What makes a game good? bad? average?

[onewheeled]

Here's what I think

Good - Fun
Bad - Not Fun
Average - Kind of Fun

Gah, ninja'd.

Yeah, a game is improved by a good story. But is it really needed to make a game good? Hell no! Look at Katamari Damacy, or the Left 4 Dead games[footnote]Alright, I know there's a big overarching story with this series, but do you really think about that when you're in the middle of a swarm of zombies, fighting for your life with three friends?[/footnote], they're some of the most fun games I've ever played, and they don't rely on stories. The same goes for graphics. If a game is fun, and is something that I'll have fun with for a long time, then it's worth playing, in my book.

 

[yanipheonu]

I like the thumbs up system myself.

2 thumbs up: It did everything right, just depends on whether you dig it or not.
1 thumb up: Not perfect, but you might still find something you like.
No thumbs up: Hard to recommend/just plain bad

Anything else I find just isn't helpful.

 

[badgersprite]

It's all just personal preferences. On the whole, I prefer games that are either mindlessly fun, inspire the imaginative kid in me by reminding me of the things I used to makebelieve about when I played with my friends, or just being really off the wall crazy and unique.

I like things that evoke a reaction in me, be it laughter, fear or even attachment to characters, but a lot of my favourite games have practically no "story" (well, actually they do, but it's conveyed almost entirely through the visuals of the world and the mechanics of the game) and yet I could spend more time examining and analysing exactly what these games mean and symbolise than your artiest arthouse movie.

I like games that are fun. Not to say I have anything against serious games with deeper themes. I do love those games too. But in order to get your dark serious message and story across you have to be visually creative, entertaining, and succeed in telling your story well. I liked GTA4, for example, because the feelings it was meant to evoke through the story was built into every inch of the game map, at least in my interpretation. Just from how the buildings towered over you when you first arrived and were so cramped and confined, unlike in any other GTA and the satire of American culture that was everywhere, fuck I felt the alienation of Niko Bellic fresh off the boat. It was great.

So, yeah, I guess I just said that 90% of what determines what makes me like a game is atmosphere and how the game world, the visuals and the gameplay reinforces the story and characters, and vice versa.

Except that games are not art and this is fact.

No, that's an opinion.

 

[Lagslayer]

@ EdwardOrchard

I designed my question to be vague. This allows for people to make their answers as simple or complex as they like, which is part of what I wanted to know. Also, I'm not really trying to quantify specific, hard data; I was just trying to get a feel of the opinions of those on the forums.

 

[Continuity]

snip

Gameplay may not be art, but the three other main aspects of games are art unless you're going by an incredibly strange definition of it that is irrelevant to today's society. Visuals are art, storytelling is art and music is art. So there we go.

On the contrary, gameplay is art, its the particular art that is practically unique to computer games. To even talk of computer games as art without meaning the gameplay element is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
For example I cannot justify a book as being a work of art on the basis of the illustrations on some of the pages, no, a book has to stand up as art on the strength of the writing, the literature if you like. Same with games, you cant take a game and say its art because it has music, or because it has pretty pictures/graphics, or a well written story... these things can be taken out of the context of the "Game" and still be art by themselves - like my example of a book with illustrations. The only thing that make a game art is its quintessential essence i.e. gameplay.

seriously.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I can't really define it enough to make a list, but Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney is my "best game ever" and the only i game i've played that i would consider art...

Go figure...

 

[Tax_Document]

Everyone here is over-thinking it, what makes a game good/bad/average is...



HOW FUN IT IS TO YOU!