tobyornottoby:
incredibly goofy, sure, but that's a huge part of what makes it so different and exotic from all that generic fantasy/sciencefiction dogshit. But thankgod it's not a simple game 'for everyone' so you canhate it and call it 'MGS4 the movie' :) (other poster that was)

But people always talk about it as if it was some astoundingly deep experience that completely changed the way they look at the universe. How does that fit in with "incrediby goofy?" And yes, it is a game for everyone. MGS is very mainstream.

sammyfreak:
Games are becoming more and more realised, they know that they are games and that the best way to tell a story or give a experience is not complexity. Most people don't want to read a novel sized manual, most people don't want to listen to crappy dialogue for ages and so forth.

Games might be getting smaller, but due to improvements within game design and technology the quality of is increasing.

Adventure games are the best way to tell a story, but that genre is pretty much dead because people no longer want to play them. So, people are not actually interested in stories. More likely they're interested in pretty lights and shiny objects that go boom.

Jumplion:
I didn't think the CoD4 storyline was confusing and incoherent, but you're trying to convince me otherwise for some reason.

I am?

--
As gaming keeps getting more accessible and games more impressive, they attract Joe Average, who could not give two shits about how good the story is or how deep the gameplay is. Developing these games requires money which can only be made by catering to Joe Average. However, it's still possible, in this day and age, to succesfully release intelligent and mature films and television shows, which are watched by Joe Average, among others, and not by a tiny elite. Perhaps the problem is that gaming is being viewed as casual entertainment that has no room for intelligence and depth. Earlier, gaming was viewed as some arcane art practised by smelly nerds, who were pretty much left alone with their adventure and strategy games and flight simulators. Then the Playstation was released. Now gaming is all about Halo and Madden. The games of yesteryear can't easily be made today because of how expensive production values have become. And is a publisher going to greenlight an expensive game that doesn't have mainstream appeal? Not likely.

It's not like we aren't getting lots of great games today, but what happened to adventure games for example? They're still being made, sure, but only as a niche market. RPGs are still around, but even BioWare, an RPG developer, seems to have thrown in the towel and is now making action games where you can choose your own dialogue. Hopefully Dragon Age will turn things around, but I'm not feeling optimistic just yet.

i judge my decision (yes, graphics are taking over story and gameplay) very simply by fighting games.

go back to the original mortal kombat for consoles. it is probably some of the smoothest flowing fighting gameplay there is and it had shit-ass graphics (although it was incredible for its day)

play a fighting game now and it is just more clunky and less smooth.

while graphics help to bring the story across, it seems like a lot of game developers thing that they can make their games perfect just by having good graphics. and in the words of Yahtzee "a perfect game shouldn't need to have to make excuses for itself"

Tenamor:
Sadly, with the huge surge of people, er, sorry, 12 yr olds and fratboys playing games now (due to the 360 in this case), graphics are becoming too important, while us real gamers back from the SNES (in my case) days and even further back don't care as much so long as the game has great gameplay and/or story.

Tenamor:
Sadly, with the huge surge of people, er, sorry, 12 yr olds and fratboys playing games now (due to the 360 in this case), graphics are becoming too important, while us real gamers back from the SNES (in my case) days and even further back don't care as much so long as the game has great gameplay and/or story.

In the last two years, Secret of Evermore and Super Metroid has gotten more play from me than every next gen game that has come out.

:sigh:

Not to me, but I notice some people in my school that literally won't touch a Wii because it's not as powerful as their precious PS3. It's sad really, they say graphics > gameplay, and I just tell them "Well if you don't want to have fun then that's your choice. I'll be over there playing Mario Galaxy and being happy."

You must also realize that most high school guys are incredibly insecure about their masculinity and social standing. In college, a Wii is revered for creating hilarity when combined with alcohol while a PS3 is often confused for a very large George Foreman grill.

Eggo:
In college, a Wii is revered for creating hilarity when combined with alcohol...

Yes! Furthermore since the Wii doesn't rely on graphics, the gameplay (in the few good games) is excellent. Also, looking at indie games on Xbox Live and PS3 Marketplace(? not quite sure what the PS3 one is call, sorry Edit: PS3 Store, I looked it up) show that graphics are secondary to good gameplay/story. Besides the games for Wii the games that I have found to excel in gameplay/story are (primarily) 2D. Case and point Braid.

Yes it seems these days all a game has to do is look good and people will pay attention to it. While I mean nothing against the game itself, look at Crysis. How did that game get so many peoples' attention? Luckily there are still people with sense who actually buy a game because they want to play it instead of just looking at it.

I do think graphics are thought of way to much. I don't choose graphics over game play.
Gameplay > Story-line > Graphics
Story line is a close second to game play, graphics are great to begin with but after a few weeks of playing you get used to them.

My opinion could not be worded nearly as well as BardSeed's in the last post. I fully agree with what he said.

If it has a great story and bad graphics i'll be a little disappointed, but if shit story and great graphics i'll drop it.

You need a great story or even the best looking game will suck, specially when you consider a game with a better story tends to be loved by developer and fan alike so the game ends up being great.

Look at Fable, Great story = loved greatly, because of the story, that being said graphics made it more playable.

It's become a "Look what we can do!"-fest. When game developers could maybe make the game resemble what it was supposed to kinda, then they actually had to focus on story, characters, gameplay, etc.

Now it's just plain old rub-your-face-in-our-absurdly-powerful-computers. They make these games that look amazing, have no depth or story, that are filled with uninteresting characters, and then (for the PC) make sure to have system requirements through the roof.

Other than Crysis, could you list all of these games where this is occurring?

i think that graphics are overrated. I know many people who only play games for theyre graphics and gore.

crysis is living proof of shalow story/gameplay

tiredinnuendo:
Sad realization time:

No game plotline, ever, has been better than a B-class movie. Period.

There might have epic music, there might be an awesome story for a game, the presentation may have been really good, but at the end of the day, we've never had a game present a storyline that was truly new or innovative. Nothing that an author or screenwriter didn't do before and better.

Torment disagrees with you. With a big axe. Seriously, show me a movie made in the last fifty years or so that discusses and analyzes such diverse issues as immortality, morality, human bonds and intellectual lust while keeping it all tied together in a single storyline.

As for unoriginal ideas that's sort of a moot point. There is no work of fiction created in hundreds of years at least that can not be traced back to some source or inspiration. The only reason video games seem worse is because they tend to operate in clearly defined universes.

But I agree that video games as a whole could use a lot more and better storywriting.

Quite a few devs are going that route unfortunately. It's a shame though, since mos successful games don't rely on pretty graphics, but deep stories and fun gameplay.

So I vote 'yes'.

poleboy:

tiredinnuendo:
Sad realization time:

No game plotline, ever, has been better than a B-class movie. Period.

There might have epic music, there might be an awesome story for a game, the presentation may have been really good, but at the end of the day, we've never had a game present a storyline that was truly new or innovative. Nothing that an author or screenwriter didn't do before and better.

Torment disagrees with you. With a big axe. Seriously, show me a movie made in the last fifty years or so that discusses and analyzes such diverse issues as immortality, morality, human bonds and intellectual lust while keeping it all tied together in a single storyline.

As for unoriginal ideas that's sort of a moot point. There is no work of fiction created in hundreds of years at least that can not be traced back to some source or inspiration. The only reason video games seem worse is because they tend to operate in clearly defined universes.

But I agree that video games as a whole could use a lot more and better storywriting.

Wait...

So, (and I just want to make sure I've got this right) you're talking about Planetscape: Torment, yes?

To refute my claim that game plots are all B-movie level, you are holding up a game where the main character awakens with amnesia, knows he is immortal, has a dark past, and must rediscover his former life all while becoming the most powerful badass in the world?

Really?

Don't get me wrong, I like B movies. Evil Dead 2 is one of my favorite movies of all time, but it's still a B movie. And that's where games are right now.

- J

Eggo:
Other than Crysis, could you list all of these games where this is occurring?

Hmmm, yeah I'd like to know that to. Crysis is the only one that I can think of that was sold almost purely on graphics, but every other game only says "Amazing Photorealistic graphics!" on the back of the box.

Just out of curiosity, I went to my collection and looked at the back of the box. I have 10 games and only 2 said things like "experience Dazzling visuals" and "Next Generation Graphics" both of the games were Ratchet and Clank Future and Oblivion. Only Oblivion had a section devoted to Graphics, and R+CF had that one statement in a sentence with "Amazing storytelling" and stuff.

Why are we complaining about the back of the boxes?

I made a pretty good delcious analogy for graphics, game-play and story a while ago:

There you are at a meal. It's cool that it looks nice and you know some of the ingredients of it, but what's the best part is the taste, because that's what you payed for.

Graphics are important, yes, because of the new age of tech we should have access to better graphics, but the story and game play should be even better. I have only two favorite games in the world, Final Fantasy VI and Legend of the Dragoon. both games did not have very good graphics (and don't use the escuse of FF6 could only be in the 16 bit, because Chrono Trigger had better graphics). We as gamers need much better storys if the video game industry wants us to even remotely happy. And also think out of the box, do we really need another World War II game or another Zelda, or even another Final Fantasy (well I'll let FF go because even though it is like at number 10,000; the story is somewhat different).
Developers should stop worrying about graphics now, and work on epic storys that will draw the gamer in.

Ok, I'm going to say yes. The game developers are sacrificing story for the sake of graphics. The biggest issue is, the hardware isn't catching up fast enough. I think the developers should start developing good stories again for three or four years, to make sure the skills of (potentially) good story writers don't get too rusty by the time the processing ability of computers actually reaches complete photorealism.

Graphics aren't becoming more important to me personally, but it seems it is becoming more important amongst the majority of gamers. I still play Jagged Alliance 2 and Fallout (2) for example, games who aren't known to be easy on the eyes these days. As far as importance goes it is a factor for me, as it was when i started gaming, but it's not a heavy factor.

They aren't to me personally, and I don't think they are becoming more important now. For a while now, it's been the running debate between graphics and story and where the line is, what the balance is, etc.

I personally would rather have story and gameplay because those are the things that can make the game unplayable if they are not right. I still play games from the mid 90s as a testament to that.

Games have good stories? Since when? They might a have good idea or concept maybe. But good story or writing? Hardly. They're never really written well.

The MGS games are nuts. Insane characters and typical Japanese plot lines that never make any sense.

Bioshock had an interesting concept, not that it was completely original. It was more the mood than any sort of good writing. "Would you so kindly" was the only cool peice of writing I remember;) The characters though were just insane people. There's no depth to your typical power hungry lunatic.

Could anyone sit down and be interested only by reading a game script? Doubt it.

Eiseman:
My belief is that there are three fundamental properties you can build on to make a game: gameplay, story, and presentation (including graphics, but also sound effects, music, etc.) For any given developer, it's usually wise to emphasize 2 of those qualities to make the most out of their budget, and put the rest into marketing. instead of divvying it up equally. Traditionally, presentation and gameplay take precedence over story, and the general populace approves.

Games with a good story have, also historically, had either shit graphics or wonky gameplay, tragically. And the developers brave enough to try to have a good story, great presentation AND awesome gameplay usually have little money leftover for marketing their game, so it isn't well received by the public (see Okami, Psychonauts, Final Fantasy Tactics, and every other game we've mentioned in that one thread we do every month or so).

That's just the hard truth, I guess.

Actually, you've overlooked the fourth most important property: Controls.

Shigeru Miyamoto has said in interviews that he always starts his game design process with the controls (and is prepared to alter the actual controller of the next Nintendo to fit the requirements of the next Mario/Zelda). This is why we have the analogue stick, etc. Empowerment of the player is critical to immersion, as (if you think about it) the controls you have are akin to a disabled person's electric wheelchair. You need to compensate for that in the design (i.e. Halo auto-aim) for the player to not feel unfairly overwhelmed by the enemy. Then, when a strong control system is in place you re-balance the game (usually, by putting more enemies into the game than you have 'on your side').

For example, Goldeneye 007 on the N64 overcomes the inadequacies of the gamepad by having a floating gunsight aim-mode (this came about as a result of Rare first developing the game as a kind of on-rails Time Crisis-type affair, until they realized that their 3D engine was capable of freely moving the player's viewpoint around the level). In my opinion this control scheme is superior to most PC FPSes that rely on mouse and keyboard (partly because WASD is so damn awkward compared to a D-pad). Once proficient with this scheme 'disability' or 'unfairness' is not a concern as the player feels significantly empowered... they "feel' like James Bond. Yet, the game wouldn't be any good if it didn't re-balance the gameplay by throwing an alarming number of enemies at the player. The fact that their first shots deliberately miss (and in so doing announce their position) is, again, a way of injecting drama into every scenario without repeatedly killing the player.

Depends on the game. Many mainstream ones overfocus on graphics, while some sacrifice graphics for story, or balance it.

Cid SilverWing:
Depends on the game. Many mainstream ones overfocus on graphics, while some sacrifice graphics for story, or balance it.

Could you tell me one or better yet 2 or 3 mainstream games that were overfocused on graphics (aside from Crysis)? I honestly can't think of any, could someone point out these games that are "overfocused" on graphics?

I don't think graphics are becoming more influencial than before. If anything I think they are becoming less influencial. Look at the popularity of the Wii and the DS, neither of which has exceptional graphics but instead look at gameplay as there main selling point. I think what is becoming more important to games designers is the 'experience'. Games designers try to create a point of difference between the game they are making and the other games coming out. Sometimes this difference is 'ground breaking revolutionary graphics', other times it is an inovative style of game play (Assassins Creed for all it's graphical splendor gave the player a free roaming feel), and occasionally it is an interesting and engaging story.

Now some games fall short, usually on the story element. You get some games which have good stories but they are not but across well and aren't engaging. They are like poorly written books, the story can be great but you miss it due to all of the other flaws.

For a game which had wonderful gameplay but terrible graphics and a static story I'm going to state the lesser known and often forgotten 'Rings of Power' for the Mega Drive. There was a world out there and the quest you were given was so vast that you could easily get lost. Hell, you could just wander around the world trying to find some vague clue of what you were suppose to be doing. As a game it got slated at the time of release because the graphics were so bad, they completly missed the roleplaying aspect or the gameplaying element. There was one magazine at the time which actually scored the game well because it had great playability.

That was 15 years ago and I think the change is that people expect more from a game, but that more isn't always graphics. It's the experience; whether that be playing drunken Wii Sports with close friends, raiding Black Temple with 24 people you have never met, deciding whether to harvest the 'little girls' in Rapture or just admiring the stunning graphics of Soul Calibur IV. Everybody makes there own choice on what they want but I think in general people care less about graphics than they did 10 years ago.

Shivari:
Not to me, but I notice some people in my school that literally won't touch a Wii because it's not as powerful as their precious PS3. It's sad really, they say graphics > gameplay, and I just tell them "Well if you don't want to have fun then that's your choice. I'll be over there playing Mario Galaxy and being happy."

This is just as stupid. Of course they're having fun with their graphics

tiredinnuendo:
Sad realization time:

No game plotline, ever, has been better than a B-class movie. Period.

There have, in fact, been games with stories better than those found in B-movies. I'm guessing you started playing games a few years ago, so you have neard heard of them.

There might have epic music, there might be an awesome story for a game, the presentation may have been really good, but at the end of the day, we've never had a game present a storyline that was truly new or innovative. Nothing that an author or screenwriter didn't do before and better.

A story doesn't have to be "innovative" (whatever this stupid buzz word is supposed to mean in this context) to be good. It just has to be told well. One of my all-time favorite stories is essentially just interpersonal drama concerned with fairly mundane things.

As games become more story focused, it becomes easier to see that the stories aren't very good (after all, you weren't thinking about storyline when you were playing Mario 64). That's what you're seeing.

Eh? We've had story-focused games for over two decades. If anything, games are becoming less and less about story telling. Why are you citing Mario 64 as an example? Have you really never heard of adventure and roleplaying games?

poleboy:
Torment disagrees with you. With a big axe. Seriously, show me a movie made in the last fifty years or so that discusses and analyzes such diverse issues as immortality, morality, human bonds and intellectual lust while keeping it all tied together in a single storyline.

I think you might want to watch more films. Like, a lot more.

As for unoriginal ideas that's sort of a moot point. There is no work of fiction created in hundreds of years at least that can not be traced back to some source or inspiration. The only reason video games seem worse is because they tend to operate in clearly defined universes.

What does this even mean?

Well I would normally just say no, but I played a little of both Morrowind and Oblivion today, so maybe you're right just a little bit.