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Does anyone else prefer “Story” over “Gameplay”?

Q

QuickSilverD

Member
We play Video Games, and from what I normally see gamers discuss (at least the kind in internet forums) prefer gameplay over anything else in a game, is not like the derogatory term Graphics Whore came from nowhere, I mean who would put an immersion tool (graphics) on par or even above what games are truly about: the gameplay, after all, without gameplay can you really say you have a game? And I think is telling that there is not such a thing as a Mechanics Whore, a negative term for someone who cares too fucking much about the game mechanics of video games.

But games are an entertainment medium, and just like movies, books, music and tales and just like those other mediums games today are use as a tool to tell stories. It is true that some games are pure gameplay without story (mostly older games), but no one can deny that the vast mayority of games today try to tell one story or another.

Personally I find myself in the camp of people that prefer a good story above all else, if a game has an interesting story to tell I can withstand its awful mechanics. I'm the kind of person who buys Virtue's Last Rewards and then uses a guide so he doesn't have to deal with solving the puzzles (I'm not saying they are bad, but I just don't enjoy solving puzzles) or buy Persona 3: FES and P3P just because they had different story elements.

I believe part of the reason for the stigma is that we do not consider game stories to be “on the level” yet, I think it was Carmack who said “Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. There but not needed” basically everyone agrees that games just have shit stories, but I'm not sure that is true, I mentioned Virtue's Last Reward before and (IMO) that game's plot is just as good as any anime or series, and as convoluted as Metal Gear plots then to be, at least (I personally) find them very entertaining.

To me, the story element is so important that I will have trouble enjoying a game if its story/setting/world cannot drag me in. whenever that is delivered with the masterful atmospheric of Dark/Demon's Souls or the long cutscenes in MGS or VLR.

To finish here, and it seems I've written a lot and said very little, is well... how about you.

Do you prefer a bad game with good story or a good game with bad story?
obviously we all would prefect a good game with good story, but humor me here
 
I've come to the realization that I really don't find story that interesting (at the moment). About half-way through Tales of Xillia I just said, "fuck it" and started skipping all dialogue.

Couldn't tell you what really happened, I kind of have a rough idea though.
 
Never. I'm the exact opposite. I won't play a game with a great story and shit gameplay. Ill just read about the story in a post/synopsis/lets play video later.

No reason to torture myself with playing through a game if the gameplay isn't decent.
 
I have trouble playing games with no narrative even when I know, mechanically, that they are good. I don't know why.
 
My answer is the same as in every other story vs. gameplay thread: Mechanics pull me in more than a story but story in most games doesn't exist without the gameplay so it's a pointless distinction.
 
It really depends on how good the story is and how bad the gameplay. For an example Metal Gear Solid (1) is one of my top games ever and it doesn't have that good a gameplay due to the top-down camera sometimes really making things annoying.

On the other hand I recently 98%'ed (I got bored getting the last 2%) Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and it has one of the worst stories I have ever witnessed. I enjoyed the game play so much that I just collected everything and fought pirate hunters. I only ever advanced in the story when I had to.
 
Define "story" and "gameplay". Because honestly they can both work at the same time. It's not either or.
 
I really appreciate a good story if it's told well. I'm not reading pages upon pages of text or watching hours of cutscenes because the developers can't think of a less intrusive way to tell the story. Unless the game's a visual novel or whatever the hell you want to call HR/TWD.
 
Gameplay mechanics will keep me playing the game even with a bad story.

Good story with bad gameplay won't do the same.

That's pretty much all it comes down to for me. Gameplay over story no matter what.
 
Like everything else with games, it entirely depends on what the game is trying to achieve. If it's a heavily narrative-based game, then story will be the most important factor for me, and I'll forgive some mediocre gameplay. (See VLR). On the other hand, if the narrative is deemphasised or not taken seriously but the game plays great then I simply don't give a shit about the story. (Good example: Just Cause 2)

The vast, vast majority of narrative games I play (and I believe the vast majority of those that are released) use story mainly as a context for fun gameplay, so in 90%+ of the games I play gameplay is far, far more important than story. The likes of Phoenix Wright or 999 are few and far between.
 
Actually, I do. I can get through a game with a very good story but little or bad gameplay, especially if its the RPG genre. Story is less important for me outside of the RPG genre, wherein gameplay increases in importance, but if a game's got a great story all the better. This is all due to the fact that I am an avid reader and have always had a preference for the RPG genre because of its focus on story (especially console style RPGs).
 
I play games with shit story all the time and enjoy them a lot. I don't really play games with offensively bad gameplay and good story. So yeah gameplay is more important to me. But I like games with good story as long as they have serviceable gameplay, I played through the first two The Witcher games and very much enjoyed them.
 
I really don't see how people could. While some games have decent stories, they are still primitive compared to what we get in movies, tv, and novels. Why not just enjoy those instead?
 
Nope. Like I said in another thread about this subject I'm here to have fun, and for me the fun is from the gameplay, not story.
 
Nope. I don't care if a game has the greatest story ever written, if it doesn't have gameplay that I enjoy then I won't like it.

I also find it odd when people say they can't get into a game because of its story, but different strokes for different folks.
 
If they have a shit story I can ignore and trudge through.

If they have shit mechanics I give up.

Thoguh I place Story+characters at an equal level to gameplay, bad gameplay is intolerable.
 
Sometimes the game mechanics are the story. I might be making a vehicle in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts or solving a puzzle in Crashmo, but I don't need the presentation to tell me what sequence of feelings I'm going through. Maybe you prefer to define story the same way you define plot, but story to me is more than what's pre-scripted—in that sense, games allow more for player imprinting than any other medium. Mechanics by their nature can be understood and enjoyed universally in much this way, and learning how best to play and make the most of one's skill is a story in its own right. This definitely leads to a preference for certain game themes over others (what I'm describing justifies the basis for bullet-hell shooting games), but movies can tell melodramas better than any game, even supposing that games contain movies (though making a game to host a movie wastes the game component).
 
Gameplay is the only that separates games from other mediums. Otherwise what's the point?

If you say: what about telling a story in a game you couldn't possibly tell in a movie? Well that's because it's interactive. It's gameplay.
 
>Do you prefer a bad game with good story or a good game with bad story?
Bad story with good gameplay keeps me playing, the opposite doesn't.

It depends what I am expecting out of the game really, If I am playing a beat'em up of course I prefer gameplay over story.
 
Honestly, the presentation of a story is a lot more important than the actual plot when it comes to games.

This is the reason why games like Uncharted, TLoU, Half-Life Portal, Bioshock, etc get so much praise.
 
I prefer story overall. When I play games with stories, and the story doesn't advance in several hours to allow for more gameplay, I tend to start getting bored (not always though).
 
Obviously, I like both to be good, but I've slogged my way through many a game to follow a story to its completion even if I wasn't enjoying the gameplay. By comparison, games that are all about chasing scores or throwing you into the same gameplay loop over and over, no matter how slick and refined, don't hold my interest. Video games can be many things to many people, but to me, I enjoy them most when they're telling a good story in their own unique way. There's nothing wrong with that, and anyone who disparages you for feeling that way is intensely narrow minded.
 
These questions annoy me, because it is very myopic to focus on "story" instead of atmosphere, or perhaps aesthetics, as a whole. It totally changes what it means for a game to have a "good story" if the story is in service of something; one clog in the machine, no more important than music, visuals, etc. Most discussions, which are often nothing more than people patting themselves on the back for calling Call of Duty dumb in a controversial tone, really seem to be lost from the start. That's not even getting into how poorly defined story is (nearly as poorly defined as gameplay, though I can at least guess that "gameplay" is the mechanical counterpart to aesthetics rather than story, that is, as much as those two things can be separated cleanly), which often is a random mishmash of dialogue, acting, plot, and cutscene/film presentation all while trying to look at games as if you flatted them and turned them into movies. Like someone will post FFX's crow-laugh scene in critique of the story, as if that's a critique of the plot.

In short, I don't think people are capable of criticizing even Call of Duty's "story" until they understand videogames better, but everyone has an opinion on the world's most popular FPS and everything else, so w/e.
 
I imagine that for myself, I can get more enjoyment out of a game with good gameplay and bad story, opposed to a game that has bad gameplay and a good story. I play games for gameplay and mechanics mainly. If I want a good story, most of the time I resort to some other medium like a novel or something.
 
Its not that cut and dry for me.

I don't really prefer one over the other, because in most cases (unless its multiplayer/competative) I don't see the point of a game if it doesn't have at the very least decent gameplay, a palpable story, interesting music, good characters, and a worthwhile setting, etc.

There are just too many games out there to not expect more from all aspects of a game.
 
As expected it looks like I'm in the minority.

jgmo870 said:
Yeah, that's why there's so much fervor about Gran Turismo and Demon's Souls.
Click to expand...
To fair though Demon's does have a lot of atmosphere and while it doesn't beat you over the head with cutscenes there is certainly a deep story in the background, but you do have to look for it
 
Depends. If the story is b level, 80s style of terrible, I will probably pass it up. Unless gameplay is out of this world.

We should be getting to the point where stories are getting better. Come on now...
 
Nope. Couldn't name a single game where my sole purpose for playing it was to experience a story or where the story was worth forcing myself through bad gameplay. When a story is the number one thing I seek, I don't go to video games.

EDIT: I lied. I played through various Telltale and Quantic Dream games. But the story IS the game in those cases so technically they count.
 
I think a good story can make up for weak gameplay and good gameplay can make up for a weak story. It's just great when it has both though.
 
Gameplay above story. I haven't played a game yet with a story good enough to justify it on that alone. If all I wanted a good story I'd read a book. I play games to play.
 
Bad writing won't necessarily make a game bad if it's fun to play still... A good story won't however fix a game that plays terribly.
 
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