Graphics vs. Storyline vs. Gameplay vs. Audio

[darthdoru]

Wich is the the most important part of a game in your opinion? the graphics,storyline,gameplay or audio?
For me the most important is the gameplay,then the storyline,graphics and finaly audio(I love it if a game has a good soundtrack don't take me wrong )

 

[cole92]

I agree with your picks. Good gameplay will make a game fun to play while a good story will make it memorable. Graphics and sound can kickass to if you have the sweetass hardware required to run it.

 

[llama_man]

I also agree with the order.

Gameplay comes first- it's why you're playing a game anyway. If you just want to look at something pretty, go to an art gallery.

Storyline comes second, because a good story can keep you interested in a game. Unfortunately, if a game is too dependant on a story, it can damage replay value.

Graphics come third - good graphics can help with immersion (and thus improve your gameplay experience), but it isn't always a requirement. Example: X3 has beautiful grpahics, which definately helps with the sense of immersion. On the other hand, AoE2 now looks dated but it still more fun than AoE3, so graphics aren't all that important.

Sounds comes last. Again, good audio can help with immersion (positional sound, etc), but it is very rarely done well. Thief springs to mind as one that did it well.

 

[firetatoo]

i think that sound and story go hand in hand. good sound puts you there. painkiller: battle out of hell, quakeII, half life, the call of duty and battlefield series.
gameplay is the most important. cool graphics arent worth it if you cannot keep from getting stuck on objects.

 

[Ananan]

I love a good story.

They've been so hard to find lately that I've started to read books again.

I miss the days of Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Deus Ex etc.

 

[stemnin]

Graphics come last for me, probably because I play on low/medium most games (excpet Bioshock, on high, and HL2), i'll haft to revisit the thread when I get my new pc in the next week or so, and play Oblivion on high (and hopefully Crysis demo) *starts drool*.

 

[Archytas]

Look at the legedary half life 1 and 2 and all the expansions to HL. Legendary story! I think llama_man got it right when he said the story can sometimes kill the replay value - I don't know how much I'd play HL2 again... HL I've played a few times though...

I think sound is very underrated... I ignored it until recently - Just bought myslef a nice set of 5.1 for the Gaming Rig... Wow. Battlefield is amazing with it... as is pretty much every game actually...

I miss deus ex too. Me and a mate we're actually just talking about the second one today and the slightly ridiculous storyline.... Right I'm off to Hong Kong to see Tong... Why? And why not give me my mods straight away? Why am I so expensive and yet cannot shoot anything straight at the start.... Still sucked me in for days though!!

 

[darthdoru]

Thanks for entering the thread guys

BTW I'm getting a new PC too Stemnin ( C2D E6750,Gigabyte P35-DS3,2GB Corsair 800mhz,HD 2900XT)

You're right llama_man AoE II is a lot more fun than III

 

[llama_man]

Wow, I'm getting a lot of people agreeing with me in this thread!

Now, if you'll excuse me, mentioning X3 has given me a craving to go back to my empire...

 

[cafuddled]

For me the main thing is Story, a game for me is not at all playable or at least not for any long period of time if it has not got a good story. Then after that is the Audio, it just has to have great audio to absorb you in the atmosphere of the gaming world. Then the next important thing for me is gameplay, I agree that gameplay needs to be good but game play does not need to be perfect to make a good game, the story dose however and to a similar level so does the AI, the gameplay is somewhat of a swing. And last but not least you have the graphics, the graphics don't need to be perfect, hell they don't even need to be that good and you can still be left with an extraordinary game.

So anyway there you have it from me, the reason I did not list gameplay at the top as I have already stated is because in my opinion a truly great game is nothing with out a prefect storyline, however if it does not have perfect gameplay all is not lost that is why I don't rate it as the most important thing.

 

[andybird123]

Graphics advancements tend to occur naturally over time, once a game comes out that advances to a new level of graphics, it's hard to go back more than one step in the name of gameplay without thinking "nice game to play, but the graphics suck"... see ArmA, I bought this game because I really enjoyed Flashpoint, but just couldn't play a game with 4 years old graphics

so personally, gameplay comes first with graphics very close behind, I'm not hugely fussed on a "great" story as long as the game is fun to play (I hate unskippable cutscenes, if I want to watch a movie I'll go watch a movie, I'm here to shoot stuff dammit), if the story unfolds as part of the gameplay then all the better (MaxPayne had fantastic gameplay as well as a good story but equally I'll happily play a game with virtually no story to it)

I can't say I pay a huge amount of attention to sound, it's been very good for quite a long time now, I don't really see how they can improve it much beyond it's current state.