Gameplay Vs. Graphics

The other day I went up to a couple of my friends’ dorm room. They were playing Fallout 3. I decided to bring up my laptop and play some Ancient Domains of Mystery.

Not many people have heard of ADoM and neither had they. I explained to them that it is a very old, awesome game with an ASCII text graphics interface (i.e. your avatar is that “@” symbol and that “g” is a goblin and that “N” is a bear and so on). It is one of the most in depth games I have ever played in my life, and to this day I have never beaten it. I would even go so far as to say the depth of this game is equivalent to Oblivion.  It is such a hardcore rouge like that if you die your save game is deleted and you always have to start over.

My friends simply scoffed at me and said that “graphics make a game worth playing.”

Then I said “I think solid game play makes a game great.”

Then they said “The only games that have good game play are games with good graphics.”

To an extent, I agree with them. But part of the draw of ADoM is the fact that you do not see a whole lot of ASCII games out there nowadays. Everybody and their dog can make a game with realistic animation and awesome cinematic cut scenes, but this is the norm. The draw of the Zelda game Windwaker was not a new story or new game play, it was cell shading that helped to sell that game even though it had basically the same story and the same game play as all the other Zelda games (sorry fanboys).

Nobody really cared about the horrible graphics on the original Guitar Hero because they were all too busy playing the game rather than worrying if they playing a cool looking game. This is what games should do to you. The game play needs to be so original that you can look past the lousy graphics and focus on having a good time. Guitar hero also taught us that simply playing a game does not constitute being good at it. Anyone can play through Oblivion and beat it. Likewise a lot of people can beat guitar hero, but can you beat someone else who has also beaten guitar hero? These are the wonders of original game play.

And there are still more awesome games with crappy graphics also. I still play Goldeneye for the N64 and to today’s standards the graphics are horrible, but the quality game play is still there.

Let’s face it. Graphics are great today. We are not going to see a game with bad graphics ever again. HD and Blu-Ray prevent bad graphics from existing ever again, and developers have seen this and are focusing more on game play, thank goodness. As I stated before with Fallout three my friends were playing it for the graphics, but I play it for the game play. The graphics are on par with everyone else, but it was the game play that keeps me playing that game as well as ADoM.