Do you think that there's to many devs out there that forget about game play?

[Triple 8]

Purepwnage did a ZP parody at the the beginning of his latest episode
http://www.purepwnage.com/episodes/s2/5/

It's tongue in cheek like most of his work, but he does bring up a valid point.

When playing bioshock, it was well written and I kept playing through it to get more of the story, but the gameplay felt really unpolished. There were times where I just let the splicers kill me to bring to the next vitachamber after making the 80th sidetracking fetch quest.

When great gameplay and great story fuse together it's an awesome experience, but do you think there's a shift in game design where gameplay is taking a backseat to story?

 

[frontier psychiatrist]

I wish gameplay was taking a backseat to story. It would be better than the current situation of both gameplay and story taking a backseat to... well, what? Presentation? Hype? Nothing at all?

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

I don't know why people say this, is there a game out there that actually forgot to put some gameplay in it? Even Smash Bro's has a...."story". Bioshock relied heavily on Gameplay since it gave you so many ways to destroy everything in your path.

He uses Kojima as an example of "some of the best video game story tellers" as opposed to, you know, something good like the Mass Effect (which he didn't seem to like), or, Half-Life 2 (which he probably would have liked since there's no cutscenes, and you just moving your head around! OMG GAMEPLAY!) Tim Schafer games, etc. etc. - there's good stories out there, you don't need George Orwell writing the script.


I'm sick of people saying "If you like cutscenes why don't you watch a movie? If you like Story why don't you read a book? If you like Violence why don't you go kill random people on the street?" - people go out and just like to say "omg you need gameplay in your games" to sound smart and it's starting to get irritating. Games are Toys, games are art, and both can be fun. Duke Nukem 3D and Diablo are fun because you go out mow through a lawn of enemies, Mass Effect, Metal Gear and Kotor are fun because not only is it actually fun to play in between all that "story bullshit" but the story is interesting enough to where you really want to see it through to the end, and in the "choice games" like ME and "The Witcher" it makes you want to replay it even more.

I've been playing Bionic Commando Rearmed recently, and it's a remake of the very very old Bionic Commando (RLY?) - and it's a thousand times better than the first, but has virtually the same gameplay, but believe it or not it has a good enough story, it's not "compelling" but it's good, it gives you motivation, gives you reasons to hack enemy terminals other than for boss tidbits, you get attached to characters, your objective, is to KILL ZOMBIE HITLER! Awesome story makes me want to play awesome game.

Spoiler: Just blame it on the development costs if something seems half assed, because....

 

[shadow skill]

It would be a good thing if gameplay took a backseat to story (MGS4) or story took a backseat to gameplay (Ninja Gaiden) but that isn't what is happening. Instead both take a backseat to graphics or some other bullshit. Hell even a kick ass presentation would be nice to see.

 

[Najos]

It would be a good thing if gameplay took a backseat to story (MGS4) or story took a backseat to gameplay (Ninja Gaiden) but that isn't what is happening. Instead both take a backseat to graphics or some other bullshit. Hell even a kick ass presentation would be nice to see.

This is pretty much how I feel.