Wow. I’m very impressed, Lance. Very well put.
I completely agree with your points over the importance of theme. Perhaps I should have explained, but I lumped that in together with “presentation.” By that, I meant the style of the game, the style of the world, and the canon in which it is presented.
That being said, even in non-extreme cases, graphics are the lowest common denominator when it comes to hit games. If you look through any list of top 20 games on each platform, uniformly, that top 20 represents the 20 of the best-looking games on that platform. The worst game you’ll probably see on there will be something from the GTA series, but what GTA sacrifices in pure visual polish, they make up for in environmental saturation.
I agree that the term “game” is quickly becoming outdated (and it carries with it a nasty connotation of “toy”), but again, that’s primarily for what I like to call the “hardcore elite.”
Take, for instance, my girlfriend. While watching a horror movie, she has to keep her eyes covered, or she won’t be able to go to sleep at night. When I ask her why she’s so scared when it’s just a movie, she responds, “It’s still scary.” But, when playing through Silent Hill 2, and I get freaked out at a given sequence, she responds with a quip, “What’re you scared about? It’s just a game.”
For most casual gamers, the inclusion of games as a valid form of storytellin is still a bit of a stretch at best. It is purely a form of entertainment; a piece of pop culture. Games still do not get the same respect that books and movies do (and rightfully so, as there are still very few games that tell convincing stories).
But, back to the main point. Yes, I think your final statement sums it up perfectly. The point of entry… the ante is the graphics, but you better have a compelling experience behind the graphics (now, what is defined as “compelling” will differ from culture to culture, subgroup to subgroup) in order for it to be a success.
Now onto Kadamose’s points. Having only played through a part of Zelda:OOT and never having played Majora’s Mask, I cannot speak to their quality as much, but with Zelda: WW, what you saw as boring, I saw as epic and majestic. I used to sail when I was in high school, and Zelda:WW captured the feeling of sailing a small vessel perfectly. The wind, the waves… everything. It was a tranquil experience exploring the world, discovering new islands, etc. The story itself is very straightforward, but is done with such a minimalist, yet darkly stylish approach, that it was fantastic. The twists in the middle of the game, though projected, screamed of the stuff of fairy tales that despite the fact that I saw the twist coming a mile away, it was delivered in such a way that I couldn’t help but grin. Never has a game been so unified in its art direction; never has a game been so crafted to match its visual style, rather than the quirky art being an afterthought. And no sense of reward? I’ve played very few games that felt as rewarding. What types of rewards did you want? Were the power-ups not enough? Meeting new characters not enough? Discovering new lands not enough?
As for KOTOR, the graphics are not as polished as, say, Ninja Gaiden, but they were more than adequate (in fact, some parts were beautiful). And Choose Your Own Adventure? Isn’t that pretty much a step up from what RPGs have always been? Up until KOTOR, all console RPGs have been were “talk to this guy, walk through this dungeon, fight these dudes, save the world.” KOTOR put control in the player’s hand as to how they wanted to play the game. And it wasn’t just cosmetic… you could shape world events through your actions, and ultimately affect the outcome of the story. And while a little ham-fisted in the beginning, once the story picked up, it was told with masterful elegance. And, the music was no worst than any videogame, save a couple of songs from the Panzer soundtrack, the Beyond Good & Evil soundtrack, and Zelda.
As for Beyond Good and Evil, I haven’t beaten it yet, so I cannot speak to whether or not the story falls apart in the end, but as it stands, I don’t see that happening. This is only the second game (after Zelda: WW) that I’ve felt that the developers of a game truly loved the world they were creating. You can feel it in the characters themselves and the way they interact with each other.
Story may be one of the most important factors in a game, but it’s not just about the story itself: it’s how the player interacts with that story. You could have a game that has the greatest story, but if all you’re allowed to do is fight a few random encounters, what’s the point? Go watch a movie or read a book, if that’s all you want. There are plenty of games that tell very good stories in very interesting ways, but they’re not packaged as neatly as a movie, because they’re not the same medium.
Play Ico. That is the first purely videogame story that I’ve seen (that I remember, at least). If you cannot enjoy that story, then you’re looking at the wrong medium.
