"Actually, I can do it right now."

Two of those are historical RTS games and so don't qualify. But Homeworld and Red Alert 2 (depending on whether you consider time-travel-based alt-history SF) are and so are conspicuous by their absence.

Although the graphics are a little outdated now (okay, more than a little in the case of HW1 and HW:C), all three members of the frahcise are still some of the most beautiful RTS games in existence.

Somewhere between Dawn of War and Company of Heroes is my ideal ground-based RTS gaming experience.

I more or less agree, although to be fair, some of the difference is the change in graphical fidelity (some of StarCraft and Diablo's grunginess is because of the low resolution they operated at - most games from that era look darker). But even so it's pretty clear that Warcraft II, StarCraft, and Diablo II are far…

I still prefer the old StarCraft's look to StarCraft II, but I won't deny that the game is beautiful. It just sort of lacks that dark, gruny, and used sci-fi look that the original SC did so well.

I don't know who wrote the article about the dad hacking Wind Waker a while back, but I do recall that the comments for it contained a lot more vitriol.

I think the story in The Witcher 2 is a lot more accessible (the beginning of TW1 is really hard to get into) and the combat is generally better, but I will agree that there are certain aspects of the first game I like better: the lighting, the look and feel, and what ended up being a more complete and complex plot…

The British Empire didn't really begin to decline until World War I. Although, come to think of it, that might make an interesting setting. It just wouldn't be Victorian.

That sounds like a pretty cool idea, actually. It would be kind of similar I suppose to how if you don't use subtitles in Human Revolution you won't understand most of the civilians in Hengsha, except applied on a much wider scale. Of course, I'm an amateur linguist and total geek when it comes to non-English…

I'm not necessarily against the idea - indeed, I do think there's a lot of potential in the possibility of meshing singleplayer and multiplayer together. Nonetheless, it has to be said that there's something to Yahtzee (of The Escapist)'s claim that co-operative play often distracts from the story, because you're…

While I think graphics aren't completely unimportant I must agree with your central thesis.

The Witcher 2 was actually pretty monochromatic at parts too, which was one thing I didn't like about it as much as the first game, which had much better ambient lighting IMO (although worse graphics in most other respects).

I'm pretty sure that was called Sonic and the Secret Rings.

"The score and sound effects are perfect, the aliens are relentlessly charging at you just like Cameron's interpretation (this is an ALIENS game, not an ALIEN game, people)"

Same principle.

Some people might debate some of the iconic elements you mention as they weren't present in the first two games, but I will concede them to you since (to be entirely fair) it is what most gamers will think of when they hear the words "Deus Ex."

Video games are fundamentally different from books though, which is one of the issues with adapting them. For one thing, video games are not as easily compressible as books (which are pretty difficult as it is) because they already have the pacing of a movie but stretched out to several times the typical length of one…

"I can barely remember the plot of Human Revolution as it is..."

Depends. You have a prosthesis? Yes. You have a pacemaker? Yes. You have glasses? That depends how expansive you want your definition to be - in general, we'd say no because glasses aren't a part of your body so much as an accessory. But they fall into kind of a gray zone, since they are fundamentally technology that…