fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #1496 ]

[ SECRET POST #1496 ]

⌈ Secret Post #1496 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 12 pages, 293 secrets from Secret Submission Post #214.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 1 2 3 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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yeah forget any valid critical analysis of games, let's just let everyone play whatever trash they like, im sure this will improve the games industry overall
Everyone is fine, even self-congratulatory, with hating Twilight and asserting that it is LESSER LITERATURE. But if anyone dares to suggest that Mario Tennis or Wii Fit might in fact be worth slightly less than, say, Planescape: Torment (get outta here dethtoll, I know the writing is hacky but it subverts video game conventions like death/reloading and NPC companions to good effect) then everyone has a shitfit and accuses everyone of caring too much about dumb games and being elitist.

Actually, while I don't care for Twilight and don't care for the writing, the point of this comment would be that I do not think less of people who read it, because I do enjoy plenty of things that I recognize are not critical masterpieces, but I still ultimately find entertaining enough to kill some time when I'm in the mood for them.

I'm not anti-critical analysis, I'm anti-the part of this secret that says in nice clear letters "I THINK LESS OF YOU."

Not the games you play.

You.

Because Nintendo has never been innovative ever

They have and continue to be. I will admit that my distaste for Nintendo is because I'm heavily focused on story and character-based games, and in despair because a lot of the big indie developers and several 'big names' seem to be intent on the "GAME = GAMEPLAY ONLY, EVERYTHING ELSE IS SECONDARY" and "GAMES MUST BE FUN" things, which I completely disagree with and which Nintendo embody. So when Nintendo are innovative, it is in mainly in terms of gameplay mechanics, which for the most part I couldn't care less about and think it's the wrong direction for the games industry to go in (although it evidently makes a lot of money!).

Also, you have to admit that they tend to cruise along on the populariy of their franchises now rather than coming up with anything hugely new and interesting.

...

I'm not a Nintendo fan either but I never expected there to be people who actually dismiss GAMEPLAY in GAMES. Jfc it's like listening to a shitty band only because the members are cool.

Well no not really? There are lots of games that are considered good and yet are also considered to have awful gameplay: SH2, Deadly Premonition, all adventure games, Heavy Rain, Morrowind... I could go on forever. Take out traditional 'gameplay' - shooting, platforming, whatever, and you're left with what is more like, I guess, interactive fiction? Games that have good gameplay are often lacking in everything else: plot, character, dialogue, voice acting... everything but graphics and controls. Gameplay-focused games might be fun timewasters for me but they won't be memorable or interesting enough to play for more than an hour or so!

As much as I like games with good stories, games simply stop being games if they don't provide you with a fair challenge to overcome. It's the crucial FUN element of gaming yet you make it sound like it matters less than a story?

I thought SH2 had good gameplay; sure it wasn't sophisticated or innovative, but it served it's purpose decently. SH4 on the other hand I consider a frustrating mess of a bad game even if I did like the story best out of the four.

SH2 really didn't have good gameplay. The controls and camera were obstructive more than anything, and the combat mainly involved either running or standing in place and hoping you whack something to death with your nailboard before it whacks you to death. And the puzzles were... well, Silent Hill puzzles, what can I say. They are what they are.

Yes, I really think the FUN FUNNY FUN FUN gameplay elements matter less than story, environment and characters! I play a lot of things on easy because I don't give a fuck about overcoming a challenge; the Deadly Premonition (I keep talking about this game but screw it) menu even straight up says Easy is for those who want to enjoy the story without worrying about dying, and everyone says Hard isn't worth bothering with because nobody would play it for the combat anyway. Story/characters are a real reason some people play games, it's true :T

Gameplay isn't just about pressing buttons to win, that's way too shallow of a definition. Gameplay covers the entire DESIGN of the game, how the world and levels function, what abilities and limitations the character has, what the player will learn and in which order, how everything is carefully calculated to evoke desired responses from the player. A game is, by definition, not a linear experience. It's not a story. It's a complex mechanic that may be used to deliver a story.

Basically the existence of good storytelling in a game is entirely dependant of how well the game itself functions. Unless, of course, you "story" is just a bunch of cutscenes that might as well have made up a standalone movie, thus defeating the whole purpose.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2011-02-07 15:32 (UTC) - Expand

Well, to me, gameplay is probably the most important thing about a game. If I wanted a good story I'd just read a book or watch a movie or something. Gameplay is exclusive to video games, so it should be the focus.

That's not to say that developers should just skimp on the rest. I also have to say I think music is really important and I hate it when games have shitty or repetitive music

I'd argue that gameplay is not the thing that is exclusive, interactivity is what is exclusive. Maybe people would consider those to be the same thing? Personally I would define such things as choosing dialogue options, being able to choose what characters to interact with, non-linearity, maybe even QTEs etc to be examples of interactivity, not gameplay, whereas the general forms of gameplay such as shooting, combat, driving, jumping, movement, and the overall mechanics would fall under gameplay.

Most game developers (and, as far as I can tell, the majority of gamers) seem to consider gameplay as the driving force that gets the player to suffer through the boring character interaction, but a lot of people who enjoy the same sorts of games I do see it as completely the other way round - you have to suffer through shitty combat or driving sections to get to the good, talky parts! So I guess my priorities are totally different from a lot of people's, but I can only try to do what I think is right, and if that's trying to work towards toning down the 'game = gameplay' concept then that's what I'm gonna try and do :T

You're trying to do a very bad thing. Please stop.

Well, I'm kind of old and I grew up with the NES and 8-bit gaming, so that's probably why I'm more interested in gameplay than other aspects of a game. Back in the olden days when characters were just a few dots on a tv screen, things like complicated personality or in-depth plots were not really in the forefront (usually because it was difficult to incorporate that into the game, aside from giving you a few screens of text like Final Fantasy did). Games usually had a bare-bones story (Link has to reunite the Triforce and save Zelda) and the focus of the game was the gameplay. I guess I'm traditional in that sense, because I do enjoy good characters or a good story, but if the game is nothing but pushing a bunch of buttons to get to the next cutscene, it doesn't seem very "interactive" to me or much like a game. There's nothing more annoying than sitting there with a controller in your hand while you're just watching a movie on the screen. (Can you imagine my reaction to FFX, having only played the original Final Fantasy before that?)

Edited 2011-02-07 01:17 (UTC)

Go watch a movie or something.

"story and character-based games"

Because Nintendo never makes games with stories.

compared to a lot of other games i've played i've found a lot of the nintendo games seemed to be either lacking a lot in story or characters. :\

~~inb4 BUT SOME NINTENDO GAMES!!!!!!~~

Just my opinion, but most stories in video games suck. There's a strong tendency for them to be half-assed imitations of what sounds like a movie/novel pitch. Especially commercially released ones where even gameplay can suck because you got to make sure you're game is going to sell, and NO RISKS ALLOWED. There are good stories and bad stories in film and literature (subjective of course), but then there are stories that are good for a video game. It's like, "that's a nice drawing, for an amateur child."

Point me towards the games that have both a good story and play well as a game. I'd honestly love to fucking love to play them. Hard mode: no adventure games (eg: pointing and clicking through dialogue and your surroundings) or the first three Silent Hills.

So you think people who play games as GAMES are somehow not worth to be gamers?

If you want story, go read a fucking book. Some of us play games to switch off after a long day of work, and some of us don't have time to sink into an epic story game.

SSB and Mario are amazing because I can come home, sink thirty minutes into it, and feel relaxed, and not have to worry that if I go the next three weeks with no time to play video games I'll forget where I was in the story, and wind up horribly lost. I don't even like nintendo (largely because I don't really fit in their target demo) but there are a LOT of us (and I'd wager to say the overwhelming majority) to whom GAMEPLAY comes well before story or characters.

Just because you have dozens of free hours to sit in your mom's basement devoting yourself to playing through each of the six different endings of a game doesn't mean we all do.

Stop shitting on those of us who just like to fuck around and bounce on goombas because we're not artistic enough for you.

They're video games

are you seriously suggesting that people buy and play VIDEO GAMES they won't have fun playing just to ~*~improve the games industry~*~

ok seriously what is this "IT'S JUST VIDEO GAMES WHY SO SERIOUS" thing about. I know they have a bad reputation but they're still like, a thing people are allowed to care about. Nobody ever goes "IT'S JUST BOOKS" when someone talks about how great a classic novel is so wtf is this shit.

Apart from that, no, people don't have to buy games they don't like (although god knows we've all ended up doing that a few times...), but there's nothing wrong with trying to get people to think more critically and deeply about them beyond "I have fun playing Mario Galaxy!!". That way people will maybe become more educated about games, develop a more mature taste, the industry becomes more mature to cater to that, and so on. Well, probably not, but I can dream.

It's like how we get shown to appreciate classic novels in lit classes, so we can hopefully move on from just reading young adult fiction. Gaming is stuck in the 'young adult' target audience right now, so criticism is NEEDED, not something to be reviled and passed off as someone being too spergy about games.

yeah, sure, but the sarcastic "let's just let everyone play whatever trash they like" is so ridiculous. I agree that video games are an art form but the fact remains that having fun is kind of the point, and while making sure that people know things other than nintendo games exist is one thing, you can't make people like what you like or see vidya as some deep serious thing if they're simply not inclined to use video games for that purpose.

Yeah I can't make them but I can try and explain why I think they could be a deep serious thing! To use the same example again, "fun" is not always the point of reading, or the point of seeing a movie. Is a textbook fun, is Schindler's List fun? On some level we enjoy them or find them useful, but nobody seems to use that as the definition of 'fun in games'; it's always about having FUN FUN FUN every second of playing in case the player loses interest. By saying "having fun is kind of the point" of games, that is shutting them out from being anything more serious than light entertainment. I think it's fine to force the player to do something un-fun to illustrate a point. I had pretty much no fun playing Dungeoneer; I was bored by the gameplay, repelled by the graphics and slightly concerned by everything else, but that had an effect on me and was a worthwhile experience.

also i just really hate fun, everyone be miserable forever

Weelll, like others have said, gameplay is kind of what separates video games from reading or seeing a movie, because movies and books and music and etc. kind of already do every other thing that video games do, so while I guess that doesn't mean that having fun is the point, it means that gameplay is the point, and most people who play video games for the gameplay are going to want it to be fun. Can't exactly fault them for that.

Yeah, but you're not going to WANT to read a book about Peach Farming if you're not interested in it, even if it's revolutionary.

I don't care how innovative a game is, if I don't enjoy it, I'm not going to play it.

the writing is hacky and the game sucks and i don't know why anyone thinks it's so great but whatever you say

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