"Gaming graphics unsustainable"

[thilanliyan]

http://games.toptenreviews.com...omplimentary-rant.html

Read the rant in the bottom half. Although I do like the eye candy, I do agree that story should be more important.

 

[Lonyo]

The ideal situation is to have both (obviously). And some titles even manage it.

Bioshock (thankfully) I didn't play until I had upgraded from my 7800GT to an HD4850, and I cranked up all the settings.
The first 2/3rds of story were great, but I don't think it would have been as immersive or impressive if it wasn't for the graphics and the way the whole environment and world of the game were presented. The story was important, but the graphics added a lot to the story and made the world more impressive than just the explanations given in game could have managed with lesser graphics.

Mass Effect, which I only got last week, has nice graphics IMO. They aren't Crysis, but they are still very nice. The universe is nicely crafted, and there are moments in the game which are pretty tough decision wise (e.g. who do I save). With lesser graphics it would have been a more lifeless game, but they managed to have good graphics and a good story/universe creation.

Fallout 3 I started with a slow CPU which means I played with options quite far down, and it kind of worked, it made the world seem a bit dull and lifeless, which fits with the story and world concept, and even when I got a better CPU and cranked stuff up it didn't really do a whole lot for the world, but again it had both (if your computer can handle it).

Good graphics aren't always necessary if you have a strong story, but sometimes (as the saying goes) a picture is worth a thousand words, and if you can make a pretty picture, it adds a lot to the story, although you could argue that a pretty picture doesn't need to come from high level graphics (see TF2, which because of its artistic direction is nice, without being too demanding on a system).

 

[Elcs]

As in most of life there is balance. When you look at the greatest games, they all struck a good balance of story, graphics and gameplay.

 

[Modelworks]

I was told by a developer about 10 years ago something that has stuck with me . The way to tell if you got a hit game is that if you can sit there and play it with just dots on the screen and stick men and the game is still fun, you have a winner. If it isn't fun at that stage what is going to make it fun when the mechanics are still the same and you painted it another color ? If all you do is sit and click in a fps, then it isn't going to be fun no matter how many pixels you throw at it.


Look at some of the best games in the world, chess . It doesnt have fancy graphics, sound, or requires a long time to learn the rules. It does excel at gameplay though.

Or look at early video games. Pong. The simplest one of them all , but put it on a tv in a room with controllers and watch how many people still find it fun to play.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

looks fun

 

[GaryJohnson]

Graphics are important for immersion and complexity both of which can contribute to the overall funfactor of a game.

Some graphically bleeding edge games do tend to lack in the gameplay department. And alot of that may have to do with how the developers resources are split between the graphics and the gameplay. But, alot of that graphical equity that the developer generates never goes away. It trickles into SDKs and APIs and engines used by games where the development is spent more on the gameplay and story side.

So basically the games that we all think have good gameplay but not stellar graphics probably have alot better graphics than they would have if those bleeding edge games that came before never existed.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Elcs
As in most of life there is balance. When you look at the greatest games, they all struck a good balance of story, graphics and gameplay.

Most of my fav games have a very sloppy story.

Wolfeinstein - you're in jail, go kill stuff
Doom - something about teleporters, go kill stuff
Quake - the instruction manual makes no sense, so let's go kill stuff
Quake 2 - killing stuff on another planet
Half-Life - blatant copy of Doom's story but better graphics
Diablo - I don't know why I'm killing stuff
Fable - I just paid 800 gold for sex
GTA Vice City - me and my Jew lawyer take over the city
Fallout 3 - this game's story is absolutely pathetic

Adding to what Modelworks said, a good game is good even if it has no story. The Metal Gear Solid series is written by a schizophrenic but they're still fun to play. MGS 4 has such a horrible story that watching the cut scenes actually ruins the game. wtf are these Gecko things? What is a "pmc"? What are nanobots and why should I care? At the end, enemy soldiers put away their guns and pull out swords. When snake needs to get through a room filled with microwave radiation, for some reason he does not use the metal barrel to shield himself (microwaves are low frequency radiation and cannot penetrate most metals). This game is so retarded that if I had a gun I would kill myself. It would have been so much better if it didn't have any story or cut scenes and just said who I'm supposed to kill.

 

[Maximilian]

A story is awesome but the gameplay + graphics can make up for it sometimes, like farcry and crysis, as long as theres good gameplay and either story or graphics im happy, all 3 would be great.

Also GTA vice city had a good story, like most GTA games and fallout 3's was decent as well.

 

[Arglebargle]

The shorter the game (and the attention span) the less you have sustain a story.

Almost everyone thinks they are a writer. And they are, in one way or antoher. Unfortunately, most everyone (including game company guys) think they are good writers. This does not pan out nearly as often.

Same thing as in Hollywood. Make it shiney and then blow it up!

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Maximilian
Also GTA vice city had a good story, like most GTA games and fallout 3's was decent as well.

Vicy City's story is all over the place. There doesn't seem to be a focus on what I'm supposed to be doing. What made that game so interesting was that it was a weird fantasy world with so many things to do. I found over 90 of the penguins, I did all the rampages, I did all the Top Fun challenges, I did most of the races, and I tried to do all of the missions. The story is strong enough to make me like the characters, but it's loose enough that I can do things in any random order. GTA 4 by comparison has a much stronger story, but part of having a stronger story is having a more linear game, and that makes it less fun.

Fallout 3's story was just horrible. Your father risks your life by leaving the vault, and he doesn't say where he's going or how you can find him. Even when you track him down, his explaination for why he left is retarded (he wants to fix the water even though the water is not a problem to begin with). Then you get kidnapped by the president who happens to be a robot and you help him poison the water supply before commiting suicide. Was this game written by depressed teenagers? It's also worth noting that you can complete the game in under 6 hours because the story is pathetically short. The only reason to play Fallout 3 is if you like exploring since 99% of the game is exploration and 1% of it is a short story that you can finish in under a day.

 

[drebo]

I have always preferred good and immersive gameplay over both graphics and story. It's the reason I can't get in to any of the current MMOs...they all have really crappy linear stories that don't make any sense...and even when one is fun to play, it's pitiful attempt at a linear story completely breaks it (Warhammer Online, anyone?) Give me a sandbox game any day. Additionally, graphics come last, in my opinion. If OSI hadn't ruined it, I would be perfectly content to be playing UO right now.

Heck, my two favorite games right now are MVP 2007 and Mount&Blade. Neither of which has story OR graphics...but they're both incredibly fun.

 

[Udgnim]

imo this has been the general progression in gaming

gameplay to story to graphics (starting out with games like pong, donkey kong, super mario to present day)

but the current trend with games coming out is graphics > gameplay = story (not sure whether gameplay is ahead of story or vice versa)

 

[Childs]

Rarely does a story even matter. Its the gameplay that makes the game. Most game structure is basically start here, get there, and kill everyone in your path. The why doesnt really matter. The more story that is woven into a game the more scrutiny it'll get, and it'll be the weak link. I would think gameplay is most important, but graphics is a close second. If a game looks like a POS you probably wont play it. Graphics don't need to evolve like HL -> Far Cry -> Crysis each time out, you just need decent graphics engine with good art design, running at a stable framerate. AA is probably more important to making a game look good than shinning this and vertex sub per pixel that, etc. Games are not movies, but like movies you dont need ILM graphics for Driving Miss Daisy.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
I was told by a developer about 10 years ago something that has stuck with me . The way to tell if you got a hit game is that if you can sit there and play it with just dots on the screen and stick men and the game is still fun, you have a winner. If it isn't fun at that stage what is going to make it fun when the mechanics are still the same and you painted it another color ? If all you do is sit and click in a fps, then it isn't going to be fun no matter how many pixels you throw at it.


Look at some of the best games in the world, chess . It doesnt have fancy graphics, sound, or requires a long time to learn the rules. It does excel at gameplay though.

Or look at early video games. Pong. The simplest one of them all , but put it on a tv in a room with controllers and watch how many people still find it fun to play.

Yeah, this is not true. It's the same reason you can have a great plot with sucky actors and the movie is not enjoyable or believable. As a designer, you have to achieve suspension of disbelief.

 

[coloumb]

Well..no duh - it's all about the graphics today. Back in ye old days - "developers" had to rely upon a good story with subpar graphics or no graphics at all [text based adventure games - Zork, Scott Adams adventures, Adventure, etc]. The imagination was your graphics engine.

Nowadays - the role has reversed - eye candy first, story 2nd [for most games] because that's what most people want.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: Elcs
As in most of life there is balance. When you look at the greatest games, they all struck a good balance of story, graphics and gameplay.

Most of my fav games have a very sloppy story.

Wolfeinstein - you're in jail, go kill stuff
Doom - something about teleporters, go kill stuff
Quake - the instruction manual makes no sense, so let's go kill stuff
Quake 2 - killing stuff on another planet
Half-Life - blatant copy of Doom's story but better graphics
Diablo - I don't know why I'm killing stuff
Fable - I just paid 800 gold for sex
GTA Vice City - me and my Jew lawyer take over the city
Fallout 3 - this game's story is absolutely pathetic

Adding to what Modelworks said, a good game is good even if it has no story. The Metal Gear Solid series is written by a schizophrenic but they're still fun to play. MGS 4 has such a horrible story that watching the cut scenes actually ruins the game. wtf are these Gecko things? What is a "pmc"? What are nanobots and why should I care? At the end, enemy soldiers put away their guns and pull out swords. When snake needs to get through a room filled with microwave radiation, for some reason he does not use the metal barrel to shield himself (microwaves are low frequency radiation and cannot penetrate most metals). This game is so retarded that if I had a gun I would kill myself. It would have been so much better if it didn't have any story or cut scenes and just said who I'm supposed to kill.

uh...wow...MGS4 had an awesome story. anyone who watches more than MTV should know what those things are. some people just more easily wowed with mindless gameplay though, as evident by the post i'm quoted.

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1
Fallout 3's story was just horrible. Your father risks your life by leaving the vault, and he doesn't say where he's going or how you can find him. Even when you track him down, his explaination for why he left is retarded (he wants to fix the water even though the water is not a problem to begin with). Then you get kidnapped by the president who happens to be a robot and you help him poison the water supply before commiting suicide. Was this game written by depressed teenagers? It's also worth noting that you can complete the game in under 6 hours because the story is pathetically short. The only reason to play Fallout 3 is if you like exploring since 99% of the game is exploration and 1% of it is a short story that you can finish in under a day.

Did you seem to forget the story had CHOICES?!

In my first play through, I Kirk'd President Eden, refused to put the poison in, and sent the Paladin woman into the water purifier thingy.

 

[Chriscross3234]

Baldur's Gate 2 had the best storyline out of any game I have played. Every decision, character, quest, ... pretty much everything in that game had a unique and intricate storyline and lore. Most of todays RPG's (*cough* Fallout 3 *cough*) pale in comparison to BG2. If only developers put the effort into incorporating a great and epic storyline into their games like Bioware did back in the day AND it had some decent combat and party mechanics...

 

[Paratus]

Seems to me to have a great game you either need excellent game play OR great graphics AND great story.

 

[Dumac]

Gameplay > story > graphics..

That is all there is to it

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
The ideal situation is to have both (obviously). And some titles even manage it.

Bioshock (thankfully) I didn't play until I had upgraded from my 7800GT to an HD4850, and I cranked up all the settings.
The first 2/3rds of story were great, but I don't think it would have been as immersive or impressive if it wasn't for the graphics and the way the whole environment and world of the game were presented. The story was important, but the graphics added a lot to the story and made the world more impressive than just the explanations given in game could have managed with lesser graphics.

and yet SystemShock2 was a superior game in every respect to BioShock - and it managed on the creaky old Dark Engine they made over from the Thief series
- it was even pretty poor in its day and yet the game became a classic.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: pontifex
uh...wow...MGS4 had an awesome story. anyone who watches more than MTV should know what those things are. some people just more easily wowed with mindless gameplay though, as evident by the post i'm quoted.

Because CNN now does press coverage to explain what Metal Gear Solid is about. Oh and did I mention that the one black guy in the game is a horrible stereotype? And the enemy boss is a reincarnation of snake's clone? Oh and there's also a part involving a robot ninja who has no arms so he uses his feet to sword fight against soldiers who voluntarily put their guns away to sword fight him. Do I really need to draw a diagram of why this is retarded?

Did you seem to forget the (fallout) story had CHOICES?!

Your choices have absolutely no effect on the gameplay. This isn't Chrono Trigger where you can either kill Magus or have him join you for the last quarter of the game. Fallout's choice system means the gameplay is the exact same and the only thing that changes is the end cut scene, but the end is so lame that it really doesn't matter. Bioshock had the same retarded "choice" system where your actions have absolutely no effect on anything. The other lame story thing about Fallout is that you can completely change the ending from the bad ending to the good ending by donating money to the cult. That means you can see 4 separate Fallout 3 endings without needing to redo any parts of the game.

and yet SystemShock2 was a superior game in every respect to BioShock

Except for the story, the gameplay, the needless complexity, the way the weapons break, etc. I love how I get to play as a marine who doesn't know how to use a gun. Which military is this? France? There's a reason that game was a commercial failure. review

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Lonyo
The ideal situation is to have both (obviously). And some titles even manage it.

Bioshock (thankfully) I didn't play until I had upgraded from my 7800GT to an HD4850, and I cranked up all the settings.
The first 2/3rds of story were great, but I don't think it would have been as immersive or impressive if it wasn't for the graphics and the way the whole environment and world of the game were presented. The story was important, but the graphics added a lot to the story and made the world more impressive than just the explanations given in game could have managed with lesser graphics.

and yet SystemShock2 was a superior game in every respect to BioShock - and it managed on the creaky old Dark Engine they made over from the Thief series
- it was even pretty poor in its day and yet the game became a classic.

BioShock was a complete clone of SS2, yet failed to compare in every way besides graphics. What a terrible game that wasn't scary at all. I played on the hardest difficulty and it wasn't anyway near as hard as normal on SS2. Even with SS2's terrible graphics, it was the scariest game I've ever played.

 

[Harabec]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: pontifex
uh...wow...MGS4 had an awesome story. anyone who watches more than MTV should know what those things are. some people just more easily wowed with mindless gameplay though, as evident by the post i'm quoted.

Because CNN now does press coverage to explain what Metal Gear Solid is about. Oh and did I mention that the one black guy in the game is a horrible stereotype? And the enemy boss is a reincarnation of snake's clone? Oh and there's also a part involving a robot ninja who has no arms so he uses his feet to sword fight against soldiers who voluntarily put their guns away to sword fight him. Do I really need to draw a diagram of why this is retarded?

Did you seem to forget the (fallout) story had CHOICES?!

Your choices have absolutely no effect on the gameplay. This isn't Chrono Trigger where you can either kill Magus or have him join you for the last quarter of the game. Fallout's choice system means the gameplay is the exact same and the only thing that changes is the end cut scene, but the end is so lame that it really doesn't matter. Bioshock had the same retarded "choice" system where your actions have absolutely no effect on anything. The other lame story thing about Fallout is that you can completely change the ending from the bad ending to the good ending by donating money to the cult. That means you can see 4 separate Fallout 3 endings without needing to redo any parts of the game.

and yet SystemShock2 was a superior game in every respect to BioShock

Except for the story, the gameplay, the needless complexity, the way the weapons break, etc. I love how I get to play as a marine who doesn't know how to use a gun. Which military is this? France? There's a reason that game was a commercial failure. review

Honestly...you sound a little sad, intentionally finding faults where there are none. You probably won't enjoy ANYTHING complex, which is why all you seem to want is to "go kill stuff".
SS2 specific - you gave a review that simplifies everything in a condescending manner. I don't know how I'm supposed to take him seriously. I *AM* surprised the guy managed writing 2 pages about it.

 

[shortylickens]

He's just saying the same thing I have for the past 6 years.
Damn. I should get a blog. Or at the very least submit an article or two for that kind of website.