Story or Gameplay

This debate here is IMO what makes gaming great and shows its evolution and how it got mixed (in a good way or in a bad way) with other forms of media.

Saying that someone plays videogames for their story could sound extremely stupid for someone who isn't a gamer or a at least a frequent one. "One should play games to have fun, or for a challenge" sounds pretty good, and accurate when you think of the firsts videogames, and their original purpose.

With games like Metal Gear, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest sometimes the gameplay can go a bit behind of the story for some people in the importance scale. Of course that if a game has awful gameplay then it is definitely not worth playing or wasting your time on it cause as a game it is suppose to be fun, challenging and entertaining, having all of that IMO makes the perfect game, for some they just need good gameplay, which also makes sense.

Just to give you an example of how the story became so much important in videogames, what would you RE fans do if you have this conversation with your friend? (Taken from my own experience)

ME: Are you playing RE5?
FRIEND: Yeah, I beat it last night
ME: Don't tell me the ending, I want to know what happens by myself
FRIEND: I don't know what happens, I skipped all the cutscenes.
ME: You........How....dare...you????

Things like that are what makes us gamers scream "YOU FUCKING CASUALS!!" all the time, in our concept of gaming it is completely absurd that someone would play an RE game for the first time and skip the cutscenes.
But how absurd is it really? The guy just want to play a fun game, he's having fun and all, so is it really a thing to get so pissed about?

As for myself, I think that personally I've gotten to the point that if a game's story doesn't interest me then the game doesn't interest me at all. That's just my opinion, and may sound stupid if applied to videogames, but it is a reality.


Bad side of this "play for the story" is something like this:

I like RE story,
a new game (RE 6) is coming out,
I see Leon and Chris there,
I want to know what happens,
I download it a week before release and play the whole thing in 2 days,
the story is shitty and the game is bad

BUT, I still played it, a lot of people found the game stupid in the first few hours and just quit playing it, I got to the end waiting for some major thing in the story just to know what happens, that's how much I play games for the story .

So what do you think, are you a gameplay gamer or a story gamer? or a bit of both?

Both, which one is more important depends on my mood. I liked some games specifically for their story, but I still sometimes enjoy playing games that don't even have much of a story, if at all. If I had to pick one, I'd pick game-play. If they game-play is good but the story sucks, then it can still be a pretty enjoyable game. If the story is good but game-play is terrible, then it'll turn into a chore trying to play through just to see the next story bit and at that point I might as well just go watch the cut-scenes on YouTube.

However, many modern AAA games are very similar to each other game-play wise, often times I'll start playing a new game and get the feeling that I've played it before even though I clearly didn't. There are some very common trends in them that I don't enjoy. Because of that, I'll usually play those more for the story, since the game-play is most likely going to be decent, but nothing special and not worth buying a game for.

I love both really. They're both the most important thing in gaming to me. I do feel that I usually have more fun with a game where the gameplay is great but the story sucks, than a game where the story is great, but the gameplay sucks. Story and characters are what makes me have more of an emotional attachment with a game (and music helps greatly too), but gameplay is what keeps me going in a game, what hooks me.

I love games like Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, Dark Souls, Ninja Gaiden, Final Fantasy, Zelda, etc.

I play Zelda and NG mostly for the gameplay, and BTS and HR mostly for the story. And Final Fantasy is a great example of a series that usually does both very well. Spec Ops: The Line is another game where the story is great but the gameplay quite mediocre and bland, but I did like the game.

As for RE, I mainly play for the gameplay and atmosphere, but I do enjoy the story. It just isn't what makes the series great for me personally. It wouldn't be my #3 favorite franchise if I just look at the story, because I think there are quite a few series/games with a MUCH better story.

PAULSAMSON wrote:

The guy just want to play a fun game, he's having fun and all, so is it really a thing to get so pissed about?

Nope, if he enjoys it that way, good for him.

Gameplay should make the story less frustrating. If you glue the pages of a book together, it could be the best story ever, nobody is going to take the time to pull it apart ever so carefully to read the next page of a book.
A shitty story makes good gameplay pointless, how many people do you know that has played the campaign of a Call of Duty game?

I guess you could say that gameplay is a fast car and the story is a good driver. Even the best driver can't win a race with a slow car, and a shitty driver in a fast car is a recipe for a fiery crash.

However, keep in mind that most video games are driven by the need to have better and better graphics. Even though the gameplay is shitty and the story is even worse companies will still blow millions to make everything look pretty(Resident Evil 6).
Meanwhile, the most successful franchises tend to say "fuck graphics, lets make a good game." For example: Grand Theft Auto 5 looks like shit, but it sold so well it broke 7 world records, 6 of which were sales: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2013/10/confirmed-grand-theft-auto-breaks-six-sales-world-records-51900/

So, I guess you could say a fast car and a good driver in a car that's primer grey is winning all the races and nobody is impressed with the slow car and crappy driver with a shiny new coat of paint.

VitalSigns wrote:

how many people do you know that has played the campaign of a Call of Duty game?

Many actually, and I love the campaigns in CoD (at least CoD2, 4 and world at war). Stories are quite good for a military FPS.

VitalSigns wrote:

For example: Grand Theft Auto 5 looks like shit

It does? Looks fine to me.

ThomVD wrote:

VitalSigns wrote:

how many people do you know that has played the campaign of a Call of Duty game?

Many actually, and I love the campaigns in CoD (at least CoD2, 4 and world at war). Stories are quite good for a military FPS.

There you have it folks, according to ThomVD the story can go suck a dick, because anything more complex than "shoot the bad guy" makes his brain hurt.
Gameplay is also a pointless waste of time as long as everything looks good. People don't play CoD because of the multiplayer, it's all about being led from place to place by the nose, shooting anything that isn't from a first-world country, because 'murica.

VitalSigns wrote:

ThomVD wrote:

VitalSigns wrote:

how many people do you know that has played the campaign of a Call of Duty game?

Many actually, and I love the campaigns in CoD (at least CoD2, 4 and world at war). Stories are quite good for a military FPS.

There you have it folks, according to ThomVD the story can go suck a dick, because anything more complex than "shoot the bad guy" makes his brain hurt.
Gameplay is also a pointless waste of time as long as everything looks good. People don't play CoD because of the multiplayer, it's all about being led from place to place by the nose, shooting anything that isn't from a first-world country, because 'murica.

Isn't that the premise of Resident Evil 4-6? Just because you're being dragged around a spectacle map doesn't mean there's no story involved. Also, Thom didn't say story can suck a dick, you did. Stop putting words in other people's mouths.

I played several Call of Duty campaigns, it was the big thing at the time and I genuinely enjoyed it for what it was. You can't deny that Modern Warfare 2 had an interesting plot that got you hyped to start the next mission. It was engaging, and the gameplay was good enough that I wouldn't rage quit.

Also, I loved how GTAV looked. It had an excellent style, that made me feel like I was watching a TV drama that I had control over.

Let's not forget that GTA V is getting a remastered edition for ps4 and xbone and most importantly is you just like graphics, the PC

in the CoD matter I think that there is a breking difference between MW2 and the ones that came after it, that's when basically everyone started complaining about it being the same thing every year, if Activision saw that the multiplayer was the only thing that was required the just thought that making a good story for the campaign wasn't needed, you can't really blame them right?

VitalSigns wrote:

ThomVD wrote:

VitalSigns wrote:

how many people do you know that has played the campaign of a Call of Duty game?

Many actually, and I love the campaigns in CoD (at least CoD2, 4 and world at war). Stories are quite good for a military FPS.

There you have it folks, according to ThomVD the story can go suck a dick, because anything more complex than "shoot the bad guy" makes his brain hurt.
Gameplay is also a pointless waste of time as long as everything looks good. People don't play CoD because of the multiplayer, it's all about being led from place to place by the nose, shooting anything that isn't from a first-world country, because 'murica.

Sorry that I rustled your jimmies. I know it's a crime to enjoy CoD, so my apologies.

PAULSAMSON wrote:

I think that there is a breking difference between MW2 and the ones that came after it, that's when basically everyone started complaining about it being the same thing every year, if Activision saw that the multiplayer was the only thing that was required the just thought that making a good story for the campaign wasn't needed, you can't really blame them right?

To be honest, I haven't touched Call of Duty ever since, and that's sort of what Respawn Entertainment did with their new IP: Titanfall. Did it make Titanfall any less of a game? No, I enjoyed it, I still play it. I don't need the story to motivate me to kill people, it wasn't like that. You really didn't need that in MW2 either, but they gave you such a good reason to kill Shepard after her betrays Roach and Ghost after you work so hard to get this console with important data on it. Then he stabs Soap in the chest with a knife, nothing gave me more pleasure in that game than tossing it into his eye.

Then Activision and Infinity Ward had that schism which split the company apart, the heads of Infinity Ward left for create Respawn and therefore Titanfall, and the rest of Infinity Ward made MW3.


Last thing I need to say reguarding this, Thom did say he enjoyed COD2, COD4 and World at War, all of which predate MW2, so from my knowledge and PAUL's account, it's before COD became so dull and tedius.

I just want to add that I don't like CoD: Ghosts, both single and multiplayer. Haven't touched Black Ops 2. Didn't finish the campaign of MW3 because it felt like "been there, done that". Black ops was alright, fun enough to finish it. I did really like MW2. So yeah, Paul was spot on. I think singleplayer wise, CoD went downhill after MW2, and multiplayer-wise I still enjoyed MW3.

CoD4 had a pretty big impact on the cinematic side of gaming, especially the scene with the nuke has gotten pretty famous.

VitalSigns wrote:

ThomVD wrote:

VitalSigns wrote:

how many people do you know that has played the campaign of a Call of Duty game?

Many actually, and I love the campaigns in CoD (at least CoD2, 4 and world at war). Stories are quite good for a military FPS.

There you have it folks, anyone who likes different things than me is an idiot because I can't understand that opinions are subjective.

Fixed that for you.

VitalSigns wrote:

Gameplay is also a pointless waste of time as long as everything looks good.

The only thing said about graphics was "Looks fine to me" after you said it looks like shit. How exactly does that mean looking good is all that matters?

I'm one of those weird people who play even fighters for the story. I just have to finish the arcade/story mode with every single character to see their ending. I don't even play those games online. Sometimes I get really lucky and some company makes a fighting game with a high emphasis on story, like the latest Mortal Kombat and the BlazBlue series.

I honestly can't even be bothered with a game if the story doesn't interest me, no matter how good it is. A good example is when I once bought a game that looked really fun but after I had bought it and learned it was mission based and didn't have any story whatsoever I lost all incentive to finish it. Of course, the exception to this are arcade games that generally don't even have a story. I guess the same can be said about a lot of old NES/SNES era games.

Still, if the gameplay sucks balls even the best story can't save the game. There has to be a balance.

VitalSigns wrote:

Grand Theft Auto 5 looks like shit

What?!

I honestly need both. As I've learned through gaming, I need the gameplay to be good enough that I can go through the story, and I need the story to keep me playing.

Looking strictly at RPG's, Project X Zone has excellent and addictive gameplay with rewarding cutscenes, although the story is so convoluted and there are over 50 characters that all feel the need to get their say in whatever matter is at hand. It feels bloated, with too much going on at once, I couldn't be invested in everything.

In Final Fantasy XIII there's no control of your units, only changing the way they fight, and even then it's a very loose grip. The story went nowhere, the gameplay was poor at best, and I felt like I was walking down a narrow line for the 8 hours I gave to that game. Everything fight was made to look like some epic battle when in reality it was probably all the waiting that got to my head.

Fire Emblem: Awakening has both great story and excellent gameplay. Even though there were issues with cliche anime characters like your classic guy who looks like a girl, girl who looks like she's 10 but she's actually a 1000 year old dragon, and girl who pretends to be a guy but everyone knows she's a girl except the characters in the story, classic bitch character, you got your suck up, aspiring kid fighter, ditsy royalty, etc. What they did with these characters though are excellent, with a great story, entertaining fight sequences, and nail biting moments of unsurity if your character is going to live or die, the game goes a long way with the way I view a marriage between gameplay and story.

Mass Distraction wrote:

VitalSigns wrote:

Grand Theft Auto 5 looks like shit

What?!

True, it isn't an 8 bit pacman, however, they did leave out a few critical details if you look at it with a fine tooth comb, well, on the Xbox version at least.
From what I can tell, GTA 5 is roughly 20GB, for that you get a map that is 100 square miles (13mi x 7mi) and a ceiling of 2.5mi. (which adds to 225 cubic miles). Every texture, every object, every cutscene, every interaction has to be stored in that 20GB. Also, the draw distance on GTA5 can be over a mile compared to a few hundred yards in skyrim.
In order to do this, some objects which you wouldn't notice must be simplified. Otherwise if you went all the way up in a plane or helicopter you wouldn't be able to see the ground.

Lets take Resident Evil 6 as a comparison, since that is pretty much a game dedicated to how well a company can make a game look. You'll notice your character's hair moves and waves according to what your character is doing. Meanwhile in GTA5, you're basically wearing a hair shaped helmet.
Also take for example the trees and bushes, you don't see a branch and individual leaves, you see several 2.5D plates of a branches with leaves. The 2.5D can be most easily seen with Trevor's hair, the comb over isn't individual fibers or several pieces, but a single, unmoving piece.

Maybe its just because I play it on a 60'' man screen on a desk I sit about 5 feet away from, but I notice these small details. but I am willing to trade it not having dynamic hair movement because of all the things I can do in the game.

Which is why I said gameplay>graphics

Lets look at another sandbox in which the creators decided to go with looks rather than content. Rage
When they announced it, it was supposed to have 5 huge sandbox worlds with stunning graphics and tons of things to do. But, when reality hit and the world they created overshot the amount of RAM they had to work with, they found they would have to choose between the graphics they promised and the gameplay they promised. They decided to go with graphics. What came out was 2 small sandboxes with very little to do outside of the campaign in comparison to other sandbox games.

Personally, I'm okay with giving up dynamic hair movement if I can spend hours dicking around between missions and not feel bored. If you guys need me, I'll be playing gta 5.

If I'm misunderstanding all this, please clarify, but no dynamic hair movement = looks like shit? How petty and vain can you be?

VitalSigns wrote:

they did leave out a few critical details if you look at it with a fine tooth comb

Yeah, you've already lost me. I don't care if there are minor flaws in a game if I'm not even going to notice them while playing. I'll take story and gameplay over graphics any day. A fun game has no need for graphics that imitate life. I can get those outside, if you catch my drift. What I'm getting at is that there's no need to say somethign looks like shit if your problem is something that small. I mean, if you don't even care for the graphics then why even bother complaining?

Wait, didn't we talk about how stupid it is to look only at the graphics of a game in the RE6 online thread? Specifically here: http://www.residentevilforums.net/t5290p30-nobody-is-playing-re6-anymore#121660

On a side note, I wouldn't say Pac-Man looks bad either.

Mass Distraction wrote:

On a side note, I wouldn't say Pac-Man looks bad either.

I have the atari cartridge for it.....that one looks bad

PAULSAMSON wrote:

Mass Distraction wrote:

On a side note, I wouldn't say Pac-Man looks bad either.

I have the atari cartridge for it.....that one looks bad

But the original arcade looks great.

Mass Distraction wrote:

VitalSigns wrote:

they did leave out a few critical details if you look at it with a fine tooth comb

A fun game has no need for graphics that imitate life... What I'm getting at is that there's no need to say somethign looks like shit if your problem is something that small. I mean, if you don't even care for the graphics then why even bother complaining?

Well, if that's an excellent summation if I've ever seen one.

I admit, I want to know why he was arguing graphics to begin with; I thought this was a thread about gameplay and story.

Mass Distraction wrote:

PAULSAMSON wrote:

Mass Distraction wrote:

On a side note, I wouldn't say Pac-Man looks bad either.

I have the atari cartridge for it.....that one looks bad

But the original arcade looks great.

Yeah, and the NES version that Vitalsigns was referring to looks great too,

PAULSAMSON wrote:

Mass Distraction wrote:

PAULSAMSON wrote:

Mass Distraction wrote:

On a side note, I wouldn't say Pac-Man looks bad either.

I have the atari cartridge for it.....that one looks bad

But the original arcade looks great.

Yeah, and the NES version that Vitalsigns was referring to looks great too,

I think Vital was refering to Pac-Man in general, just graphical power was his argument. Though Mass was saying that, aesthetically, it looks good.

How good a game looks is entirely subjective, despite what some people say. For example, I think Okami (HD) is the best looking game I've ever witnessed, but my sister was complaining about the game looking ugly. Some people actually really like how a game like pacman looks, while others find GTAV nicer looking than Crysis. Graphical power obviously is not debatable though, but a more graphically powerful game doesn't necessarily look better to most.

Exactly, I really like how stylized Shadows of the Damned looks, and I still think the graphics look better on Gears of War 1 than it does on Gears of War 2, despite the fact that there's more power in Gears 2.

I know this isn't a graphics thread, but now that we're at it the only time that graphics ever bothered me is when some games have pixelated content or utterly compressed when another version has the complete size.

For example FFXIII and Metal Gear Rising are 2 games that I played on both xbox and ps3 and those 2 looked pixelated on the 360 whereas the ps3 looked complete quality.