I had a lot of similar feelings with Mass Effect series. In this game all the decisions you make permanently reshape the game world, which carries through the first game to second and third. Major and minor characters in the last game may be missing or doing different things based on your actions in the first game. While playing I felt the impact of my steps in even tiny details.

This, + general storyline and execution of the product made it the first game I found myself to be really involved emotionally with. Say, when I picked up the second game and met an important NPC from the first, I literally felt like I've just rejoined with an old friend. By the third game I actually printed out a photo of my character and her entire team. It's crazy how deep a good video game can touch you.

Oh, and I spent 10-15 minutes thinking heavily about morality and consequences just to choose the right ending...

Funny you should mention Mass Effect, because I'm playing that for the first time as well. Evidently there's a romantic sub-plot, making it even more relevant to this story. Will I get an Xbox achievement and 25 gamer points if I get lucky?

I don't know. I played PC. Also, achievements in a game like ME are stupid and ruin immersion. Turn them off if you can (on PC version I don't recall them popping up in game anyway).

As for romantic subplots - they are very good and the game will totally hijack your emotions through them.

Only 10 points for the Paramour achievement.

I haven't played this game, but after I posted OP on my facebook feed I went out to a party and one of my friends confessed that it made him think of Mass Effect also. Apparently he put quite a lot of time into trying to build a relationship with a hot NPC only to find out she was gay. In his words 'I was shattered. I put all this time into building the relationship and she wasn't even into guys'.

You should try "Wolf Among Us" as well. It was amazing how that game tricked my normally passive personality into acting out in anger, chasing down leads for revenge instead of justice and then feeling like the monster I had become. By the end, I felt redeemed, but still vulnerable because my weaknesses had been exposed. All of that and I played the entire thing on nothing more than a tiny PS Vita screen.

You should try reading a book.

Books are great for making you feel something about fictional (or non fictional) characters, but they've got nothing on games when it comes to making you feel something about yourself.

You should try reading a good book.

Good books are great for making you feel disdain towards imagined (or real) unwashed gamers, but they've got nothing on games when it comes to 2nd-order meta-self-trolling.

You should try stepping outside of your fortress of irony for two seconds.

Nah, it's snowing out there.

Video games have always been very interesting this way to me, and there are some real gems lately that manage to tap into very emotional parts of my brain. Fallout is ripe with ethical dilemmas, almost to the point where I found myself unable to proceed when the choice is not obvious. You know the characters are not real, you are alone playing a single-player game; but you can't help but try to figure out how to help the character. The Fable series is really great this way too. There it's actually the focus and the theme of the game.

Only every played the second Fable but I still remember the one choice you need to make near the end and have to pick one of three "fates".

Not sure if it's considered a spoiler at this point but there's basically the one option to return a beloved companion to life (after recently being forced to suffer his death in the game). It wasn't necessarily the most logical choice nor is it the "smart" choice if you're treating it solely as a game and trying to get the most points/gold/etc....

...but when I was offered that choice there was not a single question which one I would pick. It's all just pixels and textures and sound effects but the chance to return a character that had followed you for most of the game hit me way harder than I might have expected. Manipulative,cheap, emotional exploitation? Maybe. No regrets though.

Worse. The first time I played, I picked a different option. There was a bug in the game where you could see the companion on the map, but could never reach him. I spent hours trying to find a way, before starting the game over just to choose differently.

I remember having that same feeling playing Road Rash after attacking Natasha during a race.