WHAT MAKES A GREAT GAME : STORY OR GRAPHICS? EDITORIAL

[[TN] Nathan]

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http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/video_game_story_or_graphics/
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[Xal]

Great article. Story is often neglected today in both film and games. This is mostly as a result of "bottom line" thinking on the side of the distributors. They set unreasonable deadlines so they don't have to pay the devs as much as they should, they cut large portions from games due to "time constraints" and more often than not, butcher the origional concept of the game so it appeals to the "target group" ie. 12 year olds that will bug mommy and daddy to get them this super cool looking "new" doom clone. Thankfully though, adult gaming is becomming more common these days and a number devs have been targeting the more mature gamer with story rich games the likes of some of the ones you mentioned. Games have been in an evolutionary phase for the last few years with focus shifting to bells and whistles but it won't be long before the focus shifts again. The main issue I see is that these new fantabulistic game engines requre a lot more time to work with. I can make a model, texture it, rig it and get it into quake 3 in about 4 - 8 hours depending on the complexity but to make a highpoly model, low poly model, bake normal maps, texture, rig (facial rigs take time) then export to say unreal 3 engine then I am looking at about 4 - 8 days of work. Back when q3 was cutting edge story was not so hard to focus on given that the art and other aspects were far quicker to work on. But now, with pro artists being able to push a ut3 model out in the same time I would take to make one for q3, well story will soon begin to rear its head again but this time, with all the stunning visuals to accompany it, at least thats what I hope
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