What are your thoughts on writing in games? It still feels like the area of development with the least attention paid to it.

EP: Oh, sure. It's coming from such a low place. The thing with games and game writing -- you know, there's a sense that some people want to go from where we were two years ago to Hollywood level. It's not going to happen that quickly. You're starting to see really strong stories in games now, in Mass Effect, in BioShock.

I think story is important, but I'm much more interested in story that is told through gameplay, through the medium of games. BioShock does that incredibly well. Call of Duty 4 does that probably better than anyone. It's the old "show, don't tell" rule.

At Bethesda, we call them "lore bombs" -- you talk to an NPC, and they just drop 50 lines of dialogue on you. That's not the way to tell a story -- even in an RPG, with a lot of text.

I think there's a lot of room for better stories, but I think there's a lot of room for better storytelling. Look at Valve and Half-Life. Valve is the master of telling a story through their gameplay. And the Looking Glass model is a good model for me too. It's one I look back on.

Thief feels like an RPG, but there's no dialogue. Garrett never talked to anyone. The story was told through what you experience. I think there's a lot more you can do with that.

I was talking to Ken Levine at one point, and he said something to the effect of, "Anyone can write a 20-minute cutscene." The challenge is more in conveying that same information through organic means.

EP: I agree with that 100 percent.

Are you familiar with what the Far Cry 2 guys are doing in that area?

EP: Yeah! I think their stuff looks incredible. My love of first-person -- I'm a sucker for any fully-realized first-person gameplay, like Mirror's Edge or Far Cry 2. It's the type of stuff where -- because we're both first-person and third-person, we're not a dedicated first-person game -- we haven't been able to get to that level yet.

We'll see what the future holds. But I love their setup -- if you're looking for [Far Cry 2's assassination target] The Jackal, how do you go about doing that? I can't wait to get my hands on that.

You mentioned Mirror's Edge, a first-person game that isn't explicitly a shooter -- Portal was also that. What do you think about the future of such games, that treat "first-person" as a broad design element, rather than as a synonym for the specific genre "first-person shooter"?

EP: For me, it's all about, as a gamer who likes first-person games, what do I want to do? I want to experience different things. It seems trite, it seems simple, but that really is the reality. If shooting a gun falls into that experience, fine. If it doesn't, even better. For me, it's escapist fantasy. There are a lot of things I would like to experience and fantasize about.

I don't want to be a baker in the twelfth century, but there are a lot of other things! Mirror's Edge is a good step forward in that regard. Give me something different. I can't wait to see what else they'll come up with.

On that topic of Valve and Half-Life, did you play Half-Life: Episode Two?

EP: I have, yeah.

I thought its writing was a step forward in terms of breadth of characters for the series but was perhaps understandably overshadowed by Portal. Any thoughts as a writer?

EP: I think it might something to do simply with the delivery method, the fact that it is an episode. Episodic content has proven to be great, but it just didn't get the press.

People talk about the quality of writing in Oblivion, how it's a little schizophrenic. But if you read the reviews of Shivering Isles, the expansion, people rave about the quality of the writing. It's a tremendous step up. But nobody thinks about that -- it's in the expansion.

Unless it's a full game, unless it's got that full PR marketing blitz, unless people really know about it, I think people miss out. I think Valve has more talent in their pinky than most people have in their entire body, but it doesn't surprise me.