On Sunday I completed Hotel Dusk: Room 215 on the DS. It is a deeply flawed game that still managed to captivate me. It had the promise of being a fantastic game but did not deliver. Its strengths which were the characters, writing and plot proved to be its greatest flaw.

If you didn’t already know, the game requires you to hold the DS like a book as well i.e. the screens are on your left and right instead of up and down. Unfortunately the excellent writing and dialogues overwhelm the game at the expense of gameplay which is in short supply. Too much time is spent tapping the screen with the stylus to read the next text instead of actually playing the game.

Maybe that is what Cing, the developer of the game, was aiming at. I don’t know. I believe however that the company needs to decide what it wants to do. Develop games with great stories AND gameplay or just great stories? A story in a game, as great as it is, must be delivered through or alongside strong gameplay because ultimately that is what makes a game what it is.