“OH LAWD Thats some kick ass graphics!!1one! I MUST play it” – attributed to every single Rabid Graphics Nerd out there.

“Pfffft. There’s no story in that. Shiny with no substance. Just like Paris Hilton!” -the poor sod who will only touch games with some semblance of a story

“……..Dude, can’t we just have both?” -everyone else.

Crysis blew it. Looked pretty, played fine, but story was terrible.

This is probably the most common refrain on the internet these days. The poster boy for the past 2 years on the PC was Crysis. Pretty? Very. Gameplay? Reasonable. Story……? Who’re you kidding? Most B movies had a stronger plot than that! DOOM 3 was no different. By the time I got halfway I turned on all the cheats and started using the uber super duper overpowered Big Feaking Gun (thats BFG for you uninitiated). The motivation to play, which was to follow the story, went down the drain.

While this may seem that I’m disparaging graphics in favor of story, the fact is this. Graphics ought to be put behind the story and gameplay in terms of importance. If you had an excellent story to tell, great. Put that in conjunction with some excellent gameplay, better. Add some awesome graphics to that? Awesome! Video games are like movies, except more interactive. The player has to be engaged visually and intellectually so that he can become absorbed into the game, and a shortfall in any one of those elements will help dampen the experience. My analogy is this. Compare Terminator: Salvation and Terminator 2. If you’ve watched both, Salvation was oh-so visually realistic and pretty, but suffered from a rather weak storyline. Terminator 2 had top notch story telling with what was back cutting edge effects. I fell asleep during Salvation but I enjoyed T2.

Choices you make in Mass Effect dictate what happens later in the game.

It sounds like the ideal game which will never be made, but there are games which in my experience have changed my expectations forever. There was Call of Duty 4. For 8 hours, I couldn’t help but feel like I was in the middle of a warzone, fighting a fight to save the world from sure destruction. Half-life 2. Beautiful scenery, innovative gameplay and excellent narrative. Bioshock. Scary game, deep philosophical plot. Mass Effect. Lovely graphics, cohesive and easy to grasp gameplay, gripping story. Not many games out there deliver this kind of excellence, why aren’t there more?

Like being confrontational or diplomatic in a tough situation.

However, story alone has driven many more games to greatness, Starcraft being the prime example. The graphics weren’t the best at its release in 1997, and haven’t gotten better since. However, what made up for that were unparalleled innovations in the field of strategy games, as well as an excellent story. 12 years down the line, Starcraft is known as one of the gaming legends, with the game still being played competitively around the globe.

While story and gameplay make up the most in a game, the multiplayer components are just as compelling a reason to play. The same things that make any real life sport or game so entertaining are replicated in video games. Team work, adrenaline, skillfulness. Play Left 4 Dead, or maybe even Counter Strike with a couple of your friends and you’ll quickly understand why I say this. In fact, some games are popular by virtue of their multiplayer components, such as the Battlefield series and Unreal Tournament.

Co-operation is imperative to succeed in L4D

All in all, a good game is made of a combination of good traits such as the ones described above. But most importantly in a single player experience, the story must be the driving force behind the game. Gameplay comes second, and every other trait plays a supporting role to bring the game to awesomeness!