Gameology: Commentary and Resources for the Game Studies Community

That's a very good question, Mat. To be honest, I'm not sure whether an utter "newb" would appreciate or reject the self-reflexivity. I guess we could point to the sales and abundance of thumb-up reviews for these games to argue that, yes, they do like it.

I suppose we could contrast a LucasArts titles with a more "serious" and less self-reflexive title like Myst, Syberia, or The Longest Journey (though the latter games have plenty of humor). What I think is so appealing about the self-reflexivity of the LucasArts games is the "metagame" there about learning the interface and monkeying about (pun intended) with the modes of storytelling. Instead of treating the interface as something that needs to become invisible, the LucasArts games constantly draw the player's attention to it as a source of irony and amusement.