Aside from personal preference, I think the first person/third person issue depends on the type of game experience you are trying to create. For a game like Barrow Hill (sigh, if only it were so, there is NO game like Barrow Hill!) where there isn't a lot of back story or character development needed, the first person perspective makes it much more immersive. It's as if everything is happening to you directly. On the other hand, a game like TLJ where the personality and the reactions of the main character are a major part of what moves the story along, the third person perspective helps you identify more readily with the character.

I seem to be the only person in the world that liked the mini games in Indigo Prophecy. As someone who doesn't play action games or shooters I enjoyed the novelty of participating in the action scenes without actually having to think about "strategy." I played on easy level with a game pad so they were pretty much a breeze, although for the life of me I couldn't win a single round of basketball. The thing I REALLY liked about the Simon Says games was that if you failed, it wasn't game over, you are dead, but it did have an impact on how the story unfolded. I thought the idea of "earning" extra back story was much better than throwing in a bunch of optional dialog. Unfortunately, a lot of people were put off by the mini games, it would have been nice to have an option where you could play without them and just watch the action sequences, Still Life style. Whether you agree or not with what the creators of IP were trying to do with the mini games, at least they were a well considered attempt to bring another dimension of relevant game play, not like Next Life where the mini games seemed to be there just to make life difficult.