How is this acceptable but this isn't?

[DeadlyYellow]

Graphics can be overlooked (oddly enough) or modded up, but the story is more or less forced upon you.

Assassin's Creed 2 for example. Moderate graphics, but you can't skip through the story's drivel. The story here comes between the player and the asinine gameplay.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

I'll agree that story is very important for certain games like RPGs. With a crappy story the whole game is just a huge pointless grind-quest (hyperbole obviously). But story isn't everything and in some games isn't even needed. I really like both DEFCON and TF2. DEFCON doesn't have a story period and TF2 despite gaining some background since its release, is at its core an excuse for having wacky classes kill each other of random things.

So in the end I think that story should be taken into account, but it should be understood as a part of a game and that the story holds different importance in different games.

tl;dr: Depends.

 

[DarthFennec]

Well ... I mean Minecraft has shitty graphics, but nobody hates it due to it's complete lack of story. Isn't that because it's a sandbox though? I think most games that are attacked for having bad story are the ones that reside within genres where story is a big part of the game. You know, the games where the story has an overwhelming effect on the gameplay. I think that's the issue here. Games where story is the driving force of the gameplay, those are the kinds of games that people hate because the story sucks. But other kinds of games ... I mean, haven't they tried to tack stories onto puzzle games before, like tetris and so on, and hasn't that just made those games worse? Sometimes better story means worse game, and that happens in games where the story doesn't drive the gameplay, so it just gets in the way. We can do the same thing with graphics too. When graphics drive gameplay, that's when having shitty graphics matters, doesn't it? Ever thought of what it would be like to play Katamari on a Commodore64? Shitty graphics matter there. You've probably played the flash version of Portal, how does that stack up against the Xbox version? Because the 3Dness of Portal is what drives the gameplay. Same kind of thing, in Zelda the story is the driving force behind the gameplay, isn't it? Without the story, Zelda is fucking boring as hell. Same with shooter games. Same with almost everything nowadays. Sorry if none of that made much sense, I'm kind of punchdrunk from lack of sleep :/

But you get the point. Story matters because it's a huge part of the gameplay. Graphics don't matter because they're not important to gameplay.

 

[Kyoufuu]

If you hate a game cos of the graphics, it's not acceptable?

Someone please tell this to everyone who gives RuneScape one look and decides to never play it, and then months/years later just start hating on it. It has decent gameplay and seriously some of the best story I've ever seen in a game.

 

[DarthFennec]

If you hate a game cos of the graphics, it's not acceptable?

Someone please tell this to everyone who gives RuneScape one look and decides to never play it, and then months/years later just start hating on it. It has decent gameplay and seriously some of the best story I've ever seen in a game.

I hate Runescape because I played it for two weeks and decided I hated it. For me it has nothing to do with the graphics, it's the genre. I hate WoW too.

 

[Kyoufuu]

If you hate a game cos of the graphics, it's not acceptable?

Someone please tell this to everyone who gives RuneScape one look and decides to never play it, and then months/years later just start hating on it. It has decent gameplay and seriously some of the best story I've ever seen in a game.

I hate Runescape because I played it for two weeks and decided I hated it. For me it has nothing to do with the graphics, it's the genre. I hate WoW too.

At least you gave it two weeks, not two seconds. That's more than most I've asked.

 

[TerranReaper]

3. In the interest of promoting games as art, some minor gameplay flaws can be overlooked. Take Psychonauts. It was a truly artistic game, with an excellent story and brilliant writing. That said, some of the jumping and flinging around was poorly handled, and the missions were all collection quests. However, at this point in games' history, we can overlook these flaws and still call Psychonauts an excellent game, because gameplay is at least functional and the rest of the game makes up for it. Serious gameplay flaws or a lack of a good concept can ruin a game, regardless of artistic intent. I would like to draw your attention to the indie scene, where this sort of thing happens often. Go to Newgrounds and look up a game called "Why This". It's terrible, even if it is (or tries to be) artistic. But it's so rare to see a mainstream game that even attempts to be artistic, we're able to look past any of the flaws it has, so long as the story's good. After all, if it was completely broken, it wouldn't be published. Except by EA, but that's another rant.

Don't get me wrong, I really liked Psychonauts but I wouldn't call it an extremely good game because it was weak at one area but strong in another. But the way you worded it makes it sound we can make do with the bare minimum on functional gameplay while focusing the rest on story. If that is the case, then it would seem like video games like that don't really have much of an identity besides glorified interactive movies. It seems a lot to be the polar opposite of making a cookie cutter story while focusing on multiplayer.

4. Lastability. Blow through original Halo and then go online. Not really fulfilling. Now do the same with Knights of the Old Republic. Still just as fulfilling as the second time (because by then you knew all the twists).

Subjective. I liked KOTOR to be honest, but not enough to replay it a couple of time. If I was to pop in Halo, I can probably find some good matches where I would be challenged by some good players. I find multiplayer games to last me longer than single-player games because after the first playthrough, they become predictable with not much new to take in. Multiplayer games always has something that you can challenge yourself to get better at, depending on skill ceiling. That's just me though.

 

[zehydra]

One of the most important aspects of a game is the story because a game isn't a toy it's a medium for getting across a point or a story, just like a movie. But if it has bad graphics and gameplay then it's just like a movie having cheap effects and terrible acting.

I'd like to know what point the game "Solitaire" is getting across.

When I say "game" I mean video game. Solitair is a card game that just happens to be a digitalized. I mean a game like Dragon Age or CoD.

okay, how about pong?

 

[Sporky111]

Well let's look at the inverse and see:

People will hear a game has a great story and go out to play it, even if the gameplay isn't great. But if you hear about a game with amazing graphics, there's really not a lot to draw you in because it's such an accepted norm that games will have good graphics these days.

 

[Lazzi]

If they are simply stating that they didnt like the game becuase of the graphics, then I can accept there opinion. Each person has things that they hold in higher regard than other things.

However, declaring that a game is bad is different. To state that a game is bad requires more than just disliking something. Mind you different games have different higharcies of important.

Graphics and control are more important in an FPS, while story and character developoment are more imporatn in RPGs.

 

[icame]

Really good graphics cannot save a game. Example? Final Fantasy 13 is one of the best looking games of all time. It is also one of the worst games of all time, nomatter how pretty it looks.

Now if we look at a game like silent hill 2. Shitty gameplay, badass story. A story can carry a game, whereas graphics cannot.

 

[Biosophilogical]

I think graphics is normally ranked less than story is because graphics are purely visual. A story can also have emotional, spiritual and philosophical depth, it can draw you into the experience in ways that visuals can't. Sure, visuals can help convey a story by providing visual descriptions without the need for great chunks of text, but graphics have always seemed to feed off the 'newest and shiniest' urges we have. I mean, twenty years ago, something like a basic mp3 player and a mobile phone would have been fantastic, but if someone buys a phone nowadays and it can't also take pictures, play music, allow for text messages, access the internet, etc then it tends to be considered bad.

So graphics are very much about satisfying the urge for the 'newest and shiniest', and the way we consider the quality of graphics isn't about how good it is, but how good it is compared to everything else, whereas a good story, or fun gameplay mechanics can remain fun no matter how weell something else works, and I'll admit, I'm not sure whether it is because graphics are a purely scalar thing (poor representation --> perfect representation) and that mechanics and plot have a range of potentials, even going so diverse as to be completely different even within the confines of a genre, or if it is because gameplay and plot don't progress as quickly as graphics do. I mean, we pretty much have a lot of gameplay mechanics and narrative devices down, we rarely discover an entirely new system of playing a game.

So yeah, either it is because graphics advance so quickly and plot/gameplay doesn't, or because gameplay and plot appreciation are judged by a different part of the mind.

 

[blankedboy]

Well if the story's bad, the gameplay can still hold it up fairly easily. If the gameplay's bad, the story can only hold it up if it's a VERY good story, because nobody wants to play games with bad gameplay. However, an amazing storyline and bad gameplay still gives you zero replay value... hm. It only works one way. It's a game 'cos it has gameplay. I'm way too bored to be posting here, ima go play Garry's Mod.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Stories were able to be entertaining without images ever since a thing called "book" was invented.

Honestly, I mainly play games for immersion and story, if the world is interesting enough, even the most glaring flaws will seem comparatively insignificant.

 

[Itsthatguy]

Someone please tell this to everyone who gives RuneScape one look and decides to never play it, and then months/years later just start hating on it. It has decent gameplay and seriously some of the best story I've ever seen in a game.

Runescape has decent gameplay....lulwat. It really is just a leftclicking grind for 98% of the time, which is why i dislike most mmos. Meh, maybe it is better as a member, but for the amount of money you pay you could buy almost any full priced game within 2 years, or every single valve game .

Back on topic, Gameplay is really the key factor in a good game, since you are playing the game to play a game, not read/watch a story. However, good story can compensate somewhat for lacking gameplay. KoTOR's gameplay wasn't brilliant, but the story made it great - the gameplay still worked quite well though.

As far as graphics goes as long as its functional and reasonably pleasing to the eye it is more or less irrelevant. Want to see perfect rendering that looks as realistic as could ever be achieved - go watch a movie.

 

[uncanny474]

/snip

Don't get me wrong, I really liked Psychonauts but I wouldn't call it an extremely good game because it was weak at one area but strong in another. But the way you worded it makes it sound we can make do with the bare minimum on functional gameplay while focusing the rest on story. If that is the case, then it would seem like video games like that don't really have much of an identity besides glorified interactive movies. It seems a lot to be the polar opposite of making a cookie cutter story while focusing on multiplayer.

You're misrepresenting what I'm saying. The game still has to be immersive; all I'm saying is that you don't have to have perfect game mechanics for it to work. Psychonauts was incredibly immersive, even though the mechanics weren't buffed to a shine. The fetch-quests detracted from the game, but if you didn't want to go for 100% completion, you didn't have to, so that didn't break the immersion, either. The game had few, if any, glitches that broke the flow. You can't deny that Psychonauts made you feel like you were Raz.

And that's what differentiates this medium from another--the fact that you are INSIDE the story, not merely observing it. Your decisions affect how the story is told, and your personality inevitably gets imprinted onto the story. It gives it more impact, because you helped make the story.

Cookie cutter stories with a focus on multiplayer hinder the cause of games as an art form. Unfortunately, they're an easy way to make some money, so developers tend to go for that instead of a game with a strong story element. It's not like having a good multiplayer forbids a good story--Call of Duty, especally the newer ones, proves that--it's just that, in the long run, it gets you more bang for your buck to cut the story.

As long as investors in games are worried about return, games will always be held back from their true potential and will instead be forced to be samey and bland.

/snip

Subjective. I liked KOTOR to be honest, but not enough to replay it a couple of time. If I was to pop in Halo, I can probably find some good matches where I would be challenged by some good players. I find multiplayer games to last me longer than single-player games because after the first playthrough, they become predictable with not much new to take in. Multiplayer games always has something that you can challenge yourself to get better at, depending on skill ceiling. That's just me though.

Perhaps it is subjective, but I doubt you could find anyone playing Halo. Maybe I'm wrong, and the lobbies are thriving, but I highly doubt that a game so old still has people playing online.

What I was trying to say is that your experience in a game based on multiplayer depends on who else is playing the multiplayer. Your experience in single player is based on how well the game is made. If games have good story, mechanics, etc., it doesn't matter how good or bad the multiplayer is--there will always be retail value.

In 20 years, when Valve is busy with other projects, will you be able to use your copy of Team Fortress 2? No, because nobody else will be online. But will you be able to use Half-Life 2? Yes, assuming your computer is able to play games that old.

EDIT: Not to mention that in 20 years, Valve will have shut down the TF2 servers.

 

[badgersprite]

final fantasy can be the same way the story in 13 is pretty good, but the gameplay and repetition get in the way. but you will find yourself playing to see what happens in the story.

Really? Huh. Final Fantasy XIII was going to be the example I used of how a bad story, bad characters and bad writing can get in the way of a game and just make it a frustrating experience and sever any possible interest in it. But different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Anyway, a bad story is a valid reason to reject a game, because it's the sort of thing that can and will piss certain types of people off and get in the way of them enjoying the game, thereby preventing them from experiencing the good gameplay. Other types of people won't notice a bad story and might focus 100% on gameplay, just the same as there are players who won't notice bad gameplay (or at least won't be bothered by it) if the story, writing and characters keep them invested and that's also fine. That's just the way they relate to video games.

I hate to sound like such a Captain Obvious, but there's not really any other way to put this than to just come out and say, 'People value different things.'

 

[havass]

I put story and gameplay on equal importance, actually. If one or the other is lacking, the other one can hold up the game.
For example, Dead Space had a very, very bad story. It was very predictable and I think ripped off some movie, but the atmosphere and gameplay were still good enough for me to finish playing the game. On the other hand, a game like Assassin's Creed had strong and unique story, but weak and repetive gameplay. The story still intrigued me enough to play through the whole game and find out what happens at the end though.

 

[Savagezion]

Any reason is a valid reason to reject a game if you mean it. You don't like any graphics below 128 bit? Your loss... or is it a loss if you are incapable of enjoying it? You don't like games who focus too much on story? Your "loss". Don't like games that cater to multi-player? Your "loss". Etc.

If you say one thing is more important in developing a game, it is automatically a fallacy as you cannot prove that. Plants vs. Zombies, Bejeweled, Fallout, Halo, Mass Effect, Uncharted, Final Fantasy, etc. These games all made a lot of money because they had a (singular) draw. FOr all the threads saying that Final Fantasy needs to quit making games, someone out there is paying Square Enix enough money to support the decision to make another sequel. I have no idea who, nor do I care. Bejeweled has made enough money to warrant what? 3 sequels now? Anyone who says one of these is "more important" is falling into a trap. Especially, if you argue with someone else about which is more important as you are arguing against yourself and your own 'logic' or fallacy.