What makes a good game.

[Scuba156]

Immersion in the game world, something that sucks you in and makes it feel like a real believable world.

A lot of developers/designers seem to mistake what difficulty actually is these days. Difficulty shouldn't mean that your forced to hide behind cover for 10 mins, stick your head up and take about 3 shots before every single enemy's fire is directed at you, hide behind cover again while your health regenerates, rinse an repeat. In the case of a fps anyway. You need to find a balance of challenging the player, while still providing fun and engaging gameplay.

 

[FAST6191]

I seem to have wandered into an EOF thread.

I will have to start with difficulty is a very nebulous term as many things can be tested (memory, logic/prediction, reactions, depending upon your opinion of psychometrics your personality.... and if you are going to throw a random element in there possibly "luck" as well). You already started down that path though so I will leave that for the time being.

Similarly there are times I will play games to the exclusion of everything else but I will usually sit there with a video on, audiobook on or otherwise (having to do support for something, chatting on IRC or something) and have a game of tetris going on to have something for my hands to do and in some cases lessen boredom. Tetris and things like it is about my limit here though and I have yet to find a way to play more demanding games and pay attention to a video at the same time and be able to recount the details of both.

I suppose it is here I start pondering concepts like game theory, story design/language of story and more but there are precious few examples of that anywhere and those are the sorts of rules that work really well when you break them and I have not got to that stage in my pondering just yet (music is getting there though).

 

[beta4attack]

When it's based on a movie
When it has an epic memorable soundtrack, great gameplay, deep story, gameplay over 30 hours and well-developed memorable characters.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Good story, gameplay and soundtrack are key factors to making a good game. As for difficulty, it's good to have a wide range of difficulty settings to accommodate personal preferences. I like a challenge in a game, but not if it means constantly repeating the same levels 10+ times in order to beat them.

 

[XDel]

Music? are you kidding me?! put some dubstep in it. rofl

Now by Dubstep are you referring to the sound styles conceived by Richard D. James (Aphex Twin), cEvin Key, and other experimental (Industrial) musicians at the time, or are you talking that Skrillex kid who wasn't even in diapers when the sounds he claims he is credited with discovering were created.
And that's the sad thing, instruments now a days are built to create those sounds on the fly with a button or two. Back in the day one had to find them tweak the hardware immensely in order to produce such sounds.

Anyhow, back to the discussion at hand.

 

[ov3rkill]

Now by Dubstep are you referring to the sound styles conceived by Richard D. James (Aphex Twin), cEvin Key, and other experimental (Industrial) musicians at the time, or are you talking that Skrillex kid who wasn't even in diapers when the sounds he claims he is credited with discovering were created.
And that's the sad thing, instruments now a days are built to create those sounds on the fly with a button or two. Back in the day one had to find them tweak the hardware immensely in order to produce such sounds.

Anyhow, back to the discussion at hand.

I have no idea, I'm not familiar with the personalities you mentioned.

 

[Rizsparky]

Gameplay,Music and good artstyle, hey.. I just described Donkey Kong Country 2!

 

[XDel]

I have no idea, I'm not familiar with the personalities you mentioned.

You might like them if you like Dubstep, granted, early industrial/ambient/experimental musick is quite a different ball game than what you are used to I'm sure, but if you listen long enough, you'll start to hear a lot of sound techniques used that have became common place in a lot of today's musick...

...though not always in a way I find please, but I'm a bit of a dime store musick historian, so I'm anal retentive that way.

This tack isn't terribly old, but it's from Aphex Twin (formed in 1985) who was a MAJOR influence on the whole scene they are now calling Dubstep.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Dubstep feels a bit closer to earlier big beat/drum and bass acts but just with a coating of shit.

Also the only good Aphex Twin song is Windowlicker.

BUT I DIGRESS.

 

[ov3rkill]

Well, that was informative. Anyway, we need to get back on topic. xD

 

[Veho]

Good pacing.

You know how some games have that "just one more level/mission/round/stage" effect, and before you know it it's 50 rounds later and it's morning? That makes a good game.

 

[Qtis]

A good game is hard to define. Sometimes it's the excellent multiplayer for RTS (Red Alert 2, Starcraft), good story (Might and Magic 6&7), good gameplay (Uncharted, Portal, Fallout), new gameplay (FFXII) or perhaps intense story telling and music (Heavy Rain). Personally I have a load of different types of games on my consoles, but not a single genre dominates the lists. Of course the RPGs are the longest in terms of playtime, but that doesn't mean the other games are bad

Difficulty is a questionable matter for me and depends mostly on the type. If there is a game that is challenging, I'm ok with that. If the game is challenging because of bugs in the engine, I'll pass. Artificial difficulty is not a good thing, but a good challenge is nice (for example tougher enemies, less ammo/spells/hp, no respawns, etc).

 

[DoubleeDee]

Killing big monsters.

 

[DinohScene]

Story line and Aesthetics.

It might be a sex for the eye but if the story line is bad or the aesthetics are bad, then it's a bad game.
That and milked out series.

 

[narutofan777]

good story. good gameplay. good music. good graphics for its platform.

 

[Maxternal]

Why hasn't anybody mentioned "free"

but, anyway, a good point is intuitive controls.
Also, I know a number of seemingly good games that I turned off the music and left the sound effects on and they suddenly sucked. I nice, catchy background music can do wonders for a game.