Whenever I experience a game (or a book or a piece of music or any piece of art) I immediately identify component parts and place them in space. Maybe I'll put them in 2D space or 3D space... or 4D space if I'm so inclined. Then I'll adjust the area or volume that they occupy relative to the other components. These components aren't GRAPHICS or SOUND; instead, they're things like "Identifying paths to traverse" and "Avoiding individual bullets or waves of bullets" or "Destroying enemies..."

These components are ideas and concepts that occupy player mindshare.

Different games ask the player to think about different things. Yes, racing games ask the player to think about something different from what role-playing games ask for, but within genres I find it very useful to ask what the game asks of the player. Take Samurai Shodown II and Fatal Fury II. Sure, they're both fighting games, but they ask very different things of the player. Fatal Fury II asks the player to utilize special moves and execute combos properly, while Samurai Shodown II asks the player to use the best normal moves to suit the situation, defined largely by spacing.

At least, that's what they tell me.

Part of being a good game is effective communication of what the game is. Radiant Silvergun is a great game because it tells me what it is... and what it is is really quite deep and nuanced. The graphics, the music, the smart precision of the game's mechanics, as awesome as they are, are nothing compared to the fact that Radiant Silvergun simply, cleanly, effectively, almost nonchalantly articulates to the player that it is a space where the player must juggle the almost musical rhythm of the enemy sequence with puzzle game style decision making and not-quite straightforward shooting schema.

Of course not everyone believes that Radiant Silvergun is a great game. Me, I'd argue that for those people, the game isn't able to fully communicate its identity. For the most part, Radiant Silvergun connects with a lot of people.

Really bad games? Yeah, you can say that a game has bad art design or boring mechanics. Me, I'd prefer to say that there's a worthwhile game there somewhere... but it does a really bad job of communicating what it is or how the player can find it. Or maybe it communicates what it is very well, and the player finds it just THAT despicable.

And even then, there is the potential for the player to change who he is, to find the person in him that enjoys playing: games that are filled with bouncing breasts and utterly trivial mechanics or: games that are focused on recreating the exact avionics of an F-16 at the expense of larger game structure or: trite interactive stories that make no qualms about reaching out and practically throttling the player with their own heart-strings.

Sometimes, a game is so touching that a player can't help but believe in it.

The Marios, Half-Lifes, and Final Fantasies of the world are more than just good games. They are convincing. They are bold and confident and so utterly full of themselves and what they believe in that players all over the world can't help but believe in them too. And those games do have beliefs of their own. Some of those beliefs are simple (Quick and accurate aiming is conducive to life -HL) and some are less so (Joyful play is as important as focused action -SMB), but all games have them, and in accepting certain video games into our homes and hearts, we illuminate our own beliefs.

Sometimes, it's not that a game is good or bad, or that the message is or isn't properly received by the player. Sometimes, the message really just offends you. Sometimes, the game is just wrong. It goes against what you believe. Something that doesn't just trespass on your world view but you as well.

Going back to the beginning, Tim Rogers, for as abrasive and frustratingly smart as he is, he makes me want to find a self in me that can understand him... or at least be compatible with him without being an annoyance to my existing group of friends. Tim constantly gives me a reason to change who I am and what I believe in, even if it is so contrary to his own beliefs (or, at least, the beliefs that I see in him.) Alex... well... I just can't stand him. It's not that he's abrasive in his writing, and it's not that he believes different things about video games (quite the contrary, actually). The big thing about Alex is: He doesn't believe in people. And I can't look at his writing without thinking that all of it has that belief as an underpinning, and it's rather easy to see that it is there. That belief so offends me that I cannot think about accepting anything he says without first thinking whether that means that I'd be accepting that viewpoint.

Great games foster in people a willingness to change themselves to accommodate them. Similarly, great people have a way of getting the people around them to accept who they are and what they believe. And if you haven't gotten it yet, let me say it again: games have beliefs. These beliefs exist somewhere between the games themselves, in all their flashy graphics, 5.1 audio, and controller interactions; and the people who play them. And as the beliefs manifest themselves in the play, players can choose to accept those beliefs or to reject them.

And yeah, it does annoy me when people whine about their audience not getting something. Guess what artists/writers/game developers: It is your responsibility to have the audience get it. You're not supposed to make things that are awesome or ground breaking or cool or whatever. You're supposed to design it such that they get it. Either make something that shares in your audience's beliefs or is so convincing that it brings people to change their beliefs.

But that's another story...