by Marc Teager

Created on: March 17, 2009   Last Updated: March 26, 2009

Let me ask you a question...and don't lie to yourselves please. Would you be happy if the next GTA looked like God had greased up and was flexing his muscles for all to see, but on every mission you had to drive for one minute and shoot exactly three and a half people? No you wouldn't and neither would anyone else, apart from someone with a very rare form of obsessive compulsive disorder.

The days of violent walking pixels are over, so to some degree everyone has to admit graphics do play a part in making a great game. No self-respecting gamer would be happy paying 40 to shoot red pixels out of a pixel rifle at an angry looking pixel beast.

That being said, a game could be so shiny it makes you weep with joy and start collecting a pool of dribble in your lap, but if all you are doing is selling lemonade to passers by, your going to get bored(well...maybe not until you have rung all the achievements out of it). As long as the graphics are acceptable for the console or computer a game is on, game-play takes precedence. For example, I could happily go back and play 'Morrowind' for weeks on end, probably lose my girlfriend and my job. The graphics aren't quite up to par now but the story is still engrossing and the missions varied. In fact go back even further, I can, and do still spend hours clicking green haired lemmings and saving the idiots from certain death. And 'Final Fantasy 7' people! I know at least four friends that are playing through that beauty as I type this article.

But, to be brutally honest, we are talking about GREAT games and to make one today you need a combination of graphics and game-play. A developer out to make a splash wouldn't hold back on either one, it would be like having scotch on the rocks...without any scotch and very little ice. I know there are many great games out there, many looking like something you want rub off on the grass BUT they all pushed the limits of graphics at some point (apart from 'Elite' that was just lazy). Even ''The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess', although not graphically brilliant, pushed the Wii's capabilities (the only great game to come out of the Wii master's evil dungeon).

I know it looks like I am slowly talking myself over to the dark side, but I'm not. The proof is out there, a game can survive without great graphics, but without game-play it is nothing nothing; just some pictures on a screen and about as useful as Teletubbies.

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