What makes a good game?

[spock]

I'm wondering about this, and I decided to do a little research into this.

What makes a good game?

I want your opinion on the things that makes games good in your opinion.
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[marinaroz]

The most important thing is the way it looks. Because you got to face it - first impression is everything. A game that doesn't look pretty and has no visual variation will fail to catch your attention and keep it.

Not to mention the fact that some type of games, like arcade and shooter and fighter games, they mainly vary in design and little else. In a game like 'snake' or 'street fighter' you cannot really innovate all that much.

In quest games, plot is also very important. Ideally it should be engaging but not overly difficult or too easy. If it isn't well balanced the player (me in this case) gets bored quickly.

In multiplayer games the user interface which allows the multiplayer interaction is highly important, because you're basically came there to interact with others, so it better be done well!
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[Duck]

The only thing that all good games have in common is that the designers knew exactly what they wanted to do well. There are a billion different things that a game can excel in, and to make a good game you need to choose a couple of them and put the front-and-centre for the audience.

People are going to disparage the above comment, saying that the intense focus on graphics nowadays is asinine (and it is), but there is some truth to the comment. It's not that a game needs to have amazing bump-mapping and the most advanced particle system this side of the year 2050; it simply needs to look good. If a game is ugly, you will not want to play it. Take this as an example: Space Quest III is one of my favorite games, and also the first game in the series I ever played. This is a pretty big screenshot, but it really gives you a feel for how the game looks:

http://freesci.linuxgames.com/.....ngine1.png

Then I decided I wanted to play the entire series. Here's the original version of Space Quest I:

[img:e3e290016f]http://zports.sourceforge.net/pics/scrn009.jpg[/img:e3e290016f]

It's not nearly as attractive, and I found it a lot harder to get into. A game doesn't have to have all kinds of effects to be engrossing, but unattractive graphics can do a lot to ruin the experience. Doom 3's environments were amazing, but I found the characters and objects really unappealing -- especially the guns, which looked to me like they were all made out of plastic. You don't need it to look like a really amazing and spectacular version of real life, but you do need to make it aesthetically pleasing. I've been trying for years to play the 1986 game Wasteland, but I just can't do it, partly because it's such a gaudy game.

One thing that I'm really into is immersion. Some games can keep you at arm's length and still be enjoyable (Mario is probably the best example of this - you never feel like you really are Mario while playing Super Mario World 2, but it's still one of my favorite games), but more often, a game that really draws you in is a much better experience. The best example of this is the first Call of Duty - I remember playing the entire demo with my jaw dropped, because I could not believe how action-packed, tense, and exciting I found it. I played that demo several times a day, and then the second demo came out and I played the hell out of it, too. The sequels have all been rehashes, which is awful, and a great way to ruin a series. The most important thing is to keep your games fresh, I suppose.

There's also originality. A lot of the time it seems difficult to make a game fresh, and it's true - a lot of games are exactly the same as others in their genre, and when a genre never changes for too long it gets stale. This is what I believe has happened with Japanese RPGs; they made Chrono Trigger in 1994 or 1996 or whatever and Squaresoft has been making the same game over and over ever since. It's easy for first-person shooters to fall into this, too; first you had Doom, and every first-person shooter was Doom, and then you had Rainbow Six, which added tension and slowed the pace, and you had a bunch of ripoffs of Rainbow Six, and then you had Half-Life, which combined the arcade-style gameplay of Doom with the intelligence of Rainbow Six, and everybody tried to emulate Half-Life, and then you had Halo, which didn't introduce but did perfect vehicles and wide-open maps, as well as those **** corridors, and for several years every game was Halo, and now we have Bioshock, which is changing combat by making your plan of attack have a truly major impact on how the fight goes. We'll probably see a lot of people emulating Bioshock from now on.

I guess it boils down to innovation. If a game blends in and is fun, it's a good game; if it's innovative and does it well, it's a great game.
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[Saurex]

For me its, dont care about gfx as long as i can make out whats going on. For me its the story, story and story and i think i forgot to mention multilayer (didnt see that comming did ya). Multiplayer really makes the game worth buying since there something you can do after you finish the game apart from playing it over and over again.
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[Duck]

[Xtreme]

Different games from different genres need different things, I think.

Fundamentally, though, a game that can keep you entertained and that wants to make you come back for more is a good game on some level. There cannot be a single set of criteria, however, that survives cross-genre. A first-person shooter begs for the best graphics possible whereas a puzzle game doesn't necessarily need that.

However, it is safe to say a few things. If I have to choose between version A of a game and version B of a game where A=B in everything except graphics, I'm going to choose the better looking one. If I have to choose between version Y and version X with equal playability but version Y is more innovative, I'm going with version Y.

So basically, there are certain areas that we look to when comparing games. What we cannot necessarily agree on is which of these criteria is the most important.

Graphic quality, innovation, audio quality, re-playability, depth, interactivity, plot quality, variety, difficulty, accuracy (regarding history, physics, design etc. etc.), control scheme, stylization... and the list goes on and on. Ideally, game developers should pick a genre and style and then proceed to maximize the quality of their game according to all of these areas. Furthermore, audience age and interest needs to be considered.

So there really isn't an easy way to figure out how to make a game great. The genre is the first major limiting factor and the "style" follows after that. But the combination of these two can produce so many possibilities and varieties that it's not practical or useful to enumerate them all.

[Beornhelm]

For me, a good game must be first of all, clean. I hate visual pollution, so I hate 200 colors with millions and hard visibility of menus and buttons. Second, gameplay. I don't like confuse games. The game must teach me how to play without difficults, so I can understand how things work, and the less complicated is how to control, the better is the gameplay.

Currently, I am really into multiplayers games. On them, we play with real people, with real brains and personality. And the fact of having humans on a game improve a lot the experience.

[Roonkat1]

What makes a good video game comes down to this:
Gameplay is a must. The game must be fun and easy to play. Graphics should be decent. Finally, interaction is best for useage as well.

Also it is all about story and replay-ability. Halo has a very good story, and it's multiplayer is very good. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time had a FANTASTIC story. Games like Oblivion, Morrowind, and Knights of the Old Republic all have the ability to play the game in so many different ways. To me, it is either having a film-quality storyline or giving the user many different options that will compel them to want to do it again, in a different way, at another time.

Also, some realistic gameplay for example: Grand theft auto. you can go across town, kill a get arrested or run away, its that sort of freedom that makes good games. Not just the character that you can shoot and never die.

[Rob1981]

A game must be fun, and have replay value to be a good game. Things such as online play and graphics aren't a must. A game can have the most realistic graphics, but that doesn't make it an instant game that must be bought.


All the people obsessed with graphics, need to get over it. Gaming is about how fun games are, not if it has "realistic" or "next-gen" graphics compared to all the other games out. Look at classic games (Pac-Man, original Mario games, Donkey Kong, and so on), they are great and certainly didn't need to have perfect graphics to be good. The technology wasn't developed back then, but so what? A good game shouldn't be judged entirely on looks, period.
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[Scar]

What makes a good game for me is how realistic they are, and how much control you get.

Also they need to change each time that you play them so it isnt the same thing over and over. SWAT 4 kinda does that, which i love.

I think Grand Theft Auto III + are awesome games because of t he world they created for it. you can walk into it and have so much fun. I wish other geams were like that.

So i guess more interactivity and realism makes a game awesome.

Graphics arent everything. Some of the new games have kickass graphics, but the gameplay is lame as hell.

I wonder what the new Grand Theft Auto is going to be like. The graphics on it are amazing!
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[mrjay100]

The story line is most important, then following that would probably be the gamers decision. I like Medieval 2 strategic games were you are in total control. Shooting games with many options for guns and equipment and one that allows team death match. The game also has to have good graphics
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[spock]

Ok, all your answers are pretty interesting. I see that quite a lot of you think gameplay and/or playability is important.

Why is it so important, and do you have any things to say on what makes a games gameplay good?
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[dylan2xs]

That's a really good question, every time a new game is to be released i think that everybody look into it that the graphics is good. most people consider graphics as the primarily thing that a game should have to be a great game. But did we ever consider of having a good sounds on top of a good graphics? A game without music or sounds are not nice to play. Most people judge and rate games today based on their multimedia capabilities visual and audio, but then why is it that xbox live arcade is suddenly bringing out old games with graphics that are not photo realistic yet still playable.
in fact why are there emulators and roms for older consoles? not just nostalgia but because they are fun and the gameplay is really great! The story in very very important in any game cause when a storyline is not clear or not in a following order a game is not nice to play because you cannot figuring anything out.
when i walk into a game shop the first thing i do is look at the back at the pictures to see what kind of game it is even before i read what its about. this is me judging graphics when i shouldn't!! just like real life if you are in a club and you see an attractive person you want to play with them but if their personality is like the game shaq-fu on snes your in trouble!
driver3 is a good example of the people choosing video and sound over gameplay which is what makes a game good. actually all of these things make a good game not just one or the other!

[Desbrina]

graphics/sound etc aren't why i get games. They help, but i'm more likely to get a game if its got a good storyline and if i think i'll actually play it till its finished
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[martin]

Graphics and sounds make a good game. More than graphics and sounds I'd say realism make a good game. When I say realism I mean the hability to put you inside the game; I don't care if there are monsters or another unreal stuff... It's only you and the real environment created by the game and by the screen.

Originality is another good item. I remember some excellent old games like the Volfied which where catching because they were original, creative, unique.

PS: I recently saw a video about Need for Speed Pro Street and it's amazing!! Have a look at it and you will know what makes a good game
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