The question is mainly meant in comparison to other mediums. And in an attempt to avoid the inevitable discussion: yes games are different from other medium and what makes something work in a game wouldn't necessarily work in any other medium, yadda yadda yadda.
Anyways, the point overall is that games (compared to other medium) tend to usually have worse sorytelling (compared to film and literature), but this seems to be the only aspect of games that is compared to other meidum. Gameplay obviously is inherent to games, but there are other aspects as well, some of which seem to be taken for granted.
Music for example, is something I feel games are generally pretty darn good at. Sure there's a few games here and there with terrible soundtracks, but generally the way music in games have evolved, it's still shone with quality. All the way from simple catchy tones from the '80s, to genuinely well composed music. It's not all brilliant, but it's actually rare to see a game with a genuinely bad soundtrack, and most I see tend to actually have good ones, so much so it's almost taken for granted.
*Artstyle and visual design*, this one I don't think is all together as strong as music, but still not all that often outright bad, or atleast for the time they were released in. There's games like Okami, Bastion, Transistor, Limbo or Journey, which look darn great even without cutting edge graphics, and with the ones that do, I can only really think of Dragon Age: Origins, Oblivion and Fallout 3 that look outright hideous despite a massive budget. Most AAA games do tend to atleast make somewhat of an effort to atleast look decent, now that the greybrown era is over.
*Costume design* is a category almost completly ignored, yet it's still one that shouldn't be completly ignored. Here there are again cases that are mostly for a gameplay reason, such as the necessity to make TF2 classes look distinct, yet there's still things to mention. Like how costumes in, say, Mirror's Edge Catalyst or Witcher 2 look pretty sweet, and Dragon Age: Origins (sorry, but the game looks like arse in several categories) looks terrible.
I don't really have an end point, but these aspects of games tend to be rarely discussed, and almost never compared in quality with other medium, so I though it'd be fun to see if someone else's given it a thought.
PS: Yes of course these thigns change from game to game, but you're still able to judge things from an overall basis.
Anyways, the point overall is that games (compared to other medium) tend to usually have worse sorytelling (compared to film and literature), but this seems to be the only aspect of games that is compared to other meidum. Gameplay obviously is inherent to games, but there are other aspects as well, some of which seem to be taken for granted.
Music for example, is something I feel games are generally pretty darn good at. Sure there's a few games here and there with terrible soundtracks, but generally the way music in games have evolved, it's still shone with quality. All the way from simple catchy tones from the '80s, to genuinely well composed music. It's not all brilliant, but it's actually rare to see a game with a genuinely bad soundtrack, and most I see tend to actually have good ones, so much so it's almost taken for granted.
*Artstyle and visual design*, this one I don't think is all together as strong as music, but still not all that often outright bad, or atleast for the time they were released in. There's games like Okami, Bastion, Transistor, Limbo or Journey, which look darn great even without cutting edge graphics, and with the ones that do, I can only really think of Dragon Age: Origins, Oblivion and Fallout 3 that look outright hideous despite a massive budget. Most AAA games do tend to atleast make somewhat of an effort to atleast look decent, now that the greybrown era is over.
*Costume design* is a category almost completly ignored, yet it's still one that shouldn't be completly ignored. Here there are again cases that are mostly for a gameplay reason, such as the necessity to make TF2 classes look distinct, yet there's still things to mention. Like how costumes in, say, Mirror's Edge Catalyst or Witcher 2 look pretty sweet, and Dragon Age: Origins (sorry, but the game looks like arse in several categories) looks terrible.
I don't really have an end point, but these aspects of games tend to be rarely discussed, and almost never compared in quality with other medium, so I though it'd be fun to see if someone else's given it a thought.
PS: Yes of course these thigns change from game to game, but you're still able to judge things from an overall basis.
