No Right Answer: Gameplay vs. Story

[Firefilm]

Gameplay vs. Story

This week the boys go for a broad topic. Ha, I said broad. But seriously, folks...games can either have great gameplay or great story. If they have both, they are called Half-life 2. But for all other examples, which one is more important? A game written by poets with a camera mechanic that makes you want to kill a hobo, or an addicting game you can't put down that is just as fulfilling with the mute button on?

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[Daystar Clarion]

Mass Effect 1 has a better overall story than ME2.

But I will never touch ME1 again because the gameplay is just bad.

Story can only carry a game so far, while great gameplay can keep me coming back for more.

A great story makes a game memorable.

Great gameplay keeps me playing, so sure, I've played Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 a hell of a lot more than Mass Effect, but Mass Effect will be the series I remember years from now.

 

[Falcon123]

When I think of the games I've logged the most hours in, that I've replayed time and time again, and that, to me, are the most interesting and fun, I think of the games with great stories. Shadows of the Colossus. Bioshock. Mass Effect. Hell, even Assassin's Creed has an interesting narrative, albeit somewhat convoluted by this point. Great gameplay but a weak story creates a game people enjoy for a moment but immediately forget exists when the next wave of new games comes out. A great story with merely passable gameplay is enough to last in the memories of gamers far beyond the time in which they come out.

 

[Qitz]

Gotta agree with Kyle.

The story adds great flavor to the game itself but a game with a great store and shit gameplay makes you loath continuing the game while a game with great gameplay and a shit story is still playable simple because you're having fun.

 

[Mr. Omega]

Story can only carry a game so far. It can be used to elevate a game and make it memorable. But the best story in the world isn't going to matter if people aren't willing to put up with terrible gameplay just to get to that story, especially now in the age where we can just look up the story online. Gameplay is the way we progress through the story. That being said, there is in fact a difference between little story (Mario), a simple story (Final Fantasy 4) and a BAD story (Sonic 06).

Story can make a good game a great game. But gameplay is what makes the game good in the first place.

 

[K_Dub]

Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure that I play most games for the story. Even if the gameplay is just a huge headache waiting to happen, I wanna play through it to find out what's gonna happen at the end. Case and point, the first Uncharted. Just played through that recentely, and though I found the gameplay extremely aggrivating and clunkey, I dealt with it, and played through til the end to find out what happens to Nate and his pals!

On the other end of the spectrum though, you have games like God of War 3. The gameplay? Just a pure marvel to watch and play. The story? Absolute garbage.

It's always a matter of personal taste in games, but you can never have gameplay without story, or vice versa. It's like a PB&J. Sometimes, you have one element that over powers another, but when you can get both the peanut butter and jelly equally spread across that bread that is your game, then you're in for one hell of a treat!

 

[Azuaron]

It all depends on what you mean by "most important". When it comes right down to it, it's most important for a game not to crash every three minutes (Fallout 3...) But, limiting myself to just gameplay and story, what do you mean by story? Just the plot/dialog? The plot and the characters? The plot, the characters, and the environment? The plot, the characters, the environment, and the overall visual style?

Because when you get right down to it, "the story" isn't the plot. A novel isn't great because it has a great plot, it's great because it tells a great story. So basically everything that isn't gameplay is story.

The argument was raised that Soul Caliber was just a fighting game without any story, but that's incorrect. Each character's design (over-design?) tells a story about that character without a single word of dialog. Each stage's design tells a story about where they are, and why they're fighting. When playing Killer Instinct, my brother was usually Orchid, because the two sentence flavor text for her character said she was a government agent that infiltrated the tournament, and he wanted to play the government agent infiltrating the tournament.

With this in mind, games that have really bad "story" are just as unplayable as games with really bad mechanics. Currently, many people are complaining about all the "brown and gray" shooters, but what they're really complaining about isn't that the shooters are brown and gray, it's that they have bland stories. Serious Sam 3 BFE recently came out, and it is, technically speaking, a brown and gray (and red. So. Much. Red.) shooter, but it has an excellent story. Not an excellent plot, an excellent story.

 

[Awexsome]

I can trudge through a bad gameplay for a good story, but for some great gameplay a bad story can be much easier to ignore. Particularly with mutliplayer and co-op stuff these days.

Oh, and HL2 was boring for me. Halo CE had better gameplay and story.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

The story in this is?

The gameplay in this is?

Which would you rather play?

 

[Imp_Emissary]

At the end of the day, you can have a pretty good game that has absolutely no story, but if the title in question has absolutely no gameplay it's not a game.

Also, what would you call a game with no gameplay anyway?

 

[Hitchmeister]

Fairly good debate. Not enough Bad Dudes.

C'mon, "The President has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a bad enough Dude to rescue the President?" Does the story get better than that?

 

[Felipe Nurwandi]

I usually don't post my opinions in these kinds of debates, but this got me really fired up for some reason.

For me personally, I would choose the story. Think about it this way, which aspect keeps you going? For me, the points + leader boards are really addictive, and I understand why you would choose that; but with great story you're engaged in that world, and when you keep going it's a different feel of WHY you kept going.

I would also bring up Final Fantasy VII. That game is considered by its fans to be the best FF game, but I always thought the gameplay was crap. I thought so back in 1997, I still think so now; so why do people think it's the best? The answer to that question is the story.

P.S If you haven't play Suikoden II before, you're not allowed to argue

 

[Hitchmeister]

At the end of the day, you can have a pretty good game that has absolutely no story, but if the title in question has absolutely no gameplay it's not a game.

Also, what would you call a game with no gameplay anyway?

I think they implied it's called Final Fantasy. ;-)

 

[vxicepickxv]

Great gameplay but a weak story creates a game people enjoy for a moment but immediately forget exists when the next wave of new games comes out.

I beg to differ, and so does Notch. I'm sure people will remember Minecraft for a while.

 

[Irridium]

Shame Chris didn't pull out Planescape: Torment. A game so damn amazing and famous solely because of its story, and shows how truly great a game can be with a story focus.

Or hell, every Bioware game. All of them have had pretty crap gameplay, yet are all lauded for their story.

Planescape: Torment
Almost all Bioware games
Fallout
Pretty much every Obsidian game

On the other end of the spectrum, you have games like
Pretty much every Nintendo franchise
Serious Sam
Painkiller
Soul Calibur
MDK 2 (consequently the only Bioware game I thought was actually fun to play)

All great games, but all do one thing right and kind of suck at the other.

Personally, I don't care what a developer does (though I'd prefer both to be great and in harmony with each other by playing off each other's strengths), so long as they do it great.

When both are in harmony, we get games like
Bastion
Valve games
Deus Ex

 

[Tamrin]

Mass Effect 1 has a better overall story than ME2.

But I will never touch ME1 again because the gameplay is just bad.

Story can only carry a game so far, while great gameplay can keep me coming back for more.

A great story makes a game memorable.

Great gameplay keeps me playing, so sure, I've played Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 a hell of a lot more than Mass Effect, but Mass Effect will be the series I remember years from now.

That's pretty much the same for me except I am to the extent that I did not finish playing Mass Effect for its bad gameplay, nor did I play ME2 for myself having lacked the story I would have known if I finished the first game. I don't like jumping into a sequel without having learned the story from the beginning much like how I wouldn't go see a movie in theatre when I'm an hour late.

Also, when Kyle name dropped King of Kong I knew he was going to win.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Of course Bioshock is immersed. It's surrounded by water! /bad pun.

 

[Clankenbeard]

I am happy to see Gameplay win this one. In a game, the gameplay has to be most important. Story will build emotion. Emotion builds memory and fond recollections. So, you can become emotionally attached to a game more with a good story. But, you can only build that if you are accepting of the gameplay.

I go to my console system when I want to play a game with a great story. The two button controller is simple enough to minimize gameplay and allow me to focus on the story. I think it's a PLAY button and a STOP button. What? You say my console is called a "D-V-D Player?". Oh. I see. I'll write that in Sharpie on the front for future.

 

[lord.jeff]

I'm gonna say gameplay is more important because it's a lot easier to ignore story then it is gameplay but that isn't to say a game can't sell based on it's story, it really depends on the type of game.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

At the end of the day, you can have a pretty good game that has absolutely no story, but if the title in question has absolutely no gameplay it's not a game.

Also, what would you call a game with no gameplay anyway?

I think they implied it's called Final Fantasy. ;-)

Oh, no one saw that joke coming. The fireworks display it was dragging behind it really distracted you....(I understand the temptation though.)

But seriously now what would the name for such a creature be? All I can think of was that digital choose your own adventure game The_root_of_all_evil (number 9) showed in his post.