"Mass Effect was the most grandiose while Rock Band had the most subtle. The difference in the three games, he noted, was embodied by the different ways in which each approaches its narrative". [Dice discuss]
Games span from huge sandboxes, via story-oriented with a potential for sandbox (like the module editor for NWN - the narrative can both be made and used outside the confines of the basics of the game itselg), to more linear bite-sized levels and tasks. And then back again to the endless tasks of something like tetris or zuma.
So why do we play - most likely for a different reason at different times, and for a quite varied set of reasons compared to someone else's list. Games and gaming is no longer one thing, any more than 'music' is a single activity and direction. It is high and low. Easy and complex. Loud and quiet. And so on. Games are starting to truly reach that same level - of breadth of offering, of quality of selection and most certainly of scope of users. It is just something you do.
"If you want to read books that tackle profound philosophical questions, then the best — and perhaps only — place to turn these days is sci-fi" Clive Thompson over at Wired sings the gospel of Cory Doctorow (mostly well deserved) and ponders the challenge of dealing with 'issues' in writing. One oversight is possibly the ethical side of philosophy, having migrated quite a bit into the crime section - notably in works along the lines of American Pshyco.
He also mentions various authors on the edge, like Susanna Clarke (of Norrel fame) - whom I personally found rather long winded and a bit dull compared to a proper novel by Dickens, since his work was serialized and had to keep the tempo at all times. So, a better place to start looking is in the games section - and then nip over to the media section in general, and have a look at the 'universes' still expanding and finding their multiple shapes. Be it the Buffyverse in comic form for Season 8, Discworld branching into stories for older, younger and on tv - or the many faces of Star Wars in printed, drawn, animated and game form. Neither of the three sit comfortably inside a 'sci-fi' cordon, yet all take their fans on journeys of the mind as well as the dreams.
(on a side-note, Bioware has recently put a date for the first mini-expansion for Mass Effect - a sidequest on a different planet, with some 90 minutes of playtime. Look for it on XBL)
