Recently I received some criticism for a comment I made that gameplay doesn't make a game. And here's my blog detailing what I meant.
In today's game and age, I see people constantly go "Gameplay is everything" or "but the gameplay is good!" I just find it a load of bull. Don't get me wrong, gameplay is an important part of a game, but it's not exactly the "make or break" factor everyone is thinking of.
Let's take a recent game to start: Spec Ops: The Line. As a game, it's thoroughly mediocre. Gameplay is generic, levels are predictable, AI is average. If someone handed me Spec Ops but cut down everything else from it, it'd have been passable and boring. I doubt I'd have played it to the end. But the game is hardly like that. There's a lot of nuisances about the game that make it one of the sleeper hits of this generation.
The narrative, music, voice acting, and even subtle parts of the game make it exceptional. It gives us a very strong, mature story with gripping characters. It presents us choice through our thought process, not through a list. It explores complex and emotional themes better than most stories. But it's still a bad third person shooter.
Even a game like Skyrim falls victim to this. Admittedly, the gameplay is actually rather dull. Combat is boring, quests are very generic and samey, and there's a lot of flaws with the game. Give me any other game with the same mechanics and I'd be throwing it to the wayside. But the game won a lot of people over for its non-gameplay aspects. The art and mood of the world, being able to be your own character, things like that make the game memorable. Simplified, it's a boring first person generic fantasy RPG with boring enemies and samey dungeons. But as a whole, it's a sweeping landscape with memorable moments and tales to be told.
My point here is that gameplay doesn't make a game, not any more. In a day and age where graphics can be so advanced, where gaming is large enough to incorporate gripping stories and memorable casts, where we have the time and budget to assemble grand orchestras for a rip-roaring score, gameplay is hardly a be-all end-all.
In today's game and age, I see people constantly go "Gameplay is everything" or "but the gameplay is good!" I just find it a load of bull. Don't get me wrong, gameplay is an important part of a game, but it's not exactly the "make or break" factor everyone is thinking of.
Let's take a recent game to start: Spec Ops: The Line. As a game, it's thoroughly mediocre. Gameplay is generic, levels are predictable, AI is average. If someone handed me Spec Ops but cut down everything else from it, it'd have been passable and boring. I doubt I'd have played it to the end. But the game is hardly like that. There's a lot of nuisances about the game that make it one of the sleeper hits of this generation.
The narrative, music, voice acting, and even subtle parts of the game make it exceptional. It gives us a very strong, mature story with gripping characters. It presents us choice through our thought process, not through a list. It explores complex and emotional themes better than most stories. But it's still a bad third person shooter.
Even a game like Skyrim falls victim to this. Admittedly, the gameplay is actually rather dull. Combat is boring, quests are very generic and samey, and there's a lot of flaws with the game. Give me any other game with the same mechanics and I'd be throwing it to the wayside. But the game won a lot of people over for its non-gameplay aspects. The art and mood of the world, being able to be your own character, things like that make the game memorable. Simplified, it's a boring first person generic fantasy RPG with boring enemies and samey dungeons. But as a whole, it's a sweeping landscape with memorable moments and tales to be told.
My point here is that gameplay doesn't make a game, not any more. In a day and age where graphics can be so advanced, where gaming is large enough to incorporate gripping stories and memorable casts, where we have the time and budget to assemble grand orchestras for a rip-roaring score, gameplay is hardly a be-all end-all.
