Better graphics or better gameplay?

I voted help me decide, because I believe in equal distribution of poll percentages.

if gameplay is crap,graphics are useless.let's say Battlefield 3 had terrible graphics,like regular Xbox graphics (i guess that's what kids would call terrible nowadays),but it had the best story ever.like it won a movie award for having the best story ever invented.like a story that trumps all twilights or hunger Games or Titanics or whatever.and the Gameplay and controls are so good,you lift up your hand in real life and say "these controls are lagging".and then there's Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 3 with graphics that make you look outside your bedroom window and say "these graphics suck" BUT there is no story whatsoever,there's only two guns,a spitball machinegun,and a waterballon cannon,no airstrikes,attack dogs,blah blah,no online,one mode (campaign-in-the-a$$),no high-tech voice control,no headset interactivity,ONE level,enemies that glitch from 3 miles away to in-your-face-stabbing-you,a helicopter you're supposed to jump in that won't let you,partners that keep throwing grenades at you,"follow" signs that get snagged in tree branches (lol),lagging controls,no crosshairs,ADS transitions that take three minutes to load,you can't look up or down only straight ahead and sideways,realistic sweat from the graphic engine struggling too hard gets caught in your characters eye and you're blinding every few seconds or so,realistic dust blinds your character some more.Flashbang glitches the screen so you have to turn the TV off then back on to clear your vision,Camping AI that stay around the hallway you have to go through,not to mention AI that auto-regenerate once you kill the one before,you can't pick up guns so when you run out of ammo,you just can't fight,let's see what else....oh yeah and 3 hour loading times that say "loading finished" then wait another 3 hours,...yeah.i'd rather play Superman 64 than that.seriously.

I voted help me decide, because I believe in equal distribution of poll percentages.

RandomWinner

this is a really dumb question........ poorly worded at least. i mean obviously its not a good GAME without GAMEplay. But that doesnt make graphics not important. Graphics (using the term broadly here) are incredibly important to making a game usable and giving the gameplay weight and meaning, You cannot underestimate the importantce of visual feed back to gameplay. i feal like people always separate these to things when really they are tied together pretty closely. Obviously if we are talking texture resolution or the number of shaders that is less important. but generally, i would say "Graphics" are very important to the gameplay (depends on genre obviously)

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

[QUOTE="vtoshkatur"]

Get a PC and you can have both superior gameplay and graphics ;)

vtoshkatur

I do have a PC. I also know about it's strenghts and weaknesses and aren't afraid to expose them ;)

What weaknesses?

Some people are too dumb to install games on a pc, that apparently is a weakness of PC lol :lol:

Thats like saying a ferrari is rubbish coz you cant drive it..

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

I still insist that Half-life is a great game even today, regardless of the graphics. While Metro 2033 is a forgettable experience.

GOGOGOGURT

I second this.

[QUOTE="Jag85"]

My point still stands: Comparing modern games to an old 2D Atari game is highly misleading since 2D and 3D games offer very different experiences. It would have made far more sense to post the primitive graphics of an early 3D game instead, in which case the quality of graphics wouldn't affect the experience much.

Cherokee_Jack

It would.

I'll use a 3D example if you like.

Metro 2033. Fantastic atmosphere, largely thanks to its graphical fidelity.

Now take those graphics and replace them with those of, say, Half-Life.

Still fun? Probably. Could still be somewhat atmospheric, even. But is the overall experience downgraded? Absolutely.

Silent Hill (PSone, 1999)

In this case, the primitive graphics (much worse than Half-Life, or any of the arcade or Dreamcast games of that era) actually enhances the atmosphere and overall experience of Silent Hill. The unattractive 32-bit graphics and limited draw distance actually made the atmostphere more creepy than it would have been with cleaner, higher-quality graphics. Survival horror is a genre that actually benefited from primitive graphics back in the day. It's no coincidence that as graphical technology has improved over the past decade, the survival horror genre has been in decline ever since. One of the main reasons for that is because today it's a lot more difficult to create an effective survival horror experience with clean modern graphics than it was with dirty primitive graphics.

In addition, it's worth noting that the soundtrack and sound effects are more important than graphics when it comes to atmosphere. Unfortunately, while the gaming industry has been obsessed with upgrading graphics, sound quality is one area that video games have barely improved on since the late 80s, since the release of the PC Engine CD / TurboGrafx-CD in 1988.

I play mostly handhelds and previous gen games. I think that's enough to tell you my opinion on the matter.

It's so sad.

It's always one or the other with consolites.

They have been deprived of graphics for so long, thery really do think they can't have one without the other.

Kinthalis

Started with sheep actually, for obvious reasons.

Some graphics age well, others don't.

HL2 still looks good for example.