Arcanum had the makings of a classic, but the sounds were so lame and the soundtrack made me too sleepy to play for long.

Graphics. It's not really about the resolution either or how photorealistic everything looks. The graphical style of the game really sets the atmosphere, and makes the game generally pleasing to look at it. Sound is extremely important too, but I've found that poor graphics often get in the way of the gameplay more often than poor sound. Obviously ridiculously poor audio quality would be a major problem, but at least I could (in theory) mute them.

Sound. System Shock 2. Even now.

/thread

And I mean that; play the game for yourself and see.

Gameplay/Story/Immersion foremost... then Graphics, between the two Graphics is like 10x more important than Sound for me... Old RPGs and Adventures, be it text-adventures or what came and even stuff like Planescape or Baldur's Gate etc. barely had any sound besides some background movies and a few random sentences. I could probably play most of those games on mute with Subtitles and still enjoy them or like I do when I play Online often, turn everything but SFX off and just listen to the radio.

Sound. Between graphics and music/fx when I think of an old game I used to play I usually think of the music.

I'm sure its unanimous that gameplay is the #1 important thing in a game, however.

Gameplay and content wins!

Stalker on my PC and settings looks sloppy and GLaDOS was really obnoxious (well I thought so, to the point where I muted the game half way through). Those games are both incredibly fun because of gameplay.

A game can have all the graphics(*cough* Halo 3) and sound in the world, but if it's not fun, then I won't stick around for that long.

I will also have to say I prefer artistic content and design over something that looks realistic with all the settings cranked up. Okami for example

I don't really understand the relevance of the question - surely gameplay, script, engine and content before anything - but if pushed then it would have to be graphics for me. Viking: Battle For Asgard had appalling sound design and yet it was one of my favourite games of last year.

I can't play most games without sound. It's just not the same.

cleverlymadeup:
graphics because without the graphics the sound is meaningless

sure you can have sound but without a reference it how can it provide an atmosphere

What?! Have you never revisited an older, retro game. Even going back and playing last generation games, the graphics were crap. Yet good sound helps keep them enjoyable!

cleverlymadeup:
graphics because without the graphics the sound is meaningless

sure you can have sound but without a reference it how can it provide an atmosphere

What?! Have you never revisited an older, retro game. Even going back and playing last generation games, the graphics were crap. Yet good sound helps keep them enjoyable!

Graphics because without it its an audio track and a blank screen.

gameplay is the most important but push comes to shove id say sound out of these choices

Sound. I like my games purty, but sound can either make or break the game for me. And I love me a good soundtrack.

Sound definitely, just look at all those great games that you can go back and enjoy, even though they have crappy graphics. LOZ: OOT for the N64, a classic, I still play it from time to time and people are still making remixes of the songs.

Voice acting is important, Oblivion could benefit from a larger voice cast for example. In fact, that would be a good fan project, redo most of the voices in the game, have people send in sound clips of themselves reading the lines, and keep the best ones.

Here's the idea I've been formulating on: For untold millenia, gamers have always seperated themselves according to what they want out of a game. There's people who think graphics should be the primary concern, people who think gameplay should be the focus, people who think that stoy is a must even if it means the sacrifice of the previous two categories. So I ask, why should gamers choose to accept that game graphics/gameplay/whatever can only be achieved at the sacrifice of the other criteria? Shouldn't we be encouraging developers to make games which are good all over instead of in various tidbits?

Copter400:
Shouldn't we be encouraging developers to make games which are good all over instead of in various tidbits?

Yeah, we have Valve for that. TF2, HL2, Portal, they have it all, graphics, gameplay, story, and sound. The reason they do so well is because of the way their company works, everyone can do multiple things, and they all know each other.
When you have a bigger company, like Activision, or EA, the problem is that there are so many workers who are connected only through bug reports and staff meetings. Plus the general public demands to always have new games, not giving the makers enough time to really put any effort into things.

I vote sound why... I can LIVE with subpar graphics but with sucky sound I REALLY notice the difference, and I don't like it. Also with sound you can't make up for a lack of technical proficiency with artistic application like you can with graphics.

A very interesting poll for once, everyone does "do graphics matter", graphics vs. sound are an interesting change.

Well, compare any two next gen games today and you'll see that there isn't that much difference, Graphics are about as good as they're going to get, but a lot of games aren't really up to a high enough audio standard.

Developers still have a lot of potential for improving sounds, but I think graphics aren't going to get much better

It depends on the type of game. If it's a horror type like Silent Hill, or a game like Final Fantasy sound is more important. If it's a game like COD or Halo, graphics.

Eagle Est1986:

cleverlymadeup:
graphics because without the graphics the sound is meaningless

sure you can have sound but without a reference it how can it provide an atmosphere

What?! Have you never revisited an older, retro game. Even going back and playing last generation games, the graphics were crap. Yet good sound helps keep them enjoyable!

ok so old games with total crap 8 bit sound? uhhh no i turn off the sound cause it sounds so crappy, i usually turned off the sound on old games cause well it sucked and kinda ruined the game for me

i've been playing games since the days where sound was a beep or a boop and it was the graphics that made the game. when things like midi sound were just a pipe dream

so graphics totally make the game, sound is an added bonus. look at it this way doom 3 or bioshock would still have the same feel to it if they used the sound from the original doom games, you'd still be like "wow this game is fun and creepy" even tho the sound was cheap 8 bit sound

Giving the sound means music, Ahem...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uta7ujswLUw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9SbzVbpgMA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWkfeeFpSXo

Then I say sound.

Neither is more important than the other.

If a game company makes something that I think is fun to play, I don't care what it looks or sounds like. I believe that is the problem with many game developers these days. They want to make a game look so beautiful that it requires some sort of hypothetical supercomputer from space to run it.

With every generation of systems, the idea of 'what makes good graphics' changes. Every single console has its own feel, and every era seems distinct for that same reason. Good sound design and music theory don't change so drastically. Some of my favorite games didn't have the best graphics for their time, and especially not compared to what's out now. However, I have a lot of trouble going back and playing a game with terrible music, or badly-placed sound effects, even if I liked the game.

Personally, I think gameplay is ten times more important than graphics or sound. But if I had to pick one of them, I'd pick sound, so long as the graphics are passable. I'd rather have simplistic graphics with an excellent soundtrack (i.e. Katamari Damacy) than I would stellar graphics with lousy audio/music (any Need for Speed game).

Between the two of them, sound. Any game nowadays is pretty as hell anyway. Even some indie games look better than most 5 year old big budget games, so graphics are more of a convenience.

TheIceface:

Copter400:
Shouldn't we be encouraging developers to make games which are good all over instead of in various tidbits?

Yeah, we have Valve for that. TF2, HL2, Portal, they have it all, graphics, gameplay, story, and sound. The reason they do so well is because of the way their company works, everyone can do multiple things, and they all know each other.
When you have a bigger company, like Activision, or EA, the problem is that there are so many workers who are connected only through bug reports and staff meetings. Plus the general public demands to always have new games, not giving the makers enough time to really put any effort into things.

Then we, as the public, shouldn't be demanding constant gratification. We should be willing to wait for Valve-standard product from the other companies. I'd rather have steak once a week than shite everyday.

Graphics, I don't really care much about sound and probably couldn't tell you a game with good sound from one with bad. However I find graphics to often be very appealing to me when looking at games and is often an important factor with how I'd rate one.

The Neither option ruins this poll. Because gameplay and story will always be rated above sound and graphics. A shame too, because this would be really interesting to see how it played out.