insomnia.ac just got hacked

Yes.

If you want my honest opinion, the examples you chose weren't the best you could have come up with. That said, I do not know about a game that's bad because of good gameplay with terrible stories so would anyone care to share in the experience?

... Through P Ms.

edited 28th Aug '11 5:56:45 AM by Folt

I...have no idea what you're referring to at the end there.

Cygan Angel: "Usually, but not always" does not even apply here, for (I honestly think that) the percentage of such examples is not high enough to warrant the "usually".

And there's one more thing to argue: game criticism that deemphasizes the "game" aspect hurts game design by deemphasizing its actual role.

all I'll say is that equating "gameplay" to something like "moviewatch" or "bookread" is the stupidest thing ever. You can both play and watch someone else play a game after all, and I think we all know that some games a lot more fun to watch than they are to play or visa versa.

and as for someone who brought up text adventure games as an example of games with no graphics, well, aren't those basically electronic Choose Your Own Adventure books? hmm...I wonder what his opinion on those are...

Tales Of Tales made The Path and this.

Never heard of this guy but he sounds like a dick from what I'm reading.

He does have a very dickish, arrogant attitude, but his views make far more sense than you may think at first. My knee-jerk reaction was to dismiss him outright, but just when I was about to do so, I read his "On Complexity, Depth and Skill" and thought "Hold on, there is something there" and tried to actually understand him. I still can't agree with some of his views or with his attitude, but he actually makes a lot of sense.

As for text adventures and Choose Your Own Adventure books — no. Not really. A proper text adventure isn't just about choices. It's about interacting with the described world by typing what you want to do. Here's a screenshot of the start of Zork 1 that I took from Wikipedia.◊

Oh, and if you're watching someone else play a game, then from a certain point of view, you're just watching a movie. So then you're perceiving it AS A MOVIE and thus your potential review is not going to be a game review, it's going to be a movie review of a game.

edited 28th Aug '11 9:50:01 AM by Muzozavr

So I take it any movie review that doesn't focus solely on the quality of the images on the screen isn't a movie review?

And any book review that doesn't focus solely on the typeface and composition isn't a book review.

Yeah, now that I look at it, that analogy isn't very good. Note to self: Don't try to make analogies while tired.

Hm... perhaps the books prose would be a better analogue?

Books: words are not a very exciting thing by themselves — they never are. Thus the content (aka story + writing style) is king.

Movies: any picture, whether a still painting, or a movie is defined by two things: WHAT it portrays and HOW it portrays. A mediocre drawing of a bird will always be better than even the best drawing of a piece of shit, for example.

So, since in a movie it's not one picture but a sequence, the story is WHAT it portrays and the quality of the visuals is HOW it portrays. A very good "what" can save a bad or mediocre "how". However, an excellent "how" with a lacking "what" can exist and be awesome. See Angel's Egg.

With games it's interactivity that counts, and story does not tie in like it does with movies, so story automatically takes a backseat.

So your analogy is inadequate, sorry.

[1]

Keeping this in mind, how would you go about reviewing, say, a visual novel?

edited 28th Aug '11 12:02:27 PM by Wicked223

Icycalm kind of has a blind hatred for any game that wasn't made professionally, too.

Spelunky is all about the gameplay, but he hated it anyway.

The above is an opinion I get from the more pretentious fiction critics, but this is mine, as a writer: all three elements are equally important pillars of writing: if you have lousy prose, your book is tedious to decipher or worse, unreadable; if you have no thematic depth, it's not going to inspire any deep thought, or complex emotions (that is, the kind that still affect adults) and it will be BORING except to children; if your writing has no plot or a very boring plot, it isn't going to be very marketable, and you lose one less chance to rope in readers who are not captivated by your prose and don't understand or more likely don't care about or dislike your themes.

I don't know what this heinously off-topic aside has to do with whatever point I was trying ot make. Oh, I think prose is probably the best parallel to gameplay for writing, being the unique, defining element... even though that disagrees with my opinion on writing. There are no perfect analogies anyway.

They exist. Totally.

I admit that they may be a stereotype (though I have definitely seen them in literature circles on the internet) but if you're going to use sarcasm could you not be a prick about it and just make a point so I can agree or disagree with you?

I'm getting the feeling that he's using "games should never be art" aspect to hate on indie games. Not the other way around.

edited 28th Aug '11 1:07:08 PM by Myrmidon

For 95% of games, it's the gameplay that is the most important, otherwise it's just a movie or book in a different form and would probably be better off in that format (unless it's a Visual Novel with multiple routes, which are inherently superior to "choose your own adventure" books due to being unable to spoil yourself, having illustrations on every screen and not losing them as they are all on your netbook/tablet/PSP).

However it is possible to make a game which doesn't focus on gameplay, and still be superior to if it was a movie. That game would focus entirely on exploration, with your character being able to do little more than run or jump, and maybe a camera to shoot photos of the world around you with, but to make up for it, you would explore a large, open world full of unique life, structures and such. It would be superior to a movie (regardless on whether it is animated or live-action) trying something similar due to being able to be non-linear, something which a movie can never do.

Of course, Sturgeon's Law would still apply, meaning that there would be bad examples of such a game, but a great one with top art direction and plenty of events constantly happening around you would take the strengths of the medium to the fore (read: being able to play at your own pace with few restrictions on where you can go) and be a sight to behold as a result. The only good gameplay such a game would need is to ensure that you can travel to most places without having to take 6 hours just to reach there, so maybe add vehicles to help with that. I doesn't really need anything more than that.

If you didn't get what I was saying in the post you originally quoted, I was from the beginning referring to hypercritical nerds on the internet, because that's the only place you find people that critical of anything.

By ivory tower I meant pretentious, not academic, most academic writers I've encountered are very open minded and supportive, except one but that was because he was a dick. By illuminati I meant that these people are not ubiquitous and you'll mostly hear of them through their whisperings on the internet; but they do exist and I've interacted with them.

You haven't made anything close to an actual point so I'm not sure why I'm humoring you. Also:

The game is not entirely without merit whatsoever but other than evoking postapoc atmosphere, it is inferior to New Vegas. And while I'm not a component of quality by consensus, you are also in the minority for people who share your opinion, so if by 'anyone with eyes' you mean yourself and everyone else is an idiot then I guess you're right.

edited 28th Aug '11 1:18:06 PM by Mammalsauce

The challenge here would be making one of these fun. There are plenty of great games where all you can do is run and jump (+ shoot fire balls) but they are immaculately designed. If you just run around and take pictures, it would be as boring as Shadow of the Colossus minus the bosses.*

(*: opinionz)

edited 28th Aug '11 1:20:41 PM by Mammalsauce

edited 28th Aug '11 4:52:07 PM by Myrmidon

What, that the user score is lower on FO 3 despite being two years older and built on the same engine? That the ratio and number of negative user reviews for FO 3 is higher?

Oh you're referring to critic reviews? I must have forgotten how they have a scrap of credibility and the entire professional game review industry isn't bloated with payola and generally full of shit. Silly me.