[General Discussion] Question: What makes a game fun for you?

Intuitive controls and levels/events made by intuitive developers.

Mostly this means action/combat/chase/whatever sequences that have a degree of challenge that doesn't completely insult my skills, but at the same time are fluid and playable enough that I can get them right in a few tries without RSI and/or hair loss. Frustration is an instant buzz-kill.

It's essentially the difference between Zone of the Enders and Armored Core. I know I'm going to be grilled by the AC fans for this, but I found ZoE to be more immediately playable and fluid, with AC's controls too exacting and clunky. I know there are enthusiasts for such things, and AC is doubtlessly a better mech-combat "simulator," but I much preferred getting in my 'mech and immediately opening up the can of whoopass with a few well-timed button presses than learning targeting, weapon switching, lock-on, lateral motion...

A more extreme comparison but also indicative of what "does it for me" (lol Spaceballs) would be ZoE vs. Virtual On. Those who've played VO know what I'm talking about. ...Correction, those who've tried to play VO with the Dreamcast controller know what I'm talking about.

The other bit I mentioned, intuitive action scenes, are the kind you see in games like Haven: Call of the King or (maybe to a lesser extent, due to the Simon thing) Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit. There's a lot going on, or the sense of dramatic tension is high, but the game doesn't saddle you with 10,000-button sequences to memorize and perform with a margin of error less than 1/10 of a second. Interactive enough to keep you engaged, but forgiving enough that you can take screwing up a few times without wanting to throw your hands up in defeat.

Oh, and don't cheat. "Accidentally forgetting" that I pressed the goddamn jump/block/attack button just as the zombie is about to rip my throat out is a surefire way to get your game put back in the box, on the shelf, and covered with a layer of dust 2 inches thick. Not to mention losing all potential future sales from me.

Finally, gameplay mechanics aside, have a good soundtrack. Again, Haven:Call of the King is a great example. For one of those "the game nobody ever played" titles, it has one of the best soundtracks of its generation. Sure, it's no epic masterpiece like Shadow of the Colossus, but it was refreshing, upbeat, and fun. Other examples...let's see... Castlevania needs no introduction to VGM fans, but it's pretty mainstream as VGM goes anyway. Xenosaga, Parasite Eve, Nocturne, and Valkyrie Profile are also all among games I'm willing to play for their music alone. Incidentally, they also all (mostly, XSII is the exception in the gameplay dep't) implement the elements I mentioned previously: fluid gameplay that engages the player without punishing him/her for minor slip-ups.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Another thing that I recently thought of is intelligent translation/dialogue/VO. I frequently play games around people who did not grow up with them but yet like to stand right in the next room and comment on the games I'm playing. I guess this is really a situational thing, but I prefer when games don't give them ammo to say how badly-made a game is (and of course subsequently apply that statement as a blanket stereotype to all video games).

Examples: Some dialogue in Xenosaga and Shadow Hearts 2/3. The "you're like me, bound by that protocol" part in the beginning of XS1 comes to mind. There's something about that whole exchange, among many others in the game, that's just...awkward. The dialogue doesn't flow, and so draws attention to itself.

A counterexample would be anything in the Legacy of Kain series. This has a thing or two to do with it being a North American-developed game written by native English speakers, but also with the quality and complexity of the dialogue itself and the talent of the VO staff hired to bring the characters to life.

Even Albedo, one of the coolest antagonists to hit RPGdom in ages, whose monologue to Momo about what makes people human is among gaming's creepier moments, utterly pales in comparison to Raziel's hate-filled invective against Kain when they first meet after Raziel's transformation at the beginning of Soul Reaver.

The lines, if only read and not spoken, are similarly unsettling.

"...fusion of fire and spirit. What else can we call you but angels? However, you lack reality, and that is what I shall provide you with!"

"I am your creation, Kain - now, as before. You criticize your own work. What have you done with my clan, degenerate? You have no right."

However, the wording of Albedo's brief foray into existential philosophy sounds just a mite too technical and stale to effectively convey the flavor of histrionics that I believe they intended to be bubbling beneath his placid exterior. Contrasted with Raziel, he comes nowhere near the level of emotion that the LoK writers were able to evoke from their characters and voice talent. The end result is that Raziel speaks, acts, and otherwise emotes in a much more natural fashion than Albedo. His gestures, vocal inflection, and pacing are more fluid, less mechanical and forced, than Albedo's; as such he comes off looking and sounding far more human, or perhaps real, than Albedo does.

It's an imperfect comparison, I know, but that's part of the point--a point necessitating, in whole or in part, a Japanese-to-American comparison to really be conveyed. There's something distinctly awkward about the voice-overs in a lot of modern J-RPGs and while I don't mind listening to said voice-overs when I'm playing alone, it's gotten to the point where I can almost hear my family's commentary in my head, and it detracts from the experience. Maybe not a lot, but some. Enough.

Of course, I can try to put my mind to ignoring their would-be heckling, and I know even if they don't that bad VO sometimes comes with the territory, but I have to grudgingly admit that they're right on some level, and their criticisms justified. We here at GFF are possibly, or quite probably, conditioned to accept and expect these shortcomings as we've grown up with them and are thankful to even have VO in games, remembering the bygone days of reading miles of text in (sometimes) poorly anti-aliased artsy fonts that were murder on the eyes. However, sometimes it seems like that's even used as an excuse by development houses to do cheap, unimpressive VO work or not bother to translate dialogue correctly.

Part of this is my own love for the English language shining through, of that I am certain. Were I in command of translating games, "the Japanese creators' original artistic vision" would, more often than not, wind up looking like a genetic hybrid of Frankenstein's monster and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde in favour of a smooth English-language presentation. I'm sure I'd piss off a lot of Japanophiles and teenage anime fans in the process, but it's all about gearing your product to your target audience.

I think what it all comes down to is suspension of disbelief. It's required for any reading, viewing, or playing experience to be truly immersive. When the mechanics of the presentation draw attention to themselves and interfere with the reception of that presentation, it can be very damaging to the audience's ability to suspend their disbelief and thus enjoy the experience. If game developers and/or translators were willing to stop underestimating the intelligence of their audiences and write or translate dialogue to higher than a third-grade reading level, we could see some really amazing stuff come out of game-dom in the near future.

I'm not sure what I'm really going for here; it's late and I'm trying hard not to ramble. It's just that I play something like Zone of the Enders 2, a great game by virtually all measures but one with positively atrocious dialogue, and then I'll go and watch a show like Babylon 5, and the difference is immediately apparent. Granted, not every game can have the benefit of Harlan Ellison (crazy motherfucker that he is) consulting for it but hey, Soul Reaver didn't have him and it did a fine job nonetheless.

I know Legacy of Kain is among the top 2% of well-presented stories in games. I know that there's something of an unfair advantage for NA-developed games over Japanese ones. At the same time, Legacy of Kain showed that it is possible to not only have great writing in a game and voice talent to bring it to life, but to do so repeatedly and make it better and better each time.

And so my final question would be...please, sir, can we have some more?

There's nowhere I can't reach.