My main problem with AMFP: Observer vs. Participator

[Ossie]

Thanks for the mature and detailed analysis John, that was a good read. However, most of the things that you didn't like about the game is what made it so appealing to myself and others.

As for your criticism of the writing - as has already been mentioned (both here and in another thread (the latter by Dan Pinchbeck himself)) the writing style was deliberate and intended to evoke the style of writing of the time and also to evoke the atmosphere of the time. I thought that the writing was wonderful - I savoured every sentence, to me it was perfect.

My suggestion would be to play it again (not as an LP) in a few months or a year - there were obviously some positives that stuck with you and I think that if you delve back into it knowing what to expect you will appreciate it more. Prior expectations are a pain with any medium and often get in the way of enjoying whatever it is that you are reading or watching for the first time. I find this happens to me a lot - I'll give two movies as my own examples (just off the top of my head) - Spielberg's "A.I." and Nolan's "The Dark Knight". I was really disappointed by both on the first viewing, but something about them was good enough to stick in my head. I watched them again some months after the first viewing and enjoyed them even more, and with a few views of each under my belt I think that they are both masterpieces.

But I digress, so here's a plug for John (one of my favorite YouTube Let's Players!) - if anyone wants to see John's LP of AAMFP here's the first two parts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wYGIxPw00U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Bus9nBHj0

Note: he hasn't finished uploading all of the parts yet.