What makes a good game? Discuss.

[Anakha56]

Using your Anglo Boer war idea you have 3 factions each with a different set of pro's and con's

Let me check the history books because if I remember correctly one faction were consistently better than the other two... how will that be incorporated into the game? To be historically accurate one of the factions will have to keep standing in their formation while being shot at

Don't flame me now..

And wear red, you know to give the others a gentleman's chance at winning .

But off topics here.

For me the game has to have a good story, something different and captivating. Failing a good story line it has to have a unique gameplay mechanic ala Portal. Graphics are nice to have but are most definitely not the be all and end all.

[RiaX]

These are some factors that I find make a game epic.

- Streamline, i dont like games like boarderlands cause there is too many side quests. This makes the game progress slowly, removes the challenge of the main plot can make you lose interest in the title. Side missions must not overwhelm the main plot but rather be interlaced nicely (mass effect 2?) not be a cheap method to bulk the game
- A game must have a brilliant OST for when the action picks up and the OST kicks in, I must feel like a spartan and start screaming like a mad thing (Halo?).
- Great sound, for example Medal of Honor Allied Assualt back in the day when you hit normandy makes you feel like you really there. Another good example of how sound can make a game epic is dead space.
- Visuals, nothing annoys me more than a dated looking game when it is actually brand new
- Voice acting, key for bringing life to the characters (Max Payne?).
- Story must be captivating enough to make me play it non stop till i finish it but the campaign must be long enough so that I cant finish it in one sitting (metal gear solid?).
- must be challenging and user friendly
- The finished product should be exactly what its called "A FINISHED PRODUCT" , i dont want to buy a game only to find out some DLC is launching in a months time. It mustnt be buggy and glitchy and must run smoothly (24-30 fps)

[Demoraliser]

i am easy to please...give me a great story and i am sold. Games i thought had good stories: Neverwinter Nights, Deus Ex, PoP Sand of Time...

[THE_STIG]

What makes a good game? Well a well thought out story line, simple controls and an awesome multiplier mode(Graphics is just an extra).

[D3PART3D]

The usually starts out simple and give the player the basic mechanics of future puzzles and steadily increases the difficulty.Essentially you don't want a 100 zombies spawns running at you with limited ammo.It gets boring after awhile, so a simple methods of having to move around to close a gate to stop the zombies hordes from attacking they break a new gate and such.It is better than for example having to kill all 100 zombies.

Yes, this is exactly what I meant when I said there has to be complexity to the problem - killing 100 zombies with only two clips of ammo may be difficult but it isn't complex at all. Having to close a gate is far more amusing. And yes, gradually increasing difficulty is the most sensible route.

As the enemies get harder so does finding ammo for your most powerful weapons.The game gets harder but it also tells you to use less powerful weapons on smaller hordes of zombies and save the powerful ones when you need it.Health pickups critical too little and a simple task becomes too hard, too much and a hard task becomes too easy.Many games have over done health pickups, making it way to easy for the player, some games have achieved better results by adding or removing health or ammo or weapons by the difficulty selection before starting the game.Essentially the best difficulty is a gradual increase with still with some practical hints by using the actual game environment.

True. Difficulty should be about having to think about what you're doing, rather than being about enemies who can take 44 bullets to the head. In System Shock 2, there are monkeys with psionics powers, and these psionic attacks can be extremely dangerous, but they are never used at close range, the monkeys revert to melee attacks then which are far less harmful. It's just a layer of complexity the enemy type has that makes it so much more interesting.

STORY: not only gives you a context for your busyness, but essential to your emotional response to the game and the depth of its immersion.

It is not essential if you have absolutely no story would it make the game worse.?

Essentail to the types of games I enjoy. Sure, Crayon Physics Deluxe doesn't need a story to be a good game.

I'm totally over gaming at this point in my life. Not because I'm not interested in it anymore, but because all of the games that come out these days are just last year's games with better visuals.

This is why I'm playing games from a decade ago.

But as for a FPS, Borderlands was one of the most addictive I've ever played. Somehow they made repetition fun. Far Cry 2 made repetition make me want to throttle myself with my keyboard cable ('I could swear I just killed everybody at that outpost').

I love that fps games like Borderlands and Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer have rpg elements to them It seems to be a new trend.