The Stupidest Word in Videogames

[christian]

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/gameplay/

I am talking about the word 'gameplay', which I believe is the single most useless and misleading word in videogame terminology.

[christian]

Name a good game with "bad" gameplay - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=413705

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... stcount=21

Gears of War. Clunky, sluggish, awkward movement, especially anything close quarters. But it was fun as hell.

[christian]

By the way, that isn't just some random NeoGAF poster.

https://halo.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?cid=16770

When we envisioned the "Average Joe" series for Bungie.net, it's people like GhaleonEB that were foremost in our mind. This one-time HBO newsman, and peer-appointed, Halo-related thread curator over at NeoGaf("You're not Ghaleon!"), has made his mark on the community not only with his love of the game, but also for his clear-thinking, honest assessments of gaming at large. Chances are, if you've run into him, he's made a lasting impression on you too. He's good people.

[christian]

The Gameplay Curse - http://victorygamecenter.com/the-gameplay-curse/

[christian]

From Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

What about you, Jack? What's it going to be? Loyalty to your country, or loyalty to me? Your country, or your old mentor? The mission, or your beliefs? Your duty to your unit, or your personal feelings? You don't know the truth yet. But sooner or later you'll have to choose.

[christian]

https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/610116597517172738

Shenmue 3 leaked screenshot

CHeR0BJUcAEJt5O.jpg (30.24 KiB) Viewed 14157 times

[christian]

http://www.pocketcollege.com/beta/index ... -_RR136P28

Well, intelligence, of course, is one aspect of God’s image in man. Now, the function of intelligence in the modern world, is very much a displaced one. In the modern world, when intelligence functions, as in the academic community, the purpose of intelligence is seen as one of abstraction. In other words, you depersonalize everything. You abstract it in order to understand it, as though the reality of something were the core or the skeleton. Now, the reality of you and the reality of me is not my skeleton. It is the totality of me, and the reality of a peach is not the pit, or of an apple, the core. It’s the whole apple. Well, intelligence, when it becomes non-Christian, works to abstract, because it depersonalizes reality, and therefore, it loses most of reality. Now, under God, the purpose of intelligence is to understand and to enjoy, but to apprehend basically the whole of reality. It is not to work for an abstraction. It is not to try to reduce something to the lowest common denominator. Thus, if we, through the scientific use of intelligence, tried to come to an understanding of the group here, we would try to reduce everyone here, either to certain psychological drives or characteristics, or we would reduce everyone to male and female and the classifications, you see. We'd wind up knowing no one here. So, the function of intelligence under God cannot be to depersonalize, but to grasp the totality of reality, and the function of intelligence then becomes an aspect of our calling under God to use everything to His glory.

[christian]

Micah 4:1-3

But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nations shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

[christian]

Ezekiel 20:11-26

And I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them. Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them. But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them. But I wrought for my name's sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, in whose sight I brought them out. Yet also I lifted up my hand unto them in the wilderness, that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands; Because they despised my judgments, and walked not in my statutes, but polluted my sabbaths: for their heart went after their idols. Nevertheless mine eye spared them from destroying them, neither did I make an end of them in the wilderness.

But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols:

I am the LORD your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God. Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me: they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; they polluted my sabbaths: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness. Nevertheless I withdrew mine hand, and wrought for my name's sake, that it should not be polluted in the sight of the heathen, in whose sight I brought them forth. I lifted up mine hand unto them also in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse them through the countries; Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols. Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the LORD.

[christian]

Let Me Skip - http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/23/let-me-skip

Let me skip anything that isn’t me playing the game

I’m already a lost cause

Just do it. It’s just tradition that leads to unskippable, non-playable scenes, and that tradition means games neglect to find more integrated, interactive ways of telling their tales. If it’s not compelling enough for me to be told it even as I perform some other in-game activity, then perhaps it’s just not compelling enough at all. Let me skip, and let yourself skip too: see what your game is like when all uncontrollable frippery is skipped, and if new ways of inserting the information you really, truly think the player needs then occur to you.

By "other in-game activity" he means the "gameplay", i.e. the slicing open of enemies and the gunning down of demons, etc. In other words, the kind of storytelling he's talking about here is the kind found in games like Drag-on Dragoon 3. I.e. a bunch of people talking while you're going around tearing everything to bits. Titanfall also did the same thing with its campaign levels. And there's a strict limit to the kind of stories you can tell around the player, without necessarily involving him directly (like these examples which more or less ignore what the player is doing while chunks of story invade the edges of the screen).

And why don't you want to be involved? That's not the future. That's arcade-style storytelling. I.e. minimal storytelling. Let's look at Life is Strange for a more progressive example of interactive storytelling, where throughout the game you make decisions that directly affect the story. How can you possibly play the game if prior to each decision you skipped every cutscene? Every decision would be a roll of the die, sapped of any merit whatsoever, and the whole game collapses.

The only way forward is to realize that while you are watching a cutscene (of any length), you are still (believe it or not) actually playing the game.