A friend of mine asked me this question when I bought a 2nd hand PlayStation 1 console. “Don’t you find the graphics of the PS1 dated?” as he was curious how I could have spent money on a machine that doesn’t produce good graphics.
Well, yeah. I do agree with him totally about the absolute ugliness of the graphics that the PS1 can produce. I mean, when I see the textures in Metal Gear Solid “popping” and “swishing” around like no tomorrow in absense-of-perspective-correction-heaven, I wanted to puke my lunch out!
But after the in-game credits have disappeared, and you’re sneaking around in full 3D environment playing the cool-ass Solid Snake character, you don’t even care about “popping” textures anymore. The game draws you into the game world and the game character that you ignore the other unimportant shortcomings. That is the mark of a good game.
Graphic capabilities are an important consideration, no doubt about that. Graphics are the immediate link that connects the player to the game world, but not the only link. Music, sound and controls play equal importance in the role as links to connect the player to the game. The player uses the controls to manipulate the world, and the effects are comunicated back to the player through music, sound and graphics. Having good quality “connections” will definitely improve the game playing experience for the player.
But “gameplay” is the true meat of any game. Gameplay is about the set of possible situations that the player can affect in the game world. It’s about the methods the player can use to affect the game world, and also, it’s about the results that the player can see happening due to the player’s interaction in the game world.
It is the thing that makes sense of why the player is actually trying to kill this highly-textured, high-polygon, motion-captured, bump-mapped monster, and why the player needs to hide under the cool refraction-mapped, reflection-mapped water surface.
What is the reason Solid Snake knocks out some guards, hangs over the ledge and shimmies across to the other side in Metal Gear Solid 2? In order to see the real-time cloth animation on his bandana? When that novelty has passed, what is the thing that will make the player continue the game? Gameplay.
Yup, so why did I buy the PS1 console? I didn’t buy it for the graphics, that’s for sure, I bought it for the games. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was the game that made me plonk down money for the console. Is it so difficult to realise that the gameplay provided by the game is a more important consideration than its graphics?
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