I’ll start by making it clear I am not asking what makes a game the “best” or what makes you play it the most, but rather if a game could excel at just one of those three, which would be the most likely to make you remember it many weeks/months/years later.
In the real world we tend to judge a game my multiple criteria simultaneously, as failing at one (depending what kind of game it is) can be detrimental to its quality. So, for the sake of this thread, pretend every area of the game is a solid 7/10, with the one of those three you pick being a perfect 10/10.
For me personally, it’s the story. Whilst the most important aspect of a game in general, unsurprisingly, is its gameplay, the story is the area I see gaming succeed at the least. I love few things more than finishing a good book, so when I play a game that is at least fairly fun, but with a top notch story, it quickly becomes a favourite.
A recent example of this would be Bioshock: Infinite (no spoilers, I promise). While I can understand the praise for its controls, first person shooters have never really been my kind of thing, so I was doomed from the start to be fairly unimpressed with its gameplay. The story, however, was stunning. From the second it started, to that mind blowing final half an hour, the game had me gripped. It was interesting, well-paced and left me still thinking about it several weeks after its completion. No game, no matter how fun, could keep me thinking about it that long because of its gameplay. There are simply too many games that excel in that area for me to find it memorable, as appose to the small number of excellent stories.
So those are my thoughts, what about you?
