Interesting topic... gives me something to post that I've been thinking about.
I don't believe a game has to be "fun" in order to be played. When I played MegaMan Legends, I was just completely reeled into it. However, it never seemed "fun". I think that it simply did a perfect job in creating a whole world unto itself. The graphics weren't great (some of it was pretty ugly). However, the game had a style that was completely consistant. I don't remember one thing that was out of place in that game. As I sit now, I think I know what it was that I liked about it. It stayed fresh after its initial opening. Now I understand. This game was just like Final Fantasy 1. Every single minute of those games was packed with something new, something fresh. Just when you thought the game was getting old, BOOM. A new weapon. Just when you got tired of lurking in dungeons dungeons... BOOM. A minigame (in MM:L, that is). This wasn't like other games where you played for 60 hours and wasted a bunch of time just "exploring stuff" or whathaveyou. There was a purpose to every moment in that game, and it was not taken for granted.
So, I like consistancy. If you have a game in space set in a galaxy far far away, I don't want to see a city with a cliche 1950's atmosphere with cars with big fins and diners all around (a la Episode 2: Attack of the Clones). That effectively takes away from the original purpose of creating a separate and unique world... and creativity in general. If you want to relate something in the real world to the game, fine, relate a current issue of some sort.
Detail. Doesn't necessarily have to be a graphical detail, just simply a conceptual one. For instance, the background for Space War! could have just been a bunch of pixels for stars. No. That was not good enough. The developer actually wrote a design that was an EXACT map of part of the sky which was not limited to a single screen - it could scroll left and right and still show an exact map (and included intensities of light as well). That's a step beyond right there.
Originality. Just think the very first time the 3/4 view was used, and what a great leap that was... opening up a whole new genre of games.
Effort. When a programmer does something that was thought to be over the boundary of limitations set by a game console. For instance, play the game: Crash n' the Boys: Street Challenge. Play the "swimming" event. Play it once. Then look how it was done. The NES can't really scroll forward or backward like an FPS, nor can it scale forward or backward (like in Super Spy), so the programmer had to think of a way to do that. The background was split into 3 sections. The bottom was the foreground, the middle section was the midground, and the top was the background. Each section was drawn in proportion. So, when the background picture moved down and towards the middle one incriment, it looked like it was MOVING AWAY! I still don't really understand how your characters could move between each of the 3 sections seemlessly. And that brings me to the next thing:
Deception. If a programmer can make me believe something has been done when it really wasn't, kudos to them. The best example I can think of (which may not be a good one since, more than likely, nobody knows what I'm talking about) is the very begging of the Ice Isle level for SegaSonic. There's a part where Sonic is floating down an icy river. Then, he goes under some ice covering the river and pops back out the other side. I always said "man, that's a cool transparency when he goes under the ice". Then I realized, wait... that's not a transparency. It was drawn that way. Furthermore, he didn't go "under" the ice as this game is completely 2D! That just blew me away. Even when I show this to friends and say "what just happened there?" and they say, "sonic went under the ice", they are amazed or at least have some great form of appreciation when I say "No, no. Think about this...". That's a really cool feeling.
Edit: I suppose there are different types of games. Some are just simply meant to be "fun". However, I believe that if the greatest criteria for a game were that it was fun, then the first games we had would have probably just been rehashes of board and card games we play. I think things like controls and such are simply gimmes... things that should be without question.
<small>[ February 12, 2003, 04:50 AM: Message edited by: ForeverSublime ]</small>
