To be honest, I didn't. I did see your 3DS/Vita comment.
But I'm not sure what games you think everyone else has been playing all these years.
Thing is, I'm not entirely sure what everyone has been playing. There is a lot of hype surrounding games of all sorts (indie and mainstream EA/Ubi/Acti stuff) and I tend to tune most of it out.
It's been years since a game has really captured anything I would say has a degree of honesty or emotional integrity, but then again that's not necessarily what I ask for in a game. Good luck to you if that's what you're after.
My experience of games with some alleged subtext and intellectualism was soured by the pretentious rubbish that was Braid. 'Oooh, look, it's about the Manhattan Project' or somesuch tripe. As a result, many games that get mentioned in the same breath get filtered by my inbuilt bullshit detector that is strongly calibrated to ignore anything like Battlefield or promises by Peter Molyneaux or engine stability comments by Bethesda.
So I just tend to go for what I know are solid core mechanics. Sometimes there is a great story attached to it, sometimes not. Half Life, Resident Evil 4, Metal Gear Solid 3, Mario Galaxy, Skyward Sword, Advance Wars, Portal, Pac Man Championship Edition, Outrun 2 are all standouts in recent years in particular.
But the last two games that had any semblance of 'emotional resonance' with me were Beyond Good and Evil, and Oddworld Stranger. Not because of any great original story (I'm sure parallels exist with other works) but because of the coherence of the world and the sincerity behind the writing.
I don't expect that from any game though. It's wrong to go looking for it, because you will only end up being disappointed as a result of game writers in general, being terrible. It's only by pure chance that something like that comes along and is lucky to be bought at all.
/end directionless rant at nothing in particular
