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It looks interesting, but I refuse to sign up to another fucking site to take their gamer astrology quiz.
Maybe Carmack takes it a bit far, but I think story in gaming is load bearing. At best it lets a game punch above it's weight. Portal minus the writing and world building is rather bland. But by the same token, think about how sparse the "writing" in Portal really is. Do you think it cracks 15 minutes of spoken dialog? Would the scattered bits of text in the game fit on the front and back of a notecard?
From one perspective, Carmack's dismissiveness towards writing and story is proven wrong by Portal. From another perspective, Carmack is vindicated, as Portal truly does have just enough writing to get the action going.
"Just enough to get the action going" is hardly a scientific measure, and one could argue an RPG takes more to "get the action going" than a puzzle game. But I enjoy the laconic inspiration behind the ethos. Nothing kills me worse in a game, even a game I am ostensibly enjoying, even an exposition dump I am ostensibly invested in (like when Xenoblade 3 almost made me cry), than when I get the feeling like this is nice and all, but I kind of want to play too, so can we wrap up this going on 30 minute cutscene?
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