This thread just tickles the f*ck out of me....
But I'm feeling a little piss and vinegar myself tonight, so I'll chip in my thoughts
:
If it were all about graphics, we'd have no game at all - just some really b!tchin' screenshots every now and then and we could all go down to the art house to drink lattes and admire the Silent Hunter series' "blue period." On the other hand, if it were only about gameplay, we'd have a top-down view with shorelines represented by # and the boat represented by a U and surface targets are < or > or whatever. We'd drive with AWSZ and it'd run like the wind on a PC Jr.
John said earlier that the game is marketed to the masses and that's the truth. Not trying to put words in his mouth, but because I believe what he says is true, I think "better" graphics is sort of a necessary evil. Maybe it's just the D&D geek in me, but I will always prefer that devs concentrate on gameplay over graphics - but gameplay is not as "quantifiable" for devs as graphic improvements - and therefore (IMO) it's much harder as well as less palatable. I don't want to say it's easier, but eye candy is more predictable and it's eye candy that sells, unfortunately. It's a shorter route to money than are creativity and imagination. Graphics alone does not a Tolkien classlic make. I'm not to be belligerent in expressing that sentiment, it's just something I believe to be a fact of life.
This is why there are beautiful games that suck. Just royally suck. Two of which are (or "were" - and please note - this is just my opinion and I'm sure people will disagree with it) Sea Dogs and B-17 Mighty Eighth. And I may eat these words, but right now I doubt if I will ever buy a single World War II shooter (or any shooter, for that matter) again. Sick of it. Same worn out storyline (and a dumbass one at that - 1 man vs. the entire freakin' German army or else a whole lot of multiplayers having a fragfest) over and over and over only this time with the latest chipsets and - this is my favorite - "cutting edge, blazing fast, smack yo' mama AA and AF!" Yeah, well. Big f*ckin' deal. The problem with graphics that are so finger licking good is that improvements in that area are so incredibly fleeting. They only get a "w00t!" for a few weeks or months, and then the entire industry has moved on to even bigger and badder and better. "Cutting edge" status has the lifespan of a fruit fly.
And yet I wouldn't ever want to return to the days of text adventures, but I think the memory of them and the fun they were is why some "older" gamers
do tend to prefer gameplay and criticize eye-candy - because for cryin' out loud they can remember when graphics were minimal or non-existent. The game HAD to be a gameplay success and you had to see it in your head. "You enter a clearing. The path continues north with a fork to the left (SW). You hear around you the sound of the wind in the pine trees." Playing those games was an entirely imaginative process. LOL, now skip ahead to the early 90s and
Myst....
Anyhow, rambling around to my point: the only
truly good games (or sims - jeez, whatever you want to call 'em) are the ones that have
replayability. What we as a fan community should be doing - IMHO - instead of wasting breath on an argument that will go on forever, is keeping after devs to produce games with REplayability, through both quality visual appearance AND gameplay. Without graphics, nothing sells. Without story, we're just a market buying recycled shlock all the time.
Alright - that's 'nuff from me.