Poll: Are graphics taking over story/gameplay?

[fantomspower]

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.

 

[HeroOfLegend]

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.

 

[BardSeed]

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.

 

[Quaidis]

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

 

[Reaperman Wompa]

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.

 

[meatloaf231]

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.

 

[TommyGun465]

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

 

[DevilSaint44]

crysis is living proof of shalow story/gameplay

 

[poleboy]

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.

 

[stompy]

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'.

 

[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

 

[Jumplion]

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?

 

[Anarchemitis]

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.

Looks=Graphics
Storyline=Ingredients
Taste=Gameplay, the most important part.
Why developers won't ever ever take action on this is because the intelligent and knowledgeable gamers out there make up less than 10% of the developer's audience. That other 90% saying they want more of what is already being made is what they're going to heed. Makers of games would like no better than to make Sky-Basketball Super Gun Planetary Adventure in 3D but only if everyone wanted it. At this point, they see that 9 out of 10 cry out for Halo 4 instead.

 

[With_one_Mind]

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.

 

[Martenzo]

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.

 

[Lt. Sera]

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.

 

[FrankDux]

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.

 

[Uncompetative]

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.