Here's how this works. I shall list nine aspects, and it's simply up to you to rearrange them according to your own gusto, and list from most important to least with a terse explaination for your first and tenth choice.


Replay Value
Plot
Music
Graphics
Features
Genre
Length
Difficulty
Interactivity


Mine:

1. Replay Value - Zeal which can last for at least an entire year.
2. Features
3. Music
4. Difficulty
5. Length
6. Genre
7. Interactivity
8. Plot
9. Graphics - Has permitted me to play multiple games throughout Video Gaming history.

u went from 8 to 10 man

u went from 8 to 10 man

I am so tired. Rofl.

I'm not sure it's the best way to divide things, but here we go:

These two seem to be how the game plays, so they're equally important:

1 Features
1 Interactivity

3 Plot
4 Music

These are all about the same thing, really, and equal importance. They must be balanced - not too hard, not too easy (leaning on hard of course); not too short, not too long (leaning on long of course); replayable/not (depends on the game). In short, games are so varied, these have to be equal:

5 Replay Value
5 Length
5 Difficulty

And finally, the two most superficial ones. However, I will say that graphics style can make me enjoy a game/think more highly of it than other games. For instance, Wind Waker was just a decent game, but because of its graphical style that I enjoyed, it gets a better than decent place in my mind. But remember, that's all in style - Yoshi's Island still is one of the best games when it comes to that, and it's ancient! Genre is completley pointless and should be ignored 9/10 times.

8 Graphics
9 Genre

Hm. This is an interesting thread, but I'm not sticking to just making remarks about the top and bottom choices.

1. Interactivity - I'm assuming this refers to actual gameplay, and gameplay tops my list because without being fun to actually play, a game is worthless to me.
2. Length - Getting the most bang for my buck is important to me.
3. Graphics - With graphics being the primary sensory link to a game, they're massively important. I'm not saying that hyper-realism is a necessity though; just that a game should have an art style that suits it and makes it easy to follow the events on screen.
4. Replay value - Not much beats a 30 hour game that can be played 3-4 times in different ways, keeping it fresh.
5. Difficulty - A game that doesn't present a challenge is nothing more than an interactive storybook.
6. Music - I don't really ask for much from a game's music. Just that it effectively sets the proper mood.
7. Plot - A good narrative is always nice. Not really necessary, but nice.
8. Features - To be perfectly honest, I don't even know what this refers to, so I just listed it down here.
9. Genre - I really don't give a crap about what type of game something is. I just want it to be fun.

hmm...this could be hard. >.< i'll copy prak somewhat. i'll describe them all, after that, i'll look at what i typed, and re-order them if some stand out more after i've talked about them. this should make it easier on me when putting them in order. :p


Replay Value: some games have em, some games don't. but games that don't have them arne't neccesirily(sp?) bad and games that DO have them, aren't exactly good. this does not help in deciding whether a game is good or not. 'the sims' has like endless replay value? O_o game sucks after an hour... final fantasy 7 has like..almost NO replay value (same story..why bother?) but we all know this game owned... so to anyone who thinks this is important...not really. so i guess in that sense, this is one of the least important for me.



Plot: This means story right? Webster is being all anal and remind me how lame English can be sometimes by saying they are not one and the same. (story and plot) -_- but anyway, its the same thing as replay value, some games have it, some games don't. but how good the game is does not or cannot depend on this at all. too many diffrent types of games to assume that they must all have plots to be good. wario ware anyone? this is also not important to me.



Music: There are those games in which i never even notice it, and then those where it just stands out and makes you go "wow". and its all in the same game too! O_o like in the Legend of Zelda, when your out in the fields, its "oh nice and whatever" you quickly get over it and get bored and can't be bothered to hear it anymore either. But then you reach the boss battle where he bangs the drums and you have to hit his eye, then your like "holy crap this rulez, i wish i had this on my ipod" or whatever. (i dun own an ipod :( but you know) and then you buy the soundtrack and you realize that song is not there but the other crappy one like long long ranch is...wtf? O_o yah.

but then theres that other music feeling we get. where when you hear a certain song, you immediately remember the game and the level and everything, and realize...aw, that's where i was gonna go try to save rinoa...omg...that part just owned. ;_; but if you never played the game, and hear that song...it would mean absolutely nothing to you...does that mean the song is good...or the game is good? you see, there are so many diffrent things going on...that sometimes, music don't mean crap, in others, music is everything, and yet in others, the game MADE the music. O_o all in all though, if this encompeses at the very least sound EFFECTS and their quality, i'd totally raise this up to a very important to me. if its just music only, then...not so much. somewhere in the middle. lets call this "sound/music" so i can put it way way up in the very important to me section. :p




Graphics: welp, ever since i heard about the snes, i've been obsessed with better graphics. i would fight with friends who owned a genesis instead of an snes and tell em "nuh uh!, the snes has better graphics!" and this would go on with the n64 and the playstation and then it kinda stopped there for me. I realized i was just a nintendo fanboy defending my precious system. (even though i was totally right the whole time :D) so now i'd guess you can call me those people that talk about how "dude, it is SO not about the graphics dude! cause i'm like..not closed minded like that? yah i'm totally not a republican like that man, i'm OPEN, i'm a demo...and we like...save trees and play the atari for fun, maaan!!"

yah whatever, fuck that. i'd rather call myself a graphics whore. when i REALLY put my head into this subject, i realize i've been a graphic whore since i was 10, thats when the snes was out, and that means I've PLAYED EVERY GAME THERE EVER WAS BACK WHEN IT WAS CUTTING EDGE so to come back to me wondering "your a grahpics whore? what about super mario world" i'd be like, EXACTLY MOTHERFUCKER! ITS GRAPHICS FUCKING OWN!! i've been a gfx whore since 94, but that don't mean i don't play dem anymore! (it rhymes, lol) so anyway....lol

now that THAT is outta the way, so i don't have people pming me how "closed minded i am for playing only LATEST GRAPHICS GAMES", (which i don't, i've BEEN playing the latest graphics games, bitches!) i'd still say this is important and HAS been important to me for years! but mostly in terms of consoles. whatever the newest console is, i assume every game made for it is using the console's "power". even if it technically isn't. i'm still happy with it. maybe that makes me a console whore then. lol

i'll put this somewhere up in the top of my list because with each new console, i'm supposed to expect better, and so, i will want better.





Features:what does this mean? is it like...extra options? like unlockables, sidequests, mini-games, easter eggs things like that? if its unlockables like characters, diffrent costumes, harder difficulties, movies, and things like that...i'd definately call those extra features to the main meat already there. and those doo sound nice and i DO like em. i might place this in as an offspring of replay value. either way sounds like a good thing. they are definatley nice when they are there. but when they are not, you never really think "oh..there should have been more features" cause i just assume what i got is what i got. basically this can't determine how good a game is either like replay value and plot. but when they are there, its like a big plus. :p espeically if it emcompesese game mods. WOW, if it does, omg then wow i do love features. i mean, like half life...if its "features" would include all the mods that spawned from it...hella yes this is important. but if there were never any mods, we woudln't know what we'd be missing so you can't say.."this should have came with tfc" cause you would have never known about it. get it?

basically, its kinda basically not REALLY important to the game (especially if the game was already really good) but when these things ARE there, they just make the game more awesome i think. i don't know if they could make a crapy game "good" by being there, but i do know they make good games even more gooder. lol so.... put this somewhere up there for me i guess. lol



Genre: probably the least important of them all. i've played all genres. all have their best and their worst. I do have my own personal preferences, i know that. but i've been pleasently surprised many times by those i don't look up that often to remind me that, i should not ever stick to only my fav genres. cause you never know what you could be missing out on. and so, i cannot give this importance cause if i did, it would mean i preffer some genres over others. so this is at the bottom. probably way bottom.



Length: this could be tough. for short games, replay value can come save the day along with features to make a very short game one of the best. and then there are those that are....so damned long...a lot of the same crap....that its just....bleh! (i'm looking at you doom 3, your hella boring! its all the same!!) so i don't know how important this is to me. i guess that means its not? yah...i think that's it. its not. i mean, you never know how long it is till you play it. so unless you read reviews all the time (which i don't) you can't decide to get it or not based on this. its only till your done with the game that you'll get one of 3 possible outcomes.

1. this game was too damn long (aka: the fun element was lesser than the lenght of time it took to complete)

2. this game was way too short (aka: the fun element was greater than the length of time it took to complete)

3. this game was juuust right. (aka: the fun element was equal to the length of time it took to complete)

so basically, lenght means nothing if fun is not factored in correctly. and as we all remember from math class, fun must always = lenght. i put this pretty low if not very low on my list because this aspect of a game is very dependant on other factors.


Difficulty: you either give options for it, or not at all! what does that mean? giving options means we have choices. choices are always good. easy, medium, or hard, or hella hard, or don't try this unless your crazy hard. and then there are those games that don't offer this at all. games that don't offer thise are assumed to be set to "normal". and normal is good. so all in all, this means nothing really. unless the game is lying, and in reality, the 'no option' is really the hella hard option, and we all suffer through what we think is normal but normal is too hard, so we give up after dying a million times and we wish there was an easy setting but there isn't. ;_; that's when a game could suck. i don't know how often that happens. lol. but i would say this is somewhat least important for me. cause there's always a good strategy guide to help you out if you ever need it. :)


Interactivity: what does this mean? isn't a video game interactive by nature? we are interacting with a machine to move objects in our tv screen for fun. i'd call that hella interactive. this "aspect" is lame. if you want me to bring into question games that try to top the last game by making ENVIORMENTS more and more interactive, in which enviorment interaction is all there is. O_o (state of emergency, dead rising, or those brawler type games like ninja turtles where you just go across whatever levels kicking butt and stuff...yah...it'd be cool to pick up anything in there and smack poeple with it) in that case, hella important. :p should get better with every game imo. but....whatever. that's like a tiny almost dead if not dying genre of game. what was the name of the last "brawler" that came out? i heard it sucked! but in general, i think all games are "interactive" already. so i have no idea where to put this....




whew. that was long. that took me like an hour to type. lol. i never thought so much. :p too lazy to re-arrange. for a summary of what i think of each one, read the last sentences of each group. :p

* Replay Value
* Music
* Graphics
* Length
* Interactivity

i only care about these