30 May 2008

Evolution of Pixels
Eye candy vs. Game play

Graphics or Gameplay, an age-old debate that still has no precise answer. If you are old enough to remember the early days of the computers and video games you know there were a bunch of great games that were fun just because of the gameplay, then came a Doom game which doomed our lives forever and changed our perception of video games and graphic!

Since then there are two groups of gamers, the first group claims that gameplay is all that matters and the other supports graphics all the way.

The actual question is, what really is more important? Which side is right? Is there really a way to find what is better for just released 'Gage platform? Graphics or gameplay... can we have both?

Lets take Asphalt 3D as an example. I guess that most gamers will agree with me that the graphics suck a lot. But on the other hand, the gameplay is acceptable, and after all without acceptable gameplay, you aren't playing a game at all. Therefore gameplay is very important.

Nokia is well aware about that, and therefore have decided to force gameplay instead of graphics which is a good move for the Nokia N81 or Nokia N73 owners for example, but it is the terrible for the all OMAP 2420 (GPU is based on the PowerVR MBX 2D/3D graphics accelerator from Imagination Technology) based phones owners. Phones that are capable to process much better graphics without negative effect on the gameplay.

Few sample screenshots generated with OMAP 2420
(*Click to enlarge )

I'm not sure though, maybe Nokia is right and I am wrong. Maybe N-Gage with lower graphics is the right way. But I think that good graphics can sometimes be the only thing a person looks for in a game, and actually in lot of situations it is a major influence on their purchase. Also graphics are needed to compete with the other platforms out there and once again with such bad graphics, it will be impossible to compete unfortunately.

Sure, I agree that even if a game has wonderful graphics but bad gameplay at the same time, it won’t be nearly as good as another game with crappy graphics but awesome gameplay. Space Invaders is perhaps a good example. Those types of games don’t really need good graphics to enjoy the game, but games like Asphalt definitely require better graphics.

If they ever release Asphalt with the graphics on par with the Global Race game, I'll get it without thinking twice. Otherwise I'll stick on to the demo play and will never think about buying the full game because the graphics simply suck.

In my personal opinion we need more phones with dedicated 3D hardware and more games that can make use of the hardware graphic acceleration. From my stand point Nokia N81 is a joke, releasing a dedicated gaming phone with dedicated gaming keys but without dedicated gaming hardware is ridiculous. It's like offering a Gamer PC with generic graphics card. What is the worth Nokia!?

After all we can’t even talk about Graphics vs. Gameplay only, as the game consists of many more elements like control, music, story etc, and therefore I’ll stop at this point. Last but not least, keep in mind that I am not that much into gaming and I am not an expert at all.

Therefore I may be wrong and I would like to hear your opinion! Graphic? Gameplay? Or maybe both?