I've noticed that graphics, gameplay AND storyline rarely go together, cept in rare cases like Baldur's Gate 2. So, which do you prefer?
I'd go for storyline. I love stories but sadly enough, most books stretch em like hell, so I'm stuck with either making my own or looking for em in games.
Second would be graphics. I like watching little arrows fly around and get stuck in wall or boulders chipping bits of wall off or nice explosions.
"Gameplay"'s hard to find these days. IMHO, gameplay = fun, and I don't see much of that lately. Just as long as it isn't horrible (ala the Final Fantasy series), I don't care about it too much. "Gameplay" is like "true love". Everyone says that it matters the most, but basically it just exists for a week or so before it peters out. When that happens, it's just looks and personality that counts.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
Do these questions keep you awake at night Muz old boy? Seems like your always asking them.
Gameplay of course is the most important part of the game because it's what seperates a GAME, from say something like a novel which is pretty much only a storyline, or a picture which basically only graphics, or even a film which is a combination of storyline and graphics. A game is the next step up from a film, and that's why gameplay is what should be important.
Sure, people are more likely to pay attention to fancy graphics because that's how people work...they notice with their eyes...but graphics in a game art pointless if you don't have the gameplay to back it up...You may as well make a bloody interactive movie!
MUGGUS
Come and annoy me more at
www.muggus69.tk STOUT ANGER!!!
I fell in love witha japanese version of Harvest moon once. It resulted in three children.
Gameplay should always come first. Very few books have gameplay (only those choose-your-own ones), so why should so many games have stories?
I've said before that truly great gameplay should make storylines reduntant. I reckon games with stories should be a genre, and games without stories another.
n/a
Deleted User
12th May, 2004 at 04:48:10 -
Far Cry is good on all ascpects. And it really slows down even the fastest pc's
Seems like only 10% of games these days have something you can even call gameplay, not necessarily much of it. I mean there are a few games with good gameplay and bad in everything else (like Conquest of Elysium and um... uh... something) but they're REALLY rare. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Sure, it's the most important thing in a game, but I've come up to the point that I'm too lazy to search for it anymore. Either I sift through the loads of crap on the DC Pending page or I'll make my own gameplay.
Never played Halo or Far Cry before, though.
Wait a min... 4 replies in about 10 mins? This is gonna be a big one O_O
Edited by the Author.
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Never played Far Cry or Halo before Muz? I'm sorry dood...your gonna have to go out, play these games, and the re-evaluate your way of thinkin dood. I'm sorry. I mean if i've played them, then any gamer should have played them by now. I mean i've played a total of like 3 commercial games over the last year FFS!
MUGGUS
Come and annoy me more at
www.muggus69.tk STOUT ANGER!!!
Gameplay is the most important aspect to a game as it KEEPS you playing. But to get people to START playing it you need decent graphics. So graphics are like the advertisement, and gameplay is what keeps you hooked.
anyone who says they'll buy a game with crap graphics because of the gameplay is probably lying to sound noble
"Say you're hanging from a huge cliff at the top of mt. everest and a guy comes along and says he'll save you, and proceeds to throw religious pamphlets at you while simultaniously giving a sermon." - Dustin G
Even in the days of the Spectrum and C64, games would advertise 'cartoon-quality graphics' and 'amazing panoramic landscapes'. It's all about the graphics!
Gameplay is frankly the ONLY reason you play a game in the long run. Sure you play a game because it looks nice or because it has a good story. But unless you like the gameplay (aka a kind of falling in love with the game) you simply will not continue to play it after youve been introduced to the game. At rare occasions you may only play the game because it looks nice or has a really good story ... but gameplay is the main thing!
What is gameplay then? Can anyone tell? Gameplay to me is a lot of things and you cannot make a gameplay that everyone likes. Its like lots of other things in life. A gameplay has an audience. Gameplay can be things like: Storyline, features, play style, player control, surprises, integration (that the different parts of the game work well together), blood-sweat-tears and propably loads more.
Teapot F.K.A Damien M:" I've said before that truly great gameplay should make storylines reduntant."
Untrue. Some games work without a story. Like Tetris, pong, card games ... and more. They can be good and compelling without a storyline at all.
Other games need a story. Platform, RPG, RTS etc. Why? Because those types of games become meaningless without a story. Without a story you simply run about doing this and that for no purpose what so ever. For those who remember when the first C&C game was released (the same thing applies to all other C&C games, I took the first one as it was a kind of pioneer in its genre at the time). Would it have been so good without its storyline? Would it have been so good if GDI and NOD was simply team A and B fighting against each other with no reason at all??? NO! A storyline gives a reason for playing. It makes you want to play on to see what happens next. You want to save the princess. You want to save the world. You want to go and kill that evil wizard. Good storylines contain surprises, stories within the story, twists, withhold information until it is necessary to tell, is exciting, makes you want to go on, has a good tension graph, has a beginning and an ending, etc etc. I could go on for ever ... but thats it for now.
good gameplay makes the game enjoyable enough for you to want to keep on playing.
good graphics makes the game seem like a better product overall.
storylines compliment the gameplay but are only needed for certain genres.
Gameplay...nuff said. While I wont deny that good graphics provide an initial 'hook', gameplay is so much more important if you want to keep players engrossed.
As for stoylines...sometimes, they can work really well in conjunction with a game. However, if the gameplay is non-existant or just not fun, then it usually makes me want ot turn off in the long run. Case in point - Final Fantasy 8 (and 9). Can we stop drawing from the enemies yet? God...someone get these damn battles moving at a half-decent pace? Everyone's comatosed! .
My verdict is - if you want a good storyline in your 'games' and little else, then go read a book or watch a film. I actually want to play the games as well, and be challenged to a certain degree.
"The reason CnC needs a story is to mask the bad gameplay. Great gameplay does not need a story."
Total Annihilation proved this. The gameplay is awesome, but the story is..."Two sides.....robots...kill.....blah"
TA Kingdoms apparently has worse gameplay, since less people like it. It had an awesome storyline, and I enjoyed the gameplay more than TA's.
Well WarioWare has no gameplay OR decent graphics, but its still one of the greatest games ever. Why? Because you never know whats coming next, and because each game is so short you won't have time to properly play it. If each minigame was a standalone game, chances are it's be pretty tediously boring.
I've gotten up to the point where I'm not sure what gameplay is anymore. If gameplay is the "thing that keeps you going", then storyline = gameplay for me. The only games without storylines that have kept me going for over 4 hours are Conquest of Elysium, Empire Earth, Age of Mythology, Knights & Merchants, and Industry Giant II. For all the other games, it's just to see the ending (or a rare good gameplay-story combo). And I've played literally hundreds of games, freeware or commercial. I wish I could get my hands on TA. Too bad they don't sell it around here.
People who go for gameplay over graphics are like those who say "Oh, looks don't matter, I just go for personality". Just the same bimbos who'd go around saying "I want to end world hunger and save the whales".
WarioWare is a game that defies all form of other games. Yeah, originality. It proves that quantity is indeed better than quality .
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Commercial games tend to focus on entertainment value. The point is to impress the reviewers, that is all. Storyline and graphics add a lot to entertainment, with gameplay coming third.
Because freeware (our kind, anyway) generally manages a high of about zero media attention, we don't need to blow anyones mind, just give them something good to play so we can advertise by word-of-mouth rather than a clueless game magazine reviewer. Blowing peoples' mind with additional media is indeed often a bad thing, as it adds a lot to file size and little to gameplay (I'll admit storyline can enhance gameplay, especially in atmospheric games, but story != massive media). Look at all the crap young Romero pumped out. Pure gameplay, and the most popular freeware ever, even if much of it sucked.
Uh... isn't entertainment the whole point of playing a game? Who's Romero?
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
I'd quote that in my sig, but I like JD's comment better.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
The thing that I care most about in a game is originality (original game concepts, not an idea ripped off of another game). This fits most inside the category 'gameplay' I think. Tetris was extremely addictive, original and fun when it was released... but there has been countless tetris ripoffs after the release of the original, which leeches out the gameplay of ALL tetris games. (all games I'm working on are based more on originality (gameplay) than all other game aspects)
Yeah, originality is fun. But would people listen? It's always fan games and more disguised fan games (i.e. those "great" games with the FF battle engine). And then there's those commercialists trying to capitalize on the success of other games by making clones of them with only slightly better graphics. Any surprise that Counter-Strike is still favored above all the CS wannabes?
I guess originality would lead to better gameplay, or even the existence of gameplay. I bet that that a competition based on originality would bring out some really good games for once. *pokes Shab and SC*
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
Well good games have all three . Although... I think decent graphics, AWSOME gameplay, and a strong story are needed. Take StarCraft for instance, it doesn't have that great of graphics but its addictive and it has a cool story (although who plays the campaigns anyway )
no one would play a game with bad graphics or simple geometric shapes ... I mean you can say "This Pixel is a Space Warriror, and that square is an alien and that circle is a ufo" however the gameplay cant be fun,unless you have good enough graphics that they arent annoying and pull you into it (If you can't tell whats going on then whats the point :|)
On the other hand no story is kinda dull.. for some games the only thing that keeps you playing is wanting to know what happens at the end .
Bad Gameplay? Alot of click games barely have any. Just having a semi bugless platform engine doesnt make a fun game :|.... Innovation/Orginality is always a plus too . Who would play an unfun game? It's like watching a bad movie .
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