🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 31 Dec 2014 11:32:55 -0500, "Chuck"
<chuck....@comcast.net> wrote:

>I was just sitting here wondering, how do people decide if a game is good or 
>not?  Is it because you finished it?  You played it multiple times?  You 
>have X number of hours invested in it?  I have my reasons, just curious 
>about others.
>
>Chuck


I've played thousands of games over the past thirty or forty years and
I don't think I can give a straight answer to the question "what makes
a game good". It takes a number of factors, not all of which need to
be met for a game to be "good". If a game manages to satisfy me in a
majority of the categories below, I'll probably rank it favorably.

On the technical front, there are the production values. How are the
graphics, the sound, the music? Are they appealing to the eye and ear?
It is customary for "serious" gamers to pooh-pooh the importance of
these things (after all, we all are in it for the gameplay) but
presentation counts for a lot. Character animation is important too.
And it's more than just the clarity of the textures and the bitrate of
the audio; do the visuals and sound match the tone of the game? 

Next, there are the story, setting, and characters. Do the developers
use all the above to create an immersive world in which to play, or do
they take shortcuts that break the fiction? Some gamers don't care too
much about this sort of thing but it can make or break a game.

Gameplay is the most subjective; is the game in a genre I enjoy, and
does it innovate in any ways? If it does attempt something new, do
these changes add or subtract from the overall effect? Are the
maps/levels well designed, is there a decent learning curve, does the
game offer enough material to keep me interested to the end or does it
blow its load in the first few chapters? 

And then there are the "extras"; is there obtrusive DRM? Is the game a
buggy crashfest? Is it a pay-to-win game or does the game push its DLC
too obviously? Does the game come with any nifty extras or feelies?

Personally, I tend to value high-fidelity graphics and an immersive
gameworld as some of the more important features, although that isn't
to say I dismiss the importance of the rest. I've played butt-ugly
games to the end if the story was intriguing (say, Portal 1986), or
struggled with seemingly endless bugs if the gameplay was just that
good (the original Gothic was like that for me).  I'd consider both
excellent games. 

Generally, if I finish a game it is because it is good; I don't
consider it good just because I finished it. I played through
Terrawars: NY Invasion to the end just because it was so terrible.
Some games I quite enjoy and consider good games even if I don't get
very far in them; for instance, the IL-2 Sturmovik flight-sims are
excellent titles even though I don't think I've played more than an
hour. I often replay "good games" (for instance, System Shock 2 has
seen more than its fair share of reinstalls) but at the same time I
may revist terrible games just to remind myself how bad they are (I've
played Alien Colonial Marines four times and been disappointed each
time).

So there's my answer, wishy-washy as it it may be. I like games that
are well-designed, in one way or another. If the developer was lazy,
and used slapdash graphics or rehashed gameplay or a created a
non-coherent world, then I'll probably look less favorably on the
title. 

Now, if you were to ask "what sort of games do you enjoy" I could
probably give a more satisfying answer, because then I could specify
certain genres or styles of gameplay. But just because a game doesn't
suit my taste doesn't mean I can't recognize it as being good.

>"Spalls Hurgenson"  wrote in message 
>news:5r98aa1l4easiltguoenv763af74mub6q9@4ax.com...
>
>Now, if you were to ask "what sort of games do you enjoy" I could
>probably give a more satisfying answer, because then I could specify
>certain genres or styles of gameplay. But just because a game doesn't
>suit my taste doesn't mean I can't recognize it as being good.

It was a good answer.  It gives me insight.  But, let's go with your other 
question:

What sort of games do you enjoy?

On Wednesday, December 31, 2014 8:32:58 AM UTC-8, Chuck wrote:
> I was just sitting here wondering, how do people decide if a game is good or 
> not?  Is it because you finished it?  You played it multiple times?  You 
> have X number of hours invested in it?  I have my reasons, just curious 
> about others.


I enjoyed it, it was fun.  More entertaining than watching TV.

I played EQ for about 3 years, I only occasionally enjoyed it, I was more addicted to it.  I wouldn't rate it very high, like a 4 or 5.  So length of time played doesn't necessarily have much to do with it.

Finishing has something to do with it, though I've played games I finished I was left with the feeling "that's it?" especially console games which I find last about a week.  And especially games there's really no point to replaying, no different way to do things.  I finished Crash Bandicoot, and that's one of the worst games I've ever played.  Of course if I didn't finish a game it typically means it wasn't very good either.  Can't think of any off the bat, and then there's ones you finish, but never really do like Diablo 3, you can 'finish' that pretty fast, but actually getting to highest level with best gear is near impossible.

My favorite games I've replayed over and over, exploring the same universe and rules with different approaches. Fallout 2 is probably my favorite, I replayed many many times, I only finished it twice though.  Borderlands with every character, I didn't care much for my first playthrough, but got better with additional characters.  However Borderlands 2 has a bunch of different characters to play and I tried them all, but I felt it just felt too much of a slog.

- Justisaur

>"Justisaur"  wrote in message 
>news:20aaa0f0-2b53-48a3-9f8a-eb784b0c1444@googlegroups.com...
>
>>On Wednesday, December 31, 2014 8:32:58 AM UTC-8, Chuck wrote:
>> I was just sitting here wondering, how do people decide if a game is good 
>> or
>> not?  Is it because you finished it?  You played it multiple times?  You
>> have X number of hours invested in it?  I have my reasons, just curious
>> about others.
>
>I enjoyed it, it was fun.  More entertaining than watching TV.

Almost anything is more enjoyable than watching TV.

>I played EQ for about 3 years, I only occasionally enjoyed it, I was more 
>addicted to it.  I wouldn't rate it very high, like a 4 or 5.  So >length 
>of time played doesn't necessarily have much to do with it.
>
>Finishing has something to do with it, though I've played games I finished 
>I was left with the feeling "that's it?" especially console >games which I 
>find last about a week.  And especially games there's really no point to 
>replaying, no different way to do things.  I finished >Crash Bandicoot, and 
>that's one of the worst games I've ever played.  Of course if I didn't 
>finish a game it typically means it wasn't very >good either.  Can't think 
>of any off the bat, and then there's ones you finish, but never really do 
>like Diablo 3, you can 'finish' that pretty >fast, but actually getting to 
>highest level with best gear is near impossible.

I  admittedly don't finish many games.  With NWN I said WTF!  That's it?  I 
could understand it with Wizardry 8, low budget and all, but I expected a 
bigger finish from NWN.  Just walk off.  Kind of anti-climatic.

>My favorite games I've replayed over and over, exploring the same universe 
>and rules with different approaches. Fallout 2 is probably my >favorite, I 
>replayed many many times, I only finished it twice though.  Borderlands 
>with every character, I didn't care much for my first >playthrough, but got 
>better with additional characters.  However Borderlands 2 has a bunch of 
>different characters to play and I tried >them all, but I felt it just felt 
>too much of a slog.
>
>- Justisaur

I've only ever completed one game more that once, not to sat that I haven't 
started them many times.  Planescape:Torment is the one and only on the 
list.  While I did complete Fallout, I never did manage to complete Fallout 
2, which is a fantastic game.

Chuck

Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>On Wed, 31 Dec 2014 11:32:55 -0500, "Chuck"
><chuck....@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>I was just sitting here wondering, how do people decide if a game is good or 
>>not?  Is it because you finished it?  You played it multiple times?  You 
>>have X number of hours invested in it?  I have my reasons, just curious 
>>about others.
>>
>>Chuck
>
>
>I've played thousands of games over the past thirty or forty years and
>I don't think I can give a straight answer to the question "what makes
>a game good". It takes a number of factors, not all of which need to
>be met for a game to be "good". If a game manages to satisfy me in a
>majority of the categories below, I'll probably rank it favorably.
>
>On the technical front, there are the production values. How are the
>graphics, the sound, the music? Are they appealing to the eye and ear?
>It is customary for "serious" gamers to pooh-pooh the importance of
>these things (after all, we all are in it for the gameplay) but
>presentation counts for a lot. Character animation is important too.
>And it's more than just the clarity of the textures and the bitrate of
>the audio; do the visuals and sound match the tone of the game? 
>
>Next, there are the story, setting, and characters. Do the developers
>use all the above to create an immersive world in which to play, or do
>they take shortcuts that break the fiction? Some gamers don't care too
>much about this sort of thing but it can make or break a game.
>
>Gameplay is the most subjective; is the game in a genre I enjoy, and
>does it innovate in any ways? If it does attempt something new, do
>these changes add or subtract from the overall effect? Are the
>maps/levels well designed, is there a decent learning curve, does the
>game offer enough material to keep me interested to the end or does it
>blow its load in the first few chapters? 
>
>And then there are the "extras"; is there obtrusive DRM? Is the game a
>buggy crashfest? Is it a pay-to-win game or does the game push its DLC
>too obviously? Does the game come with any nifty extras or feelies?
>
>Personally, I tend to value high-fidelity graphics and an immersive
>gameworld as some of the more important features, although that isn't
>to say I dismiss the importance of the rest. I've played butt-ugly
>games to the end if the story was intriguing (say, Portal 1986), or
>struggled with seemingly endless bugs if the gameplay was just that
>good (the original Gothic was like that for me).  I'd consider both
>excellent games. 
>
>Generally, if I finish a game it is because it is good; I don't
>consider it good just because I finished it. I played through
>Terrawars: NY Invasion to the end just because it was so terrible.
>Some games I quite enjoy and consider good games even if I don't get
>very far in them; for instance, the IL-2 Sturmovik flight-sims are
>excellent titles even though I don't think I've played more than an
>hour. I often replay "good games" (for instance, System Shock 2 has
>seen more than its fair share of reinstalls) but at the same time I
>may revist terrible games just to remind myself how bad they are (I've
>played Alien Colonial Marines four times and been disappointed each
>time).
>
>So there's my answer, wishy-washy as it it may be. I like games that
>are well-designed, in one way or another. If the developer was lazy,
>and used slapdash graphics or rehashed gameplay or a created a
>non-coherent world, then I'll probably look less favorably on the
>title. 
>
>Now, if you were to ask "what sort of games do you enjoy" I could
>probably give a more satisfying answer, because then I could specify
>certain genres or styles of gameplay. But just because a game doesn't
>suit my taste doesn't mean I can't recognize it as being good.

I think I'd simplify this as whether or not the game had that quality
some books have:  The "couldn't put it down" factor.
AKA the "I had to work/go to school first thing in the morning and I
still stayed up all night reading it since I couldn't stop reading."
factor.

Some games have it, most don't.

A game is "good" if it grabs you and won't let go. 
For me that also tends to mean it has serious replay value, but not
always.  Gimmick games, like M. Night movie might only be good for one
play, but you can't stop till you're done if it's a "GOOD" game.

If it's good enough, DRM and bugs don't even matter.

Right from the start I knew City of Heroes had that extra something,
even though at release, for whatever reason it would disconnect for me
after exactly 5 minutes, making a lot of missions impossible to
complete.   Shortly after the "play in windowed mode" workaround came to
my attention and there were no more issues for me really, until they
patched it later and I could play in normal full screen mode.

Still don't understand why the fullscreen/windowed thing should have
anything at all to do with your connection staying up or not.

See also X-Com, a game that I played for some 26 hours straight,
subsisting on nothing but cigarettes and cans of coke.
Damn was I ever tired and hungry when I finally turned off the game.

Xocyll

On Wed, 31 Dec 2014 16:14:12 -0500, "Chuck"
<chuck....@comcast.net> wrote:

>>"Spalls Hurgenson"  wrote in message 
>>news:5r98aa1l4easiltguoenv763af74mub6q9@4ax.com...
>>
>>Now, if you were to ask "what sort of games do you enjoy" I could
>>probably give a more satisfying answer, because then I could specify
>>certain genres or styles of gameplay. But just because a game doesn't
>>suit my taste doesn't mean I can't recognize it as being good.
>
>It was a good answer.  It gives me insight.  But, let's go with your other 
>question:
>
>What sort of games do you enjoy?
>
Well, that's easier. My favorite genres are first (or third person)
shooters and role-playing games. I am a fan of big, immersive open
worlds with lots of nooks and crannies to explore (although sometimes
for a change I like a nice linear shooter). Graphic fidelity is
important to me; I got 4GB on my GPU for a reason! A strong storyline
and characters are a plus. The world should be immersive and coherent;
I want to be transported to another world. 

A game where the primary focus is on the mechanics (MOBAs or most
MMOs, many RTS games, some shooters) are unappealing to me.
Multiplayer has little appeal to me too (largely because the other
players ruin the immersion and they often are too focused on the
mechanics like DPS).

An obvious example of a game I loved was Skyrim, although other
favorites range from sims ("Euro Truck Sim 2") to adventure (the
decades old "Mission Critical").

>"Spalls Hurgenson"  wrote in message 
>news:b6naaape33pg3lu23smbv07c68v2sqenvn@4ax.com...
>
>On Wed, 31 Dec 2014 16:14:12 -0500, "Chuck"
><chuck....@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>>"Spalls Hurgenson"  wrote in message
>>>news:5r98aa1l4easiltguoenv763af74mub6q9@4ax.com...
>>>
>>>Now, if you were to ask "what sort of games do you enjoy" I could
>>>probably give a more satisfying answer, because then I could specify
>>>certain genres or styles of gameplay. But just because a game doesn't
>>>suit my taste doesn't mean I can't recognize it as being good.
>>
>>It was a good answer.  It gives me insight.  But, let's go with your other
>>question:
>>
>>What sort of games do you enjoy?
>>
>Well, that's easier. My favorite genres are first (or third person)
>shooters and role-playing games. I am a fan of big, immersive open
>worlds with lots of nooks and crannies to explore (although sometimes
>for a change I like a nice linear shooter). Graphic fidelity is
>important to me; I got 4GB on my GPU for a reason! A strong storyline
>and characters are a plus. The world should be immersive and coherent;
>I want to be transported to another world.
>
>A game where the primary focus is on the mechanics (MOBAs or most
>MMOs, many RTS games, some shooters) are unappealing to me.
>Multiplayer has little appeal to me too (largely because the other
>players ruin the immersion and they often are too focused on the
>mechanics like DPS).
>
>An obvious example of a game I loved was Skyrim, although other
>favorites range from sims ("Euro Truck Sim 2") to adventure (the
>decades old "Mission Critical").

If I may, one more question.  Do you have a game(s) that you really wanted 
to love but couldn't?  For me it was Empire of Magic.

Chuck

On Thu, 1 Jan 2015 21:12:00 -0500, "Chuck" <chuck....@comcast.net>
wrote:

>>"Spalls Hurgenson"  wrote in message 
>>news:b6naaape33pg3lu23smbv07c68v2sqenvn@4ax.com...
>>
>>On Wed, 31 Dec 2014 16:14:12 -0500, "Chuck"
>><chuck....@comcast.net> wrote:

>>>>"Spalls Hurgenson"  wrote in message
>>>>news:5r98aa1l4easiltguoenv763af74mub6q9@4ax.com...


>If I may, one more question.  Do you have a game(s) that you really wanted 
>to love but couldn't?  For me it was Empire of Magic.

Oh, I have a host of 'em. Whether they are games in a genre that I
really enjoy (but the developers just weren't up to the task of
creating a good game), or a really awesome game in a genre I just
don't like much (the aforementioned flightsims), there are numerous
games that just don't click with me. More than anything, I appreciate
a game - even if I don't actually like it - if the developers poured
actual love and effort into the title.  So while I often play them to
completion, yearly franchises like Assassins Creed or Call of Duty
games rate poorly with me despite obvious production values. These are
mass-produced, hurried out the door, create more to appease the
accountants than out of any artistic desire to create a world or tell
a story. They may be competently made, but they aren't great games.


But to give you a specific example of a game I wanted to love but
couldn't: any of the games in the Arma series, including the original
Operation Flashpoint. Those are games I really, really want to love;
huge open worlds, incredible fidelity in the simulation, freeform
gameplay, gorgeous graphics. 

Yet every time I dive into those games, I'm alienated by the
mechanical aspects of the title, from its framerate issues, to its
interface, to its steep learning curve. I only got through Arma 1 by
cheating and abandoned Flashpoint and Arma 2 halfway through (wisely,
I've decided to wait until Arma 3 radically drops in price, as I've
realized I'm unlikely to finish that game either). Still, every now
and again I reinstall one of the games and give it another shot,
hoping that an epiphany will descend upon me and I will finally fall
in love with the game. Hasn't happened yet, but I'm still hopeful.