But is it fun?

There has been some lengthy discussion over the years of what separates the medium of games apart from other older forms of entertainment, they both share the storylines and intricate plot details of modern films while following a specific set of rules, similar to the rules of a board game or any other traditional game. These rules essentially create the framework of a game and when used collectively can be referred to as gameplay.

These rules and specifically the overall game plan is evident in all games, regardless of how badly it plays as a final product or its apparent simplicity, taking Minesweeper as an example. The player must clear a grid of numbered squares and not set off the various bombs hidden inside, if the player clicks a grid and there is no mine present one of two things occur (1) A number appears indicating the number of adjacent (including diagonally-adjacent) squares containing mines, or (2) no number appears; in which case the game automatically clears those squares adjacent to the empty square (since they cannot contain mines). Squares so cleared which themselves are empty (do not contain a number of adjacent mines) have their neighbours recursively cleared as well. The game is won when all squares that do not contain a mine are cleared.

Even in this simple game there are various rules which tie the game together and creates a fair challenge to the player, the location of the mines are randomly generated each time so the game can be played an infinite amount of times although there are limited strategies to use each time. Looking at a modern game, this element of maintaining a set of rules and creating a fair challenge to the player still exists; nobody wants to be shot by an all powerful omnipotent sniper each time, the game instead creating opportunities for the player to win in a fair way each time.

As games do get more complex, developers seem to be shoe-horning more and more gameplay features into a given game and simply bloating it out with unnecessary junk, just like graphical gimmicks such as lens flare in the mid 90’s features like over zealous use of bullet time and recharging shields are copied, ripped off and emulated constantly, does every third person shooter need bullet time? It only ticks another box on the grab bag of features most developers cram into any modern game.

Simplicity is key to creating decent gameplay I think, course I could ( probably am ) wrong but most players don’t want to be overburdened with too many rules or restricting features its all very well creating hundreds of rules and restrictions but if the game isn’t fun after all the features added its useless.

A classic example is MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies, a huge multiplayer game taking place over the Star Wars universe the game promised the world but delivered very little – plagued by a promised feature set that was simply too big many of these features were dropped while those that actually managed to get through were broken from day one and even to this day despite major patches from SOE attempting to fix them the game still feels like many as a beta version.

Taking this simplicity vs. complexity study further, two multiplayer death match games one is Quake 3 the other Unreal Tournament 2004, both are high speed ‘twitch shooter’ games based on various popular modes of play originally spread through Quake 1. Unreal Tournament 2004 features 10 game modes and even features vehicles, it’s important to note that at the time having vehicles in an fps shooter regardless of plot or setting was the current fad, see bullet time for an explanation of this. The game was also built using the then newish Unreal 2 engine with the maps, arguably the single most important element in a game involving high speed competitive shooter, merely graphical showcases for the engine with very little consideration given to the layout and flow of each map the game was also littered with pointless powerups and unbalanced weapons. Quake 3 on the other hand had just 4 modes of play all of which were perfect carbon copies of death match or capture the flag people used to play on every other multiplayer title at the time, the game had no vehicles instead restricting the game to a series of self contained maps, these maps while graphically inferior to the UT2004 offerings played perfectly and firm favourites were soon found. The weapons themselves were perfectly balanced no weapon dominated the entire map instead each one became a specialist tool for specific instances, with even the most powerful weapons having major weak points

This is an example of feature bloat with a developer adding in more and more unnecessary features as well as graphics wining over gameplay during development time.

Gameplay could also be intepreted as methods of control, if your control scheme dosen't work the game is useless - more deeply not only can a decent control layout fuse the interactions of the player with his or her onscreen persona it can also create and enhance the game experience, Resident Evil 4 a third person horror game unlike any other game using a similair control method does not have a strafe action, this slows the game right down and make the action all the more frantic as the player positions themsleves in a position to kill the onslaught of spanish people ( not zombies this time ). The player can also not run and gun and instead must be standing still to use any weapons another element that adds to the overall tension of the game

In the end I think developers need to find a good mix of gameplay and graphics marrying the two with perfectly balanced controls and stop simply emulating the current market fad and chucking in every gameplay feature to make a competitively made game

Criticising the critics

Reviewers mean critics and critics ultimately mean opinions or rather there opinion, I despise critics purely for this reason even there name annoys me 'critics' to criticise something sometimes constructively sometimes not.

But unlike film reviwers, arguably the most elitist bunch in a pot of snobbery - games reviews are something different. Unlike films, predefined linear experiences games are different, for the most part they share similair atributes with there filmic cousins there still tied together with an engrossing plot and mulidimensional charaecters but theres something thats different from film - gameplay.

What makes a decent game? Its not its storyline or the detailed back story of its charecters although this does sometimes help, its how well the little fat italian man jumps along your screen or that lest level boss - gameplay is what makes a decent game amazing, how do you review this, is there any formualic theory that reviwers follow?

For the most part there isnt, they simply review current games by way of comparison with whatever the current genre topper is, this is all well and good for generic shooter 4 or Sims expansion 4431 - 'Recruitment centre fun!' determining how many boxes it ticks to fill in with every other title on the market but if its a new game or one that dosen't neccesarly follow the norm, more often than not several things happen:

1. Graphics are scrutinised, Does the game feature visceral amounts of blood and gore? If yes, congratulations! Your instantly a mature game and any question of simplistic gameplay is washed aside in a flurry of headshots and apprecitative teenagers

2. If the game features somehow cartonny or stylised graphics, the gameplay is instatly a moot point regardless of depth of play, especially to GTA chasing 14 yr olds - Look at most peoples perception of Nintendo's games for example, although thankfully this is changing

3. Does the game feature insaney beautiful graphics but severly lacks in gameplay options? This will still garner an above reasonable score especially on a new or just released console as reviewers are washed into the hype of said machine offering better and faster everything over the competitions previous offerings - im betting quite a few of the ps3's release games are merely graphical updates of the last games for example.

4. If the game somehow differs from the norm, be it plot, charecters or any other detail, the game is criticised for being too weird, as if following the norm guarentee's a good game. One of many reasons why criminally underated games like Beyond good and evil and Farenheit were completely over looked on release

Certainly there are others who have a genuine insight and knowledge of games and can deliver it in a proffesional journalistic manner but any console specific magazine is generally absolute dross, targetting whatever target audience the consoles themselves target and delivering any platform bias news by way of low brow sexist comments, and idiotic jokes.