It's a wash for me, with a little leeway in either direction, but I won't play a game with absolutely awful mechanics even if the story is great and vice versa.
But maybe that's because for me, fun always engages me more than any other single factor in a videogame so just by being fun it will be engaging for me.
Depends on both the game in question and what you think of when you hear "engaging".
From what I've seen of Far Cry 3, it looks to straddle a fine line between both and succeed pretty well. Just Cause 2 is really, really fun - but it's not all that engaging. Apparently Amnesia isn't really fun in the sense that we usually ascribe to video games; rather, it's very engaging.
I take this is another "story vs. gameplay" question. If so, I'll answer what I always answer: for me, story > gameplay.
But it really depends on what kind of game I'm playing, above all, why. If I'm playing an RPG, I want a well written, original story. I don't care if I'm doing turn-based battles taken directly from Final Fantasy I. But if I'm playing a puzzle game like, say, Tetris or Meteos, I will be looking for engaging gameplay that hooks me to the game and that flows so naturally that it makes me forget I'm playing. If that makes any sense.
This is a more complicated question than I think it appears to be. Because in gaming their are multiple types of fun to different people. I have had countless games where the "fun" in the game only lasted a period. As in what you were doing in the game was initially fun, but repeating it enough times diminishes that fun. Some things are fun enough to last the length of the game others not.
To be honest I think a game that manages to pace itself well, be fun and engaging is probably the best scenario. It never runs the risk of wearing it's welcome out with the fun and isn't just engaging in one aspect while the game itself is no fun to play.
I went A, but that was based on assumptions I made about what constitutes being engaged. Essentially I assumed that being engaged meant caring about the characters and story. My emotional investment. However some games that I find really fun are very poor in those areas. There was nothing about MW2, or Syndicate that was engaging, but I loved playing them because of how much fun I was having. Conversly, The Walking Dead was extremely engaging, but I wouldn't say very much of that game was "fun." And while I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, if given a choice, I'm probably going to take the one that let's me shut my brain off
The games that I will never forget are the games I value the most; and some of those games weren't that fun or even that well-made. They need that je ne sais quoi more than anything else.
Games like Dear Esther, Pixel Junk Eden, Deadly Premonition, the Silent Hill series, Harvest Moon, Spec Ops: The Line.
To put it another way, games that are really fun and not much else don't really hold my attention as much. I would love for a game to be both but when it comes down to it I'd rather have one more than the other.
@Rainbowkisses said:
@Clonedzero said:
fun is engaging.
being engaged in a story or situation is fun.
i dont understand the question?
Exactly what I was going to say.
My interpretation is that he means "fun" to be "fun to play" in the mechanical sense. While "engaging" means it draws you in to it's world and themes and makes you happy to play it regardless of if you enjoy the act of playing it. Obviously the two words can be synonymous but this is a case of poor word choice. Perhaps a better distinction would be fun or interesting. Perhaps fun or immersive.
mechanics before narrative before art style. My first, second, and third priorities respectively. If number 1 is bad, numbers two and three don't matter to me. The game MUST be enjoyable to play mechanically before anything else. This is why I dislike this year's Walking Dead.
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