My Turn: Presentation is More Important than Gameplay - RaychelSnr's Blog

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RaychelSnr's Blog

My Turn: Presentation is More Important than Gameplay Stuck

Posted on November 20, 2008 at 01:43 PM.

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Operation Sports visitors, you shocked me yesterday. I fully expected the tried and true, gameplay conquers all argument out of your mouths in my unscientific poll.

Instead, by and large in the (very) limited sample I received, you overwhelmingly said awesome presentation with decent gameplay is a more preferable option than to perfect gameplay and bad presentation.

I do not want to buck the old trend too far, gameplay is still the most important fundamental aspect of a game. The game has to be functional to be a game, and fun to be memorable. However, almost every game released by a major company in this day and age will be decent enough to be both.

So, it is my conclusion that in TODAY'S sports gaming environment, spending more time on the presentation and less on the core gameplay would result in much better sports games for the rest of this generation at the very least.

If I was wrong in my premise, High Heat baseball would've been the best selling baseball franchise of all time. But it wasn't, because, for all the game did right in the gameplay department...it fumbled in the presentation.

So what do you think? Should developers spend more time working on revolutionizing presentation in the next few years and just evolve gameplay?

Comments

# 1 rudyjuly2 @ Nov 20

I feel the same way you do. Presentation is crucial to the long term enjoyment of a game. I think most people today are generally happy with the NHL, MLB (the Show anyway which also has great presentation), and NBA/NCAA engines. The football games need some more tweaking depending on who you talk to but the core gameplay is just about there for all games. Now they just need to tweak the gameplay (evolve) and add tremendous presentation. Pregame, halftime, postgame shows, replays, stat overlays, etc. I love that stuff. I once got the official PS2 HDD just to be able to watch the 2K5 halftime show video highlights.

# 2 statum71 @ Nov 20

Honestly, I'd take Madden the way it was. Only if the presentation was more like NFL 2K5.

Starting in the studio with Chris Berman breaking down the matchup. Having ESPN's NFL music in the background. Then having Chris "sent it out" to the stadium for tonight's game. From there the announcers breakdown the matchup even more while we watch players warm up. Cutscenes flowed smooth through the game (even sideline shots of players with helmets off).

At halftime Chris Berman had highlights in the studio before he sends it back out the stadium.

And after the game, the player of the game did an interview with Suzie Kolbor.

Then in season mode you had a full blown SportsCenter (with highlights) each and every week.

DANG mannnn!!!! Sounds like TV.

Now why in the world can't we get that on next gen with all this power???????

NFL 2K5 is classic. I'll never trade it.