Pretension +1: The Gameplay Fallacy
Posted by Gus Mastrapa at 2:46 PM Feb 05, 2010
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More than a few gamers believe they can see the Matrix. They'll tell you that gameplay is king and that that the other parts of games, such as plot, character, music and visual design, take a back seat to the mechanics of play. Strip away all this stuff and you'll find the pure game beneath -- one unfettered by art and plot.
And there a million games, everything from Nethack to Tetris, that seem to support this notion. Even bare-bones games can compel.
But I think the notion of gameplay is mirage, or at the very least it is being chased like one.
To extend the metaphor I think gameplay is more like The Force. It is inextricably linked to all parts of a game. It surrounds, penetrates and binds games together. And as such you can't separate gameplay from everything else.
Character design and sound
provide valuable feedback to the player. Plot and character provide
emotional hooks for the player and cut scenes affect pacing by
providing breathing room between bursts of action. Remove this outer
shell of artifice and you damage the game -- you break the gameplay.
A
film prof once told me that his biggest pet peeve among armchair film
buffs was that they'd frequently say "the lighting was bad" when they
couldn't put their finger on the particular weakness of a film. I think
there's something similar happening in games -- where the notion of
gameplay is acting as a stand in for a certain je ne sais quoi.
When gamers complained about the weaknesses of Brütal Legend last
year many cited the problem of gameplay. The story-telling sparkled and
the world was well realized but something was missing. They said the
gameplay didn't work. But when you sat down and played Brütal Legend the
mechanics all behaved as they should. The real-time strategy portions of the game
were well-balanced. Driving the Druid Plow was fun. Shredding solos and
slashing with Eddie Riggs axe all worked appropriately. The gameplay
was fine. There was something else -- something critics couldn't quite
put their finger on -- that wasn't firing on all cylinders.
That
thing we're looking for is one one of the mysterious sub-atomic
particles of videogame criticism -- the Midichlorians, if you will, of
gameplay.
Because when you're sitting in
front of your TV with a controller in your hand it doesn't matter
what's happening onscreen or what your fingers are doing. Whether
you're spinning the conversation wheel in Mass Effect 2, swapping guns in Borderlands, bashing the feathers off an angel in Bayonetta or watching a Metal Gear Solid 4 cut scene -- its all, whether you like it or not, gameplay.
It is time to get more specific.
Pretension
+1 is a weekly column by Gus Mastrapa that aims to develop the language
of games criticism through rigorous beard stroking and the slaughtering
of golden calves.
Comments
You're hitting against what humanity's trying to figure out for a long time, that is how to describe when the whole of a piece is greater than the sum of its parts. Why does this combination of functional elements make a much better experience than this other --but just as functional-- combination of elements?
Casablanca was made just like every other film of its time but somehow it became a classic. Great and terrible songs are made with the same notes. These are made with the same basic elements, but can have totally different results. Why is the Mona Lisa considered a great piece of art when really it's just a painting of a woman?
I think it's all about how they're interpreted by us humans. We're all squishy emotional and irrational beings. We can hardly predict when something will come out good or great. It's only after it's been fed through our brains as a completed work that we can judge its merits. And that's the annoying part. Not to mention the limitations of human language of being able to explain things precisely.
But it's not totally unwelcome. If it were a science to predict whether something works or not, whether something is beautiful or not, then there wouldn't be the joy of discovering something new and original. If we were able to explain precisely why something works, then why not make other things just like it? I think if we were so predictable, the life would obviously become pretty boring.
So I'll take it as a trade off. I'll gladly give away the ability to explain why something is enjoyable for the pleasure of actually enjoying it. I think that's a position that can reasonably be justified.
Posted 02/05/2010 at 05:20:23 PMPerhaps, but in an industry perpetually obsessed with technology, graphics, and "accessibility" over quality gameplay that doesn't require a frontal lobotomy to enjoy, this article feels tangential.
Posted 02/06/2010 at 06:02:56 PMI'll show you my tangenitals.
Posted 02/07/2010 at 02:08:04 AMAre you saying they have no soul?
Posted 02/08/2010 at 09:25:21 AMI want to offer a different opinion here, and I will use two games as examples. First is Tetris. Tetris is a game. Please let me know exactly what kind of plot, story, or art direction it has. It is an addictive game, if you hadn't ever played it before.
Now, let me go and look at Brutal Legend. I LOVE the storyline, and the characters. I liked elements of the minigames. Why did I trade it in? Well, I am into RTS games, and enjoy strategy (I also like a driving game). HOWEVER, I HATE rhythm games, and will tolerate them if they are in a larger game and it isn't a burden. Well, the issue for me with Brutal was that I HAD to do a rhythmn game IN THE MIDDLE of a battle. That was killer for me. So some play mechanic that was required of me, that I didn't want to do, killed the game for me. I believe Brutal went too far and likely added one gameplay style people didn't want to do. It was different for different people though.
So, gameplay, as I see it, IS a different than character, plot, etc... All these can make for a more engrossing experience, but the play part of game play, which involves play mechanics, is a different animal.
Posted 05/17/2010 at 11:34:17 AM