Gaming Qualities Beyond Gameplay

[Soviet Heavy]

I was reading Jim Sterling's review of Bastion. In it, he said that if you take away the narration, art style, and soundtrack, what you are left with is a fairly mediocre dungeon crawler without much inspiration in regards to gameplay.

This got me wondering about how much production values, gimmicks, and polish can affect a game's overall quality. What really sells Bastion is the idea of a narrative that is revealed as you progress, in the nifty form of a storyteller describing the events that happen on screen as a result of the player's input.

The visuals themselves are quite unique, taking ques from japanese art styles, yet remaining distinctly independent of any actual genre or medium. Colorful aesthetic pallets are more appealing than gunmetal grey areas, which seems to be why games that have a unique art style are more widely praised for visual design than the regular gritty designs seen so often.

I think what makes Bastion sit so well with people is because while the gameplay itself is rather basic, the secondary elements really contribute to the game, making it a unique experience. I believe it goes to show that when the proper care is offered to elements beyond gameplay, they too can help sell the game.

 

[DustyDrB]

I respect Jim, but "take away x and you have a mediocre game" (where x equals the parts of the game people generally like most) is one of the weakest if not the weakest argument against a game you can. Why would you ignore a game's strengths when trying to give an overall assessment of it?

A great game can have bland or even poor gameplay. The medium has become a storytelling (with its own strengths to delivering a narrative) one as much a challenge-based one. Sometimes you want to get lost in a world. Sometimes you just want to be told a great story, or better yet - you want to feel that you're part of a great story.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I respect Jim, but "take away x and you have a mediocre game" (where x equals the parts of the game people generally like most) is one of the weakest if not the weakest argument against a game you can. Why would you ignore a game's strengths when trying to give an overall assessment of it?

A great game can have bland or even poor gameplay. The medium has become a storytelling (with its own strengths to delivering a narrative) one as much a challenge-based one. Sometimes you want to get lost in a world. Sometimes you just want to be told a great story, or better yet - you want to feel that you're part of a great story.

I agree, it's a flimsy argument. Take away the story, the visuals, and the sound, and all a shooter is is a gun hitting someone in a corridor.

His review of the game just made me think about how important the secondary elements of a game can be, especially when the core gameplay is decidedly average.

 

[skywolfblue]

I didn't find Bastion's gameplay to be all that average. There were a decent variety of weapons and each had a pretty unique way of playing (as the "trial" locations show). IMO it was pretty good.

 

[Seishisha]

This is a highly sujective topic, almost any factor beyond the gameplay can have a positive or negative effect on the player and because different people like alot of different things it can get complex quickly, heres a quick list of things you find in most games that will undoubtly effect someones judgment of the product.

Genre: FPS, RPG, Platformer etc.
Sound score: sound effects, music.
Art style: cell shaded, ultra realism etc.
Graphical fidelity: polygon count for models, particle effects etc.
Story/plot.
Characters: protaganist, antaganist, support.
Difficulty.
Customisation: Both of character and options.

The list goes on but i think thats probably enough examples, feel free to add more if you want.

As stated with bastion the narrative is a huge part of the whole package and an important part at that, to say that without it the game wouldnt be as good is indeed true and as much as i personaly dislike jim sterling's videos and review work i can conceed that he atleast has a point, from a strickly gameplay perspective bastion doesnt do much different from simular titles. (to flat out say that a game without x isnt innovative, that is just bad or lazy reviewing on his part though)

On the other hand bastion is a perfect example of how innovation doesnt need to come in the form of gameplay mechanics and how somthing can be reinvented with what seems like the most simplistic of change, realy anyone developing a game should look at bastion not to blantly copy it (enough of that in the industry already) but to use it as an example of how a few changes can potentionaly make a mediocore experiance an amazing one.

Thats enough ranting i think.