What do you look for in a game?

[Eric the Orange]

My personal rateing for games is devided into 4 parts: gameplay, re-play value, atmosphere, and uniqueness.

50% gameplay: really the gameplay is what makes a game, a game. even if everything else is terrible if the core gameplay is good then its still a good game. An exaple of good gameplay is God of War (in this case the core gameplay is the combat).

25% re-play value: a game can be the best game in the world, but if after 2 hours theres not really much you can do with it, its not really a good lasting value (i'm looking at you portal). an exaple of good re-play value is tetris, the game is still entertaining after 20 or so years.

15% atmosphere: atmosphere is what makes you really feal like your in the game. Atmosphere can be created through music, graphics, or story.

10% uniqueness: uniqueness is anything that makes a game stand out from other games as different. a good example of uniqueness is Little Big Planet.

Please share how much each of these catagorys (or catagorys I missed) effects your enjoyment of a game.

 

[plastic_window]

I don't know it as a percentage, but this is my list in order of importance - most important first:

Gameplay
Story/Characters
Graphics/Art style/Atmosphere
Sound/Music
The things that make it special (Like the crash-cam in Burnout Paradise)

 

[Gxas]

If it intrigues me or looks like a lot of fun, I'll buy it. I just bought Viva Pinata, Mass Effect, and Ace Combat 6 a week ago. They all just looked like a blast so I bought them. Anyone who buys a game with a basis on graphics seriously must rethink their mindset.

 

[plastic_window]

If it intrigues me or looks like a lot of fun, I'll buy it. I just bought Viva Pinata, Mass Effect, and Ace Combat 6 a week ago. They all just looked like a blast so I bought them. Anyone who buys a game with a basis on graphics seriously must rethink their mindset.

Viva Pinata is one of my favourite games of this year - did you get the original or the sequel? Either's good, but the sequel just has more for your money.

 

[blood77]

My personal rateing for games is devided into 4 parts: gameplay, re-play value, atmosphere, and uniqueness.

50% gameplay: really the gameplay is what makes a game, a game. even if everything else is terrible if the core gameplay is good then its still a good game. An exaple of good gameplay is God of War (in this case the core gameplay is the combat).

25% re-play value: a game can be the best game in the world, but if after 2 hours theres not really much you can do with it, its not really a good lasting value (i'm looking at you portal). an exaple of good re-play value is tetris, the game is still entertaining after 20 or so years.

15% atmosphere: atmosphere is what makes you really feal like your in the game. Atmosphere can be created through music, graphics, or story.

10% uniqueness: uniqueness is anything that makes a game stand out from other games as different. a good example of uniqueness is Little Big Planet.

Please share how much each of these catagorys (or catagorys I missed) effects your enjoyment of a game.

Wow, that is pretty much the exact process I go through when I am looking into a game.

 

[Gxas]

Viva Pinata is one of my favourite games of this year - did you get the original or the sequel? Either's good, but the sequel just has more for your money.

I got the first in a Wal-Mart bargain bin for $10. One of my better purchases ($50 for Guantlet: Seven Sorrows... money wasted...).

 

[Repulsionary]

I just play games to have fun. That's all that really matters. A game is designed for the player to have fun. Graphics are nice, but they aren't necessary to good gameplay. The story's good, but that also isn't necessary to gameplay. Deep characters are awesome, but also not necessary. There's really only one question that matters in my opinion: did you have fun?

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

If I'm going to percentage out what I look for in games I guess it's the following...

40% Story, I REALLY care about story, I suppose its the writer in me but if a game has a good story it's almost a garauntee that I'll at least rent it.

20% Fun Factor, the next important thing is "raw fun factor", which is why Saints Row 2 is one of my favorite games this year, it's just damn fun.

20% Immersion, an immersive game can really attract me, I loved Assassin's Creed for this very reason, despite the repetitious nature.

10% Turn Based Combat, I love a good turn based combat system and it'll attract me to a game like a bee to honey if it has one, but this is by no means a "must have" it's just a bonus.

5% Pretty Graphics, I admit, pretty graphics will pull me in.

5% Brand Recognition, if it's a sequel to a beloved title, I'll look into it.

 

[Grimm91]

Gameplay.
Story.
Replay Value.
Simple.

 

[plastic_window]

I got the first in a Wal-Mart bargain bin for $10. One of my better purchases ($50 for Guantlet: Seven Sorrows... money wasted...).

$10?! Jesus Christ, South Park was right about Wal Mart... The other day I got 4 games for £50 so it works out to £12 for each - Viva Pinata's a great game though, genuinely, so satisfying when you catch some of the big ones.

 

[Syndef]

Honestly, I don't care about what the game boasts as long as it's fun.
If a game does not come off as fun enough, I'll still play it if it has a compelling plot (Silent Hill), is funny (Sam and Max), or brings me into the game's world effectively (Morrowind).
Whatever the game does, it had better give me a lot of control, which is a reason why I like games such as SimCity and The Sims (more like a really cool toys than games, actually). This is why I can't bring myself to like cinematic-rich games like Final Fantasy or Metal Gear Solid no matter how well-done the cinematics are.

 

[Eric the Orange]

To those of you who say fun, let me rephrase the question. What makes a game fun?

 

[Repulsionary]

Haha, rephrase.
A game is fun when it's compelling. When the controls don't make you want to fling the console into a freeway. When there's always something interesting that pops up even after wasting hours and hours on it. Or when it's just plain hilarious. Or a combination of all of the above.
I don't waste my time trying to fragment the game into its component parts. I take the whole thing and try to have fun with it. If I can't, it isn't a good game.

 

[Goldeneye103X2]

Well.... Here are the games that succeded in my departments.
Story: Valkyria chronicles, skies of arcadia
Soundtrack: Castle crashers, alone in the dark
Gameplay: Far cry 2, Just cause, Crackdown, Call of duty 4

 

[SimuLord]

Gameplay and longevity go hand-in-hand with me. I buy very few games each year, so I want to be able to put four or five hundred hours into each one. Games I'm still playing years after the fact are the ones likely to top any list of the best of all-time for me.

Graphics matter on only a minimal level. My #1 criterion for graphics is consistent framerate. If a developer dials down the level of detail to the point where it's not as pretty but it never drops a frame on my mid-range PC even with the settings maxed, that's more important to me than a game that looks gorgeous but runs like a slideshow.

In the case of simulation games, how realistic is the simulation? There's a reason Microsoft more or less singlehandedly keeps the flight sim genre alive, and that's because short of getting in an actual airplane you can't beat the realism (if you turn all the realism settings to max). Racing games need great physics and damage modeling, tycoon-style games need a believable economic model, and any game simulating people had better get their models of need fulfillment right (which is why so many developers shamelessly copy from The Sims when they need to simulate individual people).

 

[Eric the Orange]

Though i've been thinking, atmosphere and uniqueness are bouth reletive to when the game came out, and what it came out on. Obvously the graphics and sound quality on the nintendo arent as good as current generation systems. and games like Doom were very unique at the time before the FPS genre became common. So i guess what im saying is that when i rate a game i take into accout the fact that things were different back then.

 

[overfiend_87]

I'd say with me I'm usually quite easy to please.

Storyline
re-play Value
Fun
Well written adventures
Easy to get into

That's about it really I think.

 

[Socius]

fun, simply pure hard rocking ballkicking fun.