Last week, I was reviewing From Software's stylised RPG, 3D Dot Game Heroes, for the Official PlayStation Magazine, when I made the mistake of actually watching the story summary at the beginning. Now, this visually arresting game is something of a comic homage to Zelda so shouldn't be taken too seriously. However, its 'plot' - about six powerful gems that have been separated up throughout a kingdom and now must be saved from an evil knight - seemed to absolutely typify the key failure of the RPG genre (as far as I'm concerned): awful, awful, generic narratives.



Fantasy novels deal with grand, sweeping eternal themes of honour, betrayal, war and the supernatural struggle between good and evil, and this is partly because they tend to draw their themes and conventions from iconic mythological texts (Tolkien, for example, was heavily influenced by Celtic, Nordic and German folklore). But when these tropes are transferred to videogames, with the grandeur and historical influences stripped from them, they've often led to generic plots concerning dark sorcerers and powerful gems that, well, as Morrissey once put it, say nothing to me about my life.

Science fiction, however, has often dealt with very specific contemporary fears, providing incisive social and political commentary on key issues. While Tolkien was writing Lord of the Rings, George Orwell and Ray Bradbury were formulating their great works of dystopian terror, Nineteen Eighty Four and Fahrenheit 451, and those stories still have something intrinsic to say to us about the power of the state and the threat of surveillance culture. I'm not saying they were better, but I'm not sure that similar, quantifiably relevant lessons can be drawn from Frodo's adventures in Middle Earth - though I am prepared to be proved cretinously wrong.

And I think, because of this, because of the contemporary relevance, and the natural cohesion between technology-inspired fiction and video game hardware, the most interesting games I've played have tended to belong in the science fiction rather than fantasy genre. Bioshock and Deus Ex make compelling points about genetics and society, Half-Life 2, Beneath a Steel Sky and the Fallout series play on our fears of apocalypse, while Syndicate and Snatcher both made interesting additions to cyberpunk lore. As for MMOs, I just find the vast socio-political depth of Eve Online much more interesting than the endless quests and raids of WoW.

But, more importantly, what do you think? Which of these two staple genres has made the most profound impact on games - and gamers?