Thread: What Makes a Game Good?

Story? Environment? The diversity of gameplay elements? Realism? Creativity? Audio? Level Design? Character Development? Graphics? Hype? Uniqueness? A Challenge? Shooting the shiz nit out of everything you see?

There are so many factors that so in to making a good game, but what factor do you guys think is the most important and that should be focused on before anything else?

I would love some examples as well.

Personally I think the variety in gameplay is the most important. Something I think Bioshock and Hitman do it very well.



Hitman Blood Money being one of my favorite games solely because of the shear scope of what you can accomplish and how there such a variety of ways you can go about accomplishing your goals.

Anyone?

Well, there's the obvious, Graphics, Audio and Gameplay. Something that many of the best games have is a good reward system. RPG's excel at this, I've spent ages hacking my way through a repetitive dungeon just to get at some new piece of loot that is a few stats better than what I've already got. Also some games reward you for straying slightly off the beaten path, and you get rewards like ammo, health etc. It could just be a sense of progression, like with most FPS's, the next level offers new environments, stronger enemies, better weapons etc. But yeah, a good game needs to constantly tap into that part of our brain that loves rewards, however it doles them out.

Im an RTS player, mainly starcraft so what ill say most ppl will not agree with. The most important things IMHO are:
*Easy to learn and hard to master - very simple rules that can be learnt within a week, but deep strategies that take years become good at
*Be competitive - this means it has depth its strategies, like chess for example so it can be played at tournaments for years and still has smth new to discover in the multiplayer strategies
*Diverse - every race/fraction should play out completely differently as if you're playing a different game, not just the same units with different skin and changed stats
*Balanced - though every fraction plays differently none should be overpowered, and there shouldnt be one ultimately winning strategy and whomever executes it first wins
*Not cluttery graphics - the graphics shouldnt cloud the screen with flashy effects so you cant see what is happening. 2D graphics is excellent for RTS games

The only game has ever been mada that has all of the above is Starcraft IMO, and Warcraft 3 to a large extend (not DoTA lol)

replay and online gameplay are a must

I'm probably one of the new people that doesn't care to much about online these days. I love CoD4 online and I've spent countless...and I mean countless hours playing it online but it would still bea great game without it.

Japanese RPGs are the perfect example of this. Of course the majority of people outside of Japan probably couldn't give a shit about these games but the stories that come out of that country are pretty out there and interesting.

graphics , real audio and the best is the gameplay bcause graphics whithout gameplay = never i'll play this game

I somehow finds my self playing crappy games just because they have a good story, i mostly play games for the story. So i find the story as the most important thing in a game, and the gameplay comes in second. As Simonsays said Bioshock has good gameplay, but whats make Bioshock so good is the story.

Nice new gameplay , good story with beautiful graphics make agood game

In my Opinion indeed :)

graphics , real audio and the best is the gameplay bcause graphics whithout gameplay = never i'll play this game

.....................