I was thinking about buying the videogame "Star Wars: Empire at War" (not that I have any spare time). Anyway, I decided against it because I was sure, like most games, I'd abandon it after a few hours. And I realized that one reason I do that is because, unlike thrilling movies (like "Star Wars") or books, videogames very rarely make things worse and worse before handing you a great triumph. Generally, videogames go like this: Prologue: Trains you. Act I: Simple levels acquaint you with the games capabilities. Act II: Bigger levels, with more enemies. Act III: Tons of enemies. And then you're done. But it's essentially the same damn thing over and over. Even the ones that change, because of technology trees and so forth, the gameplay doesn't change much. You have Mark V lasers instead of Mark I lasers. Your units move faster. But it's still building up a stack of chips and measuring them up against the computers. It's not like a thrilling narrative, where the protagonists loose for a long time, slowly learning new things, and then everything comes together in a pitched battle (which the good guys win).