How do you describe to someone what you like about games? Aside from telling someone “I want Fable” or “I like RPG’s” (which might net you a copy of ‘Asheron’s Call’ when you really wanted ‘Dungeon Siege II’), how do you give someone enough information about your likes and dislikes in games that they could actually buy you a game as a gift? I have updated an article I originally worte for the former RPGDot (the site founders all left and created RPGWatch) in which I endeavored to detail my ‘gaming preferences’ and would like to share them – and have you share yours in return.

In order not only to provide some context, but also to frame the discussion let me say that I came to RPG’s through the ‘back door’: while many were playing Wizardry on the Apple ][ in the early 80’s, I was playing Castle Wolfenstein; while others had moved on to Ultima Underworld by the early 90’s, I was playing Wolfenstein 3D on my PC. On the advice of a friend (big LotR and ‘Renny’ types) my wife bought me Diablo when it came out. I slogged through it for a bit, decided I really hated it, then returned quickly to games like Duke Nukem 3D and Dark Forces. It wasn’t until Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic was nearing release in the summer of 2003 that someone suggested I get Neverwinter Nights to gear up for KotOR. In early August the Mac version of NWN was released, and I got it the day it came out. The rest, as they say, is history …

At some point, you have probably come across the so-called ‘6 P’s’ – Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. This can be applied directly to gaming – for instance when developing a character in an RPG. Indeed, I think I spent longer developing parties for Wizards & Warriors when I ‘discovered’ it this spring than it took me to fully play many recent FPS games (e.g. Pariah). But that isn’t what I’m thinking about. I’ve been replaying the entire Dark Forces / Jedi Knight series lately, and was playing the late stages of Jedi Knight II and the early missions of Jedi Academy while also replaying Half-Life 2 (HL2). Anyone who has played both HL2 and Jedi Academy can state pretty objectively that HL2 is a better game – better looking, performs about as well, better production values and so on.

So why would I rather play Jedi Academy? In fact, why are there probably a dozen FPS games that HL2 is objectively superior to that I’d rather play? Finally, why would I willingly put hundreds of hours into playing through the buggy and unfinished mess that is Dungeon Lords multiple times? That premise has been bothering me for some time – and while the release of HL2 brought it to the fore, it has been particularly acute since the release of Dungeon Lords – so I figured I should look into what drives me to like games.

When I say ‘like’, I don’t mean just games like XIII or Revenant that are enjoyable for a run and then tossed into the big storage bin under the guest bed; I mean games like Dark Forces that I continue playing at least twice a year more than a dozen years after I first got them.

This is what I came up with. A list of parameters that define why I love the games I love. I spent some time trying to come up with six P’s for gaming, only coming up with five P’s and having to force the sixth to become a P. In the end, I like that sixth P – Possibilities – better than what I was originally thinking, which was ‘exploration’, because it captures more than just looking around.

1: Plot – we’re not talking about a need for every game to have some high-concept epic story like ‘Baldur’s Gate 2’, just some basic reason you should be playing the game. The Plot should be proportional with the scope of the game. Take a game like ‘Rune’, for instance. The basis of the story is pretty simple – the runes that protect the world are being taken by the Bad Guy, who has also taken people from your village. A large battle cutscene shows everything you care about being destroyed. The remainder of the game is you working back through conquered lands to your home and the final battle. The plot is simple and direct, but enough to keep you playing through to the end, and wanting to do the right things.

What does not qualify as plot to me? Mission based games like ’Medal of Honor Allied Assault’ or ‘Call of Duty’. Sure they are fun, but they are all just loads of missions. ‘Painkiller’? No – that is like a new Quake for 2004! Just an excuse wrapped around a frag-fest.  Nothing wrong with that – it just means that the primary motivation has to come from elsewhere (generally gameplay in those cases).

2: Personality – I want my characters to have distinct personality. From way back before the Doom era, Castle Wolfenstein presented you with a hero who had to stop Hitler’s evil plans. That same hero returned for id’s Wolfenstein 3D. Later, Dark Forces presented a hero with loads of personality in Kyle Katarn. Soon after, we got Duke Nukem, who is still a very unique and quotable character. There are loads of great characters in gaming, both protagonists and non-player characters. Some – like HK-47 in Knights of the Old Republic – add flavor. Others – like Cate Archer from the ‘No One Lives Forever’ games – add a whole level of depth and humor as the main character.

I like to feel immersed in the character, not just role-playing in a type. So in games like ‘Knights of the Old Republic’ or ‘Baldur’s Gate 2’, I am given loads of opportunities to define my character. In contrast, characters in games like Icewind Dale don’t engage me as much because of the lack of interaction and personality development. Then there is Half-Life 2 – there are games like Doom where you are a nameless shooter, but Half-Life 2 takes it to a new level. By wrapping a gorgeous, living world around an absolute cipher, it makes the utter lack of personality even more striking.

I also want the characters I deal with to be interesting. It seems like everyone in Planescape Torment is interesting, and I love so many of the characters in other games like Baldur’s Gate II, Gothic II, and so on. I very much enjoy moments such as when Bastilla uses the force to trip up Mission on Tatooine.

3: Purpose – why am I doing this? I am not engrossed for long simply running around shooting or slashing everything. Or, if that is my mission, I like some motivation – perhaps I’m escaping some evil empire, or freeing the oppressed masses, or destroying some dark force bent on world or galactic domination. Even still, I need more – why me?

Some games actually try to tell you why you alone are the one person who can save the world – like in Arcanum, for instance. But many games just throw you in the middle of the action, telling you that you must save the world. Again, why me? Answer that one question, give me some reasonable motivation, and you have me for the game.

4: Power – I want to see my character grow in knowledge and power during a game. That is why the original Jedi Knight and Deus Ex games thrilled me so much – and why RPG’s have become such a major force in my gaming life.

Specifically, I want to be able to grow my character – whether it is a ‘training’ method like Morrowind or Dungeon Siege I/II, or a more traditional statistic allocation method, I don’t want my character’s primary means of getting more powerful to be finding/buying better equipment – unless of course you are playing a character that *doesn’t* get more powerful, as is the case in most shooters. While that is certainly a valid method, when playing a game where the protagonist is supposedly attaining new levels of power I like to feel that I have chosen a path for myself.

5: Preference – I know what I like, and like games that wear their pedigree on their sleeves. Well, pedigrees that I like, anyway. Take Star Trek Elite Force II for instance – as a game it is just a solid shooter (~80%), but it is heaped with Star Trek love that transcends many of the flaws and makes it a game I love. It is certainly no better than the recent game Project: Snowblind, but I know which one I’ll go back to again and again – the one where my success is rewarded with a growling ‘almost as good as a Klingon’.

That isn’t just about licenses, either. Again, think about Planescape Torment. That game is very serious about your ability to fully role-play, and the environs and settings just drip with an immersive universe. Or Fallout or Fate for that matter. Games that know what they are and stick with that theme. There are too many games that think they know what they want to be, but never get the courage of their convictions. Games like Metalheart that want to be Fallout but fail to realize what it was that made the game great are worse to me than games like Sacred with much lower aspirations that succeed in their goals.

6: Possibilities – I am looking for something that feels like what I do actually matters. In Deus Ex, you get extra ‘exploration points’ for discovering out of the way places. In Jedi Knight, you get extra ‘force stars’ for finding all secret areas in a level.

In RPG’s, exploring areas can come in all sorts of forms, with all sorts of outcomes. I still revel in the difficult but rewarding ‘dialogue dance’ involved in successfully romancing Jaheira in Baldur’s Gate II. Wandering the halls in Dungeon Lords looking for a switch while dealing with constantly respawning enemies is not my idea of fun exploration.

You might have noticed that I didn’t include ‘humor’ or ‘fun’ anywhere in the list. Why? Don’t I like fun in my games? Certainly I do – LEGO Star Wars was one of my favorite games in 2005, mainly due to the absolutely hilarious way it presented everything. But some games are just intense and frankly not ‘funny’ … but that doesn’t mean they aren’t fun. For me, a game that gives me an interesting character in engaging settings with some reason for me to pursue the goals I am given – that is fun.

Are these your preferences? Most likely not – in fact you might strongly disagree with much of what I say here. But that is the point – we each have our own likes and dislikes, and reasons for those tastes. That is why – even within the RPG genre – we have 3D games and isometric 2D games, turn-based and real-time combat, and so on and so on …

So, what are your defining rules for games?

Tags: Misc