I was rifling through my stack of games when i realized something. I'm a bit graphically shallow. I discovered recently, while being bored one afternoon, having no backlog, but wanting to play something, that graphics are almost too important to me.

As i pop in the bug-ridden, frame-dropping, console crashing masterpiece more commonly known as Fallout: New Vegas, I wonder to myself... I've beaten this AND fallout 3 numerous times... And I enjoyed Fallout 3 MUCH more... Why did I put in NV? I know the graphical comparison isn't staggering, but NV does look a tad better. Is that why i put it in?

And why didn't i play Final Fantasy 7? I have it on my hard drive, sitting RIGHT THERE, and i didn't pick it. I've never even really played it. I've heard such great things about it, but every time i try to play it... It's just so... Dated looking...

So, what to you think? Do the graphics make the game? And i don't mean realism, i mean good graphical design in general.

For me, once I've already played a game, it doesn't matter what the graphics are like. I can replay the likes of Baldur's Gate without a problem, but I find it hard to play and old/dated game that I've never played before. Game mechanics may havea hand in this.

And obviously you played New Vegas for it's sexy iron sights.

Dark souls does not have the best looking graphics and I am loving it.  

graphics are of low worth and you are a terrible human being

What matters to me is animation. I can't play Oblivion anymore because of how... "stale" it feels, not because of its low-res textures and exaggerated bloom. Since games back and before 2005 had similar feeling in movement and flow from both NPCs and gameplay, I could play anything without calling it "dated", like the old FF games.

Now games like Skyrim show that badly handcrafted animations aren't working anymore. We need to be immersed before we enjoy the mechanics we are given.

Its not a factor in me buying a game anyway.
Its nice if its good looking but hell, I'm still playing my NGC almost daily, play DS games on my 3ds or some game on low since my pc is horrible.
Gameplay and fun is way more important for me.

Story, atmosphere, universe, gameplay. That's what makes a great game, at least to me. If the game has amazing graphics, all the better, but it's just a bonus.

I want to say games are made by many different facets, graphics, gameplay, story, characters, world, atmosphere, et cetera, but I just got done playing Uncharted 3 and... fuck, dude.