Gaming Signal: Why Graphics Matter, But What About Story?

Why Graphics Matter, But What About Story?

Advanced Media Network has a short article on why graphics matter in games. His main point being that graphics are what bring attention to a game and cause people to buy it. The gameplay, while important, isn't what drives people to purchase a game.

I suppose I agree to some degree. If you don't know much about a game, or aren't into the gaming scene, then I can see how a game looks would influence a purchase decision. I'm assuming that many kids fall in to this category, and most parents. Let's face, most parents aren't, like us, gamers and don't know much about games. Impressive visuals might sway them, as might hawt chicks. But parental ratings? Who looks at those?

The other side of the coin, then, is gameplay. This is what keeps you coming back for more, and why games like Civilization, or Warcraft are still played today by many people. But gameplay doesn't appear on a box cover. You have to actually play a game to see if it will appeal to you in this aspect, or at least listen to people you know have similar tastes to you.

But I also think there is a third side to the coin. One that is linked with gameplay, and that is story. For me, if a game has somewhat shallow gameplay or doesn't bring anything new to the table, then a good storyline will keep me playing. I'll use Tim's favorite game, Halo, as an example. When it came it, it did have some innovations not seen on console FPSes before, most notably in gameplay: a control scheme that works and an assisted aiming control. And, yes, the graphics were rather good for the time too. Playing Halo many years after its initial release, I found the levels to be extremely repetitive and linear, and the actual gameplay to be somewhat shallow, mostly of the run and gun style. But what interested me was the story of the Halo and of Master Chief. There's a big space opera story buried there, and finding out the story from in game was the chief reason for me to keep playing.

Which us to Bioshock. I've only played about two hours or so, but I am hooked, hooked, hooked. The visuals grab you from the first menu screen, and in-game they are just stunning. The gameplay adds some nice touches to an FPS with the Adam/Eve angle and I really like the hacking mini-game. But the story also appears to be stellar as well. A bit of Atlas Shrugged mixed with human pride and hubris adds some emotional depth to the story of Rapture.

Other games that combine all three successfully: Knights Of The Old Republic and Baldur's Gate I/II. There are others, but these are stellar examples. For me, then, story is king, then gameplay and graphics. I can overlook a lot if the story is interesting.

I agree completely JP - the story was the only reason I played Halo through to its completion despite the very repetitive level design. I also played it on the PC (not Xbox) and found it to be a mediocre FPS on the PC in terms of gameplay and graphics - but the story is good. Since they have only just now release Halo2 for the PC - and restricted it to Vista - I haven't played that and frankly, don't plan to. It's a little unfortunate though, because I'd like to know what is going on with the story and the alternative reality game around it made that even more appealing. Luckily I can just read about it online.

Posted by scottsh on Thursday August 23, 2007 at 6:34 PM

Hey cool JP! I caught the Ayn Rand similarities as well.

On point: story>STORY>graphics>STORY>audio is pretty much my train of thought when buying a game.

Scott: I think there were some hacks for Halo2 on the PC to make it work on XP. Google awaits your clickety-clicks to find out more: http://www.google.com/search?q=halo+2+xp+hack&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Posted by tditto on Friday August 24, 2007 at 12:59 PM