Story or Gameplay?

What is more important to gamers? what the game is about or how its played?

Some players express that stories in games have a higher value than gameplay while others the opposite. Which is understandable, when we buy games we look for different things that attract us to it, just like any other product.
The game might have a multiplayer component or perhaps allow you to import saved data from previous games, whatever the feature is, some people will be interested others will not.

Super Mario Brothers: Something so simple and yet so fun, with no real story to drive its gameplay.

The difference however, is that games are not about story or graphics like many believe (and which do count) it is about gameplay, it is the foundation of any game if it doesn't work, no pretty graphics or gripping story is going to save it even if you put yourself through it.
Sometimes both story and gameplay meld together perfectly and make for a truly unique game that offers something for everyone, but for the most part you either have a solid story or gameplay.

BioShock: A good example of gameplay and story mixing together well.

The reason why gameplay is more important than any other feature in a game is that no matter how it looks or sounds, the gameplay will keep you focused in what you need to do and what buttons to press. If Im going to be playing a game where 75% of it is about cut scenes where the only button I press is the one to the next scene or dialogue, Im not interested at all even if people rate the story highly.

In the 80s and early 90s, story was for the most part abscent from games, very few games had a deep or complex story and most of it was exposed to the player in the game's manual, the introduction to the game or its ending. At that time, people just wanted to play the game, beat a certain boss or pop in more coins to continue playing. With the growth of the video game industry there came new changes and new demands from players, one of which was better stories. Most people just couldn't get into games anymore without a driving force to make them, for some that drive is a story.

Final Fight: Where is my story? here is your story, beat the crap out of everyone!

I guess in our quest for more, we expect video games to do "the next thing" and perhaps in many gamer's opinion that thing is story. While I think there is nothing wrong with that I still think their looking in the wrong place. Like I mentioned previously you can have solid gameplay with an intriguing story, but games are about play, this is why Chess has remained a popular activity for hundreds of years, the only thing that matters its how its played, the strategies and the rules.

Chess: The epic story of the black and white empires at war, without the use of narrative.

Perhaps at the end of the day, why so many people say story is so important is because they enjoy playing games and want to have a solid story to keep them interested while doing so.
Can games tell compelling stories like books? yes they can, Mass Effect as an example was a fully realized world with interesting characters with their own motives and backgrounds which made the player feel part of that world, sharing the journey with them. But often, these games fall into very cliché plots.

Mass Effect: Immersible game, boring plot.

Which is why if your going to be playing a game, don't expect a great story, expect a great gameplay experience.

Character Creation

Video Games allow us to take on the persona of a hero, a villain or perhaps a normal day character whose life becomes an interesting adventure.

Character creation in games is something relatively new, as very few games in the past let you build your own character with different attributes and looks. I remember the first game I played that had this feature, it was a WWF game for the Nintendo 64 back in the late 90s, since then, character creation has become one of my favorite features in games.

I can dip myself into this for hours, building different characters that may hint at my real life persona or to other fictional characters I love. Perhaps I feel powerful as the master of my virtual body when I do this, being able to manipulate my body attributes, hairstyle, gender, clothing and even voice and movement something we obviously can't do in real life, to some extent...

Of course, character creation isn't possible in every game, since some require a pre-defined character or cast that will lead the story, but that doesn't mean we can't shape how this character might look.

Take Mass Effect for example. You take the role of a human commander known as Shephard, who has an already established set of options with which players can mold his or her personality, but on top of that you can also shape his or her facial structure, and yes, Shephard can even be male or female.

Commander Shephard from Mass Effect

Although character creation appeared in games in the past, you had a very limited role into their customization, you could give them names or edit their stats to accommodate the character more to a certain role or job like in RPGs. In the Diablo series for example, you could choose a gender specific class and give them a name, edit their stats and choose how they would look by the armor and weapons they would carry. While limited, it let you customize your hero to a certain extent.

Diablo 2: Playfield (left) and Character Inventory (right)

In the upcoming Diablo 3, Blizzard Entertainment has taken note of a growing market and audience and given their classes the ability to be played as either male or female, thus, taking away the gender specific classes of the past.

It wasn't until the introduction of 3D graphics to games, that we began to see the potential in character and world building. Now, we can basically sculpt our avatars from top to bottom, this has progressively gotten better and much more complex as technology and graphics continue to improve and reach higher levels of reality.

Although it met a quick demise, All Points Bulletin or APB had one of the best and most impressive character creation tools on the market, letting you control much more than just body features but also clothing, vehicles and body tattoos. Many other MMOs allow the player to customize their own avatar, some with more variety others with less, but the important thing is that its there.

APB's Character Customization

I wish more games allowed players to customize their in-game characters, particularly (military) shooters as well as a better implementation of your custom avatar in story driven games. Saints Row 2 is perhaps one of the best in doing so even if the story is a bit over the top, it still lets your custom gang boss to talk in cut scenes with their own voice most games do not follow this and have mute heroes. Interesting to note, BioWare's other RPG Dragon Age: Origins also includes a character customization feature but unlike Mass Effect, your character is mute and thus the voice you choose for him or her is only used for combat sequences, not story dialogue.

Saints Row 2: Not your usual video game heroine, but hey, thats the beauty of customization.

Will we one day be able to customize our real life body to how we want like in video games? perhaps not as much and without a high price, until then, we can continue to enjoy building our little puppets how we see fit.