt just the right amount of friction between the thrill of success and the threat of failure, flint and steel. The game was truly something special - sparks flew.

There were no sparks between me and the new Prince of Persia. The game just lacked that certain something. The new love interest, Elika was pretty, helpful and always there for the Prince. Whenever you're about to die she's always there with a helping hand. She was way more useful than Farrah ever thought about being. Yet I can't help but bristle at her antics. The game never really came together for me in any meaningful way. The game missed that special friction. There were no sparks – instead, Elika just grated.

I am addicted to the apocalypse. I love it. Nothing makes my heart skip a beat like the notion of apocalyptic horror. Pre-apocalypse stories involve a ragtag group of unlikely heroes that are bound together by the secret, cryptic signs that the world is about to end. They always try to save the world with their newfound realizations. No one believes them, of course. How could the world possibly end? It's lasted this long, right? Then BAM, the bombs drop, or the plague hits, and only our heroes are safe. The future of humanity now rests solely with them.

Post-apocalypse stories are similarly driven by some singular knowledge. The Wasteland or zombie hordes are held back by the last bastions of civilization. Their secret knowledge of what came before, modern technology, science, and history make them all-powerful in a powerless world. The post-apocalyptic world knows nothing of the world that was, that perfect utopia. They know a poisonous, hostile world. Only the hero truly knows the breath of human knowledge. Can he use it to save them all?

In short, the apocalypse takes anyone with the right knowledge and makes them the most important person in the history of mankind. I can't get enough.

Warning: Fallout 3 spoilers at the end of the article

Creation is a powerful act. Though far less fun than its flip side, destruction, creation has an amazing effect on people. The first time my little bug eyed fly-kangaroo hybrid crawled out of the digital primordial ooze, I was near giddy with excitement. The possibilities Spore affords the armchair god are near limitless. The creations that stream in from my GWJ buddy list have consistently blown me away. The creators of Spore have developed the closest thing to My Little Gene-Splicer that can be safely allowed in the continental U.S.

The ease of use allows plenty of thoughtless creations as well. Plenty of animals don't make it past the Tribal stage because they weren't well thought out before hand. Fortunately in Spore it's pretty easy to get a do-over. You don't have to bear the responsibility for these flawed creations, you can just click the trash can next to their cuddly face and start over.

If only thoughtless business decisions were so easy to erase.

What makes video games different from all the art that has come before it? Paintings make better visual art and books can tell a story very well. Theater can act the story out with breathtaking clarity. A live music performance can be better than even the best game soundtrack, and movies beautifully combine all of these elements into one package. So what do video games do differently? It's simple, games are interactive. Video games can tell a story, but they tell your story.

So why is it that the only art on the planet that can interact with you increasingly decides not to?

Dear Xbox Live,

I know I haven't seen you in a while, and I wanted to explain. It's not you, really. I've just been off doing my own thing, with the zombies in the mall and all that. Really, it was Dead Rising all the way with me. I wasn't off hanging around her again, I just wanted you to know. I know the PC has always had her hooks in me, but I wasn't cheating on you. I've just been going through a rough bit, and I've been into my own single player thing for a while. But I wanted you to know, you and me and some Gears of War? Baby, I love you.

It's a typical late night session at the computer.  I'm rounding up my game before I hit the sack.  A startling noise comes from the hallway.  Should I check it out?  Nah, it was nothing.  I'll just keep staring at my monitor.  It certainly wasn't anything out of the ordinary.  I mean, who else would be in the house to make noise?  The dog is sleeping at my feet, I'm in here, who else could it be?  Certainly if there was someone else in the house, my dog would notice.  Then again, the intruder could be almost silent.  Maybe it doesn't have footsteps?  Maybe it doesn't have feet?  If I turn around, will I see some horrible creation float into view?  Or maybe it drags itself along the ground, waiting for me to look down before it shambles up my leg in order to devour my still beating heart!

This is why I can't play horror games.

Lego Star Wars II has been a recent favorite of mine. I adored the first game, the gameplay was that perfect balance between simple and fun while the cutscenes took the Star Wars Prequels and distilled them to their purest essence, a bunch of plastic men shaking their fists and making angry noises. Plus, no dialogue, which puts it leagues above the real Prequels. The second Lego Star Wars focuses on the Original Trilogy and while the gameplay has some new welcome additions, I'm still addicted to the cutscenes. Unlike the Prequels I actually enjoyed the original Star Wars movies, yet the Lego versions are still just as much fun. As I was playing, I caught myself wishing I could see the entire Star Wars movie redone with Legos. That's when I realized, I just saw it. I just sat through the entire Star Wars movie redone with Legos. Wait a minute, a movie? Wasn't I playing a game? What just happened? I felt like I had been tricked. Then I knew I had been tricked.

Cutscenes, we meet again.

"Whoa, wait.
I have to do what?"
"You have to jump over each octopus. You can't stop and you can't make a mistake. That egg that's normally a powerup actually means instant death in this instance. You can't tell beforehand. If you're too slow, you die due to time running out. If you're too fast, you die due to enemies coming out of nowhere. Some platforms fall, some do not. You're given no warning. If you die while near checkpoint 3, you'll start there without a hammer and it will be impossible to proceed. All jumps require perfect timing, or you die. Also, the hit detection is buggy. Your character is fat and slips around all over the place, and even when you pass this level you've still got 11 more to go before you beat the game."
"Why am I playing this game again?"
"If you don't want to play ..."
"No way, you wait your turn."

When Roger Ebert's proclamation that games were inherently inferior to other art forms rang out, the gaming community derided him almost in unison. I know, for I was one of the many gamers berating his general ignorance of the art form from the safety of my keyboard. "What was he thinking? How can he say things like that? Has he played Planescape: Torment?" While the gaming community generally considered his remarks uneducated and thoughtless, his proposition still sparks some discussion in my spongy little brain. Do games not need to control the player's actions in order to tell a meaningful story? Do games fundamentally lack the ability for authorial control that is found in traditional narrative? Do games have any form of authorial control whatsoever?

My emphatic reply would definitely be "YES". It's so emphatic, it may involve swearing.

I've been hearing about something called Â"emergent gameplayÂ" from developers for years. The theory goes, you give the player the tools to affect the world, obstacles to overcome and a simulation rich enough and they'll come up with their own game as they play. It's one of the signs of a great design under this theory is that the player will end up playing the game in ways you'd never expect. As a player, I've been doing this for years. I always thought it was called Â"jackasseryÂ".