Everyone Has Standards

[Virgil]

Being as I'm out sick, while sitting around with nothing to do other than rest, play games, and feel miserable I noticed a strange contrast. I generally don't like games that are incremental improvements on an otherwise completely enjoyable game - Age of Empires III sits installed yet barely played on my PC, but I loved AoE II. I haven't enjoyed the most recent two Burnout titles nearly as much as the previous. SSX: Whatever and Tony Hawk: Another Sk8er Game earn only derision at this point. Madden? Ha. And if I never see another WW2, Vietnam, or "anti-terr'ist" shooter again I would be ecstatic.

But I have absolutely no problem playing every iteration released for an RPG franchise. Yes, I'm looking at you, Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. Not to mention Suikoden, Breath of Fire, and anything out of Nippon Ichi [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippon_Ichi]. I think it comes down to me thinking of RPGs like novels or movies - they're much more about experiencing a story and a world, and 'meeting' new characters, than gameplay mechanics. Knights of the Round didn't bug me nearly as much as the lackluster ending.

Perhaps it's not fair, but I lower my standards on gameplay if the story - the experience - is enjoyable. Anyone else?

 

[Virgil]

Original Comment by: Kross

II definately agree. I think this is best exemplified by how I feel about owning games in a series. For a game like Tony Hawk or SSX, I feel I only need to really have the latest iteration, since that one game would include most if not all of the good gameplay features of the previous games and then some. By the time the next version of one of these games is released, the previous incarnation has been long gone, traded in for a few bucks in store credit. However, with game like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, I feel compelled to hold on to ever game in the series because they are each a seperate game, a seperate story, and a seperate adventure worthy of note in their own right, not just as small pieces of a game series' evolutionary progress. It's exactly like a novel series: I don't think too many people sell off their old Harry Potter books every time the newest one hits shelves.

 

[Virgil]

Original Comment by: Munir

You're right. I usually like to play games purely to enjoy a story or become immersed in a new world, where game mechanics merely serve the purpose of advancing the story or conveying this world in an interesting way. I feel game development is full of incredibly talented world builders, but the number of people who can tell rich, involving and complete stories are disappointingly few at this time. I guess that's why we tend to hold on to our few seconds of 'gaming moments' where we can! I would love it if your typical FPS, with its richly designed world, got rid of its weapons, and focused more on storyline and other potentially useful handheld items like...toasters or something (!) I mean surely the idea of having interaction with the virtual world around you limited to shooting things is getting a bit dated now, since Doom first got 'popular'.

The only times I'm interested in games that are mostly based around their game mechanics, is when it can really offer me a genuinely novel experience. So yea just like you I bought the first couple of iterations of Burnout but I ended up playing Takedown and Revenge at a friends place. I got Devil May Cry 1, and I might get DMC3 as I've heard it really is great, but I've held off until now. And I definitely enjoyed GT4 less than GT3, even though 4 was a better game. However, I'm really looking forward to GTR2, because even though improvements in physics and sound (graphics are extraneous) will be incremental from GTR and GT Legends, it really does promise to improve on the experience of racing substantially.

 

[Virgil]

Original Comment by: Mark

Gaming is about novelty. It's about experiencing new situations and new challenges. For a game series that's gameplay-centric, you really only need the final version, unless the improvements in new versions are more than mere refinements. For a game series that's more story-centric, you will be much more tolerant if the gameplay is exactly the same or evevn worse - because you're playing it for the story, and the story will have a tendency to be new.

Iterative gameplay development, where each game in a series is just a refinement of the last, can be a problem when you make a single entry that's too good. I haven't needed to play Civilization III or IV because I already have Alpha Centauri, which plays better than either of its successors. Story-centric games have their own share of problems, such as how it's difficult to write a novel storyline that really fits well with gameplay, and how you do have to have gameplay in it. Don't get me wrong, I loved Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and consider it a worthy purchase, but I don't think for even a minute that it was a game so much as an interactive storytelling device. (If interactive storytelling devices like that become more prevalent, I think that would be pretty cool.)

And then there's the games that fall in between - where nobody really plays it for the story, but where the game's mechanics are essentially unchanged. Sonic the Hedgehog's 2D implementations come to mind. The features added in each game, nifty though they may be, are about as significant as the new roster in each successive Madden title. Why do we continue to play them? I say - because they're not the same. Different levels create a novel experience in a way that very few games have capitalized on in the past decade. Platformers, puzzle games, and adventure games prove this point. The core gameplay could remain completely unchanged from title to title, and there needn't even be a story at all, yet they'll still manage to be fresh and interesting because there will still be novelty. You'll be facing new obstacles each time, new puzzles, new challenges. I haven't yet seen a first-person shooter whose gameplay was really greatly changed by the addition of new maps, but that's one genre that's attempting to progress in the same way as level-centric games. It's not working very well.

 

[Virgil]

Original Comment by: Evan Robinson
http://www.thegamemanager.com
That's because the story is part of the gameplay experience.

People have argued story vs. gameplay (that would be narrative vs. ludology, I guess) for decades now. Not gonna be settled anytime soon, if ever.

When you sit down at a computer/console to play a game, the experience includes load time, art style, controls, game text, game sound, animation, and so forth. It even includes things the developers have no control over like screen brightness, ambient noise, and play style (long chunks or short bursts, alone or in a group, with or without extensive saves, etc.).

For you, obviously, interesting story is up there with interesting new gameplay. What's wrong with that? Some people will not read a fictional book twice -- others revisit old favorites annually.

de gustibus non disputandum

Variation for the sake of variation has a place but it also has negatives. If car UIs were as distinct as some game UIs it would be very difficult to get a rental vehicle. Some people (generalizations about age also apply) prefer new things simply because they are new, while others prefer small variations if any.

Without political connotation, I say "let a thousand flowers bloom." Diversity is good.

 

[Virgil]

Original Comment by: Ferrous Buller
http://ferrousbuller.1up.com
It's an understandable reaction. A lot of franchises - e.g., AoE, SSX, Burnout, most sports games - are focused on iterative refinements on existing gameplay formulas, not radical reinventions. AoE III, near as I can tell, simply amped up the graphics and made some tweaks; there were no major refinements to the interface, AI, or general gameplay mechanics.

And apparently, that's all a lot of people want: tweaked versions of existing formulas. It's safe, it's familiar, and apparently it's still enjoyable for these folks. But for some of us, at least, the novelty wears off after a while. There are only so many slopes we can snowboard down, pulling mad tricks - or so many spectacular car wrecks we can set off - before we crave something different. When a game is so single-mindedly focused on its own mechanics, it eventually wears thin (for some of us, at any rate).

With games such as adventures or RPGs, the emphasis is usually less on the mechanics and more on...well, I hesitate to say "story" with a straight face, given how cliche-ridden your average RPG plot is, but certainly on a sense of narrative progression, at least: exploring a new world, meeting new faces, and beating the crap out of new enemies. RPG fans don't seem to mind the inherent repetitiveness of RPGs as long as you keep that carrot dangling in front of their faces.

[Indeed, I'd say RPG fans are among the most masochistic of gamers, often enduring hours of repetitive tedium to hit the next major plot point or cutscene. But that's a discussion for another time...]

 

[Virgil]

Original Comment by: Slartibartfast

I used to be really into RPG's, final fantasy games especially. As I've gotten older though, I have become very tired of them. I'm a big fan of gameplay mechanics and really like things that are different, so the endless menus and watching of FF games and their ilk really don't interest me at this point. When I was really into these games, I too cared a lot about the story, and that was the driving reason I played them. However, now that I am done with college and have my BA in English, I find those stories trite and boring. I mean, FFIX was almost a great game. It had a lot to say about identity, but it just never quite said it. Every single character in that game has questions about who they are, where they come from, why they do what they do. This is a good starting point, but the game never really wraps things up, never actually says anything in the way that literature does. I have played through the game a few times, and everytime am left feeling empty because the game never takes that last leap. It's as if the game poses these questions about self and identity, but never really comes up with an answer, things just sort of trail off. There are no epiphanies, no great moments of revelation. I've played most of the FF games (1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) and found this is pretty much the same for all of them. I just recently acquired a PS2 so I may pick up FFX if I can find it cheap ($20 or less) because I am curious, but we'll see if I finish it. I tried to play Chrono Cross for the first time a few months ago (I really loved Chrono Trigger) but I couldn't get into it, I just found it too boring, even though I thought that the combat system was significantly more interesting than most square games.