What is the most important thing for a game?

see above ^^
I think it´s the story.

It must amuse me.

I'm going to add a fill-in-the-blank vote and say gameplay cannot even become bland. The amount of missions your game has wont make any difference if all your levels are the same.

That said, I have a weakness for new playable toys, so I'm going to add that one for the purposes of this poll.

It's difficult to vote here...
If one of those points is a failure, the whole game can be fucked up.

Playability. If you don't have that, you don't have anything.

Agree with you kara

For this kind of game. (A unprofessional mod) It needs to be fun. This is this specific type o games most important aspect, even more so with the multilayer part. It looks like they've got the graphics leveled out so nobody needs to worry about that. Which is fine because I don't care all that much about them anyway. but the story should come second if there is going to be any cut scenes. If There are no cut scenes then your story could be as uncomplicated as (EX: Aliens, Teammates, Aliens = bad, Teammates = Awesome Lasers go pew pew, pew pew on aliens make them go boom, Boom = Awesome, Boom + Teammates = awesome X2 or Ultimate!)

For me, playabilty and playable characters.

Here's pretty much how priorities should go:
Graphics and Story should always take a backseat to gameplay; there are exceptions if the story is really, really good, but I doubt Starfox is the sort of continuity that can pull it off. Graphics should be detailed enough to be playable but it shouldn't consume any effort that could go into gameplay.

Voice Acting is a difficult one to place, ham-tastic acting can save even the worst storylines, but awful actors, like a few from Assault, can really drag down a good script and I'm not saying the script in Assault was all too good either. Hell, some of the best games don't even have any dialogue at all, but, for Star Fox, voices were always a staple of the series, even if they were alien mumblings. Voice Acting can't be half @$$ed, if you want to include it at all.

Many Missions is a double edged sword, if the game is boring to begin with, length isn't going to do too much for you. However, that doesn't mean you completely ignore it. Star Wars: Republic Commando was, by all other rights, a good game, but because it's so short it really isn't worth your buck.

Many playable Vehicles/characters really sounds out of place here, but seeing as it's the only position favouring gameplay I gave it my vote. A game's gameplay IS the game, and all of the above is on support. If the gameplay is solid enough, people will forgive many wrongs in the game.

Graphics - Normally, I wouldn't care about this seeing as I still play SF64, but given the other options, this is would rank higher than the other alternatives.

Many missions - I wouldn't want it long. I like both FS1 and FS2's campaign as well as ST:R's, but I hate Blue Planet's. I also enjoy the short 3-4 mission campaigns a lot more than the big ones.

Good story - In terms of a Star Fox continuity, this is fairly important. One of the problems i had with both Assault and Command are the enemy. I hate the idea of alien invasions. In fact, I would even say that SF64 has a better story than both of them.

Many playable Vehicles/charackters - If I'm okay with one Samus, one Alpha 1, and four Star Fox members in their respective game, I believe that the number of characters are insignificant when it comes to gaming. If I want more characters, I'll let my fantasy handle that. As far as vehicles are concerned, I think that, for the most part, I used the Arwing in SF64 and am most content with having just an Arwing.

Good Voice Acting - After playing several campaigns without voice acting, I have to admit that voices make campaigns better... always. Even if the voice actor sounds fake and forced, it's still better than none. It's so important that the campaign can still be great even without music if there is voice acting.

the most important thing to me is the story line. i would rather play a pixel game with a good story than a realistic game with no plot at all.

For me it has to be the story, closely followed by a good gameplay.
I sure don't mind good graphics or audio either, but neither will save a bad game.

One point. For the number of Missions.
I think that in the next StarFox Game (If Nintendo ever decides to make one, seeing how well they are going along with casual games), they should make 2 games mode.
One Story mode, with many and detailed missions, and an Arcade Mode, like SF64 so that you can have fast games of no more than 1 or 2 hours. Thats a part of the succes of the N64 game I think.

If they will ever bring a new Starfox game...

I think I'm going to have to agree with Mr. Harold on just about every point. Especially the voice acting thing: bad voicing takes you out of the flow of the game way more than just, say, reading text. Especially if it's a major character, and especially if the actor doesn't sound spot on to the way you're expecting it to sound (see: Awakening: the HL2 mod).

"but I doubt Starfox is the sort of continuity that can pull it off." - I'd have to disagree with Mr. Harold on this one.

In fact, it's Star Fox's short and spread out lifespan that make it a necessity for a solid story. Do you think we'd still have SF games at all if the story wasn't sound?

The only way Star Fox can get back on its feet is if Nintendo stops the laziness and puts the story behind it that made SF and SF64 the games they were. Adventures was an abomination, and Assault/Commands' plots of "omg aliens" is a pretty close second.

Andrew_McCloud said:

"but I doubt Starfox is the sort of continuity that can pull it off." - I'd have to disagree with Mr. Harold on this one.

In fact, it's Star Fox's short and spread out lifespan that make it a necessity for a solid story. Do you think we'd still have SF games at all if the story wasn't sound?

Click to expand...

In answer to your question: Yes, we still have SF games when the story was never great. It's just a basic intro to get you out there shooting down airplanes:

This guy Andross is bad, kill him.

This is the entire plot for Starfox SNES.

Insert a large number of Sci-fi and General movie cliche's here and there and you have the plot of Starfox 64.

Yeah, both games still kick ass to this day, despite, and probably because, they had little to no plot.

Andrew_McCloud said:

The only way Star Fox can get back on its feet is if Nintendo stops the laziness and puts the story behind it that made SF and SF64 the games they were. Adventures was an abomination, and Assault/Commands' plots of "omg aliens" is a pretty close second.

Click to expand...

That's probably because they focused too heavily on making a story when they didn't have a clue what they were doing. Dinosaur Planet is the only name this first game should go by, Starfox's involvement dragged both of them down. Anyways, it had a ton of problems from the get-go and soured Rare from ever working with Nintendo again. And that is why Banjo-Threeie is on the X-box.

Assault is another matter. It's trying to follow up the cluster-f*(& that was Adventures and bring it back to being Starfox again. They have pretty much the same plot as SF64, with a little bit of "Doctor Q" in there as well. The difference? Where Starfox 64's storyline came off as what you'd expect from a fun, summer action flick, Assault took itself way too seriously and the awful acting just brought it down to a level unseen by most Russel T. Davies scripts (Yeah, he's a good producer and all but he can't write a good story to save Telos).

Command's storyline was like a bunch of conflicting fanfictions held together with masking tape.


"This guy Andross is bad, kill him."

Doesn't sound like too bad a plot now, does it?

"This guy Andross is bad, kill him."

Doesn't sound like too bad a plot now, does it?

Click to expand...

It does not, because you showed us how crappy the game became with an awful story.
But I'm still convinced that we can drag a good plot and a good gameplay together to make a pwnage game. It's not because the staff of Assault screwed up that we shouldn't try to set up a story. With a universe like this, there's more than a way to create something good.

Same things that made SF NES great. New things, innovation, a spark to the gamer's world.

As said by a very good artist and storyteller:

"You need to have a story interesting and delicate enough to get them interested... and you need to have enough excitement and intrigue to KEEP them interested. If you don't have a clear, concise story, good execution, and a product people will enjoy, your readers will lose interest quickly."

All the pieces have to come together, not any one part is greater than the rest.

Gameplay is always #1