Hi Lisa.
While I do agree in principle, and would never insult someone for liking a
different sort of game, you do raise what is to me a far more interesting
question.
For me at least, there are design characteristics of good games which are
independent of preference. ake top speed2 and 3. I do not personally like
racing games, I don't find they interest me much at all, however I look at
the feature list for top speed, the way the games are put together, the
customization etc, and I can say independent of personal preference that
they bare the characteristics of well designed games, even though their
subject matter is not something which would make me want to play them.
The problem with just saying "everything is relative" is that then you have
no standard of comparison. Then if someone comes along and thinks Beep is
the best game in the universe, or thinks say shades of doom or entombed is a
terrible game, all you can say is "well I disagree because I like different
games" Likewise, there is then little way that you can can give
constructive cryticism to someone designing a game, sinse they can always
ignore you comments and say "well I don't like that idea" and leave it at
that.
I actually studdied these sorts of questions when I learnt Aesthetics, which
is the philosophy of art, but i'd say this applies just as much to games as
it does to music, literature or anything else.
Complete relativism is a very attractive proposition sinse it gives a
validity to everyone's opinions, the problem is, (to quote a lign from the
gondoliers), "when everybody's somebody then no one's anybody"
This is why when looking at say the temporal disturbance, I'd first ask not
whether I! like it in the game, but whether it contributes to what over all
makes a good game.
Of course, the idea of "what makes a good game" is another question as well,
and one which is also up for debate, but it is the idea that there is! some
set of universal design characteristics that you can! judge a game against
that is the point.
If all the list was just made up of people saying "I like this" and "I don't
like that" then discussion would be a pretty pointless thing.
Beware the Grue!
Dark.
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