I haven't played any 'the legacy of kain' games. How do those games tell their stories? Is it mostly through cut-scenes?

I feel the same about 'final fantasy VIII'. The interactions are quite simple (lots of tapping 'X' and walking around, and flicking through menus), but the world feels very large and immersive; the pre-rendered backgrounds and stirring soundtrack create these feelings and spaces. That immersion and engagement is interaction. It's not the same kind of interaction you get when playing street fighter for example, but it's still interactive.

Street fighter is more condensed and focuses on immediacy, quick movement and multiple button presses in particular orders. You have to be quick and memorize moves, so all the people who complain about FF not having any 'gameplay' are probably moaning about there being no 'real' immediacy to combat (like action games) or no need to memorize and react quickly. This is silly really because I don't think they would criticize chess for being 'slow-paced'.

It all depends on how you define concepts such as gameplay and play, I guess. I wonder how many gamers can explain to others exactly what gameplay consists of and what the nature of play is. It's tough to explain, but play is a very broad concept and games…well, there are board games, party games, pen and paper games, computer games, etc. they're all different categories though, they just share stuff in common.

I've posted on a couple of 'gameplay vs. graphics' boards before and I've looked at the replies and no one mentions graphics, and they all say gameplay (perhaps one will mention something about graphics), but they don't explain why and they can't explain what gameplay is. So I go in there and I post something saying things like they're both equal and they rely on each other (as does everything in a game). Then people begin to agree but a lot of them still ignorantly post one word: 'gameplay'.

So I just kind of got annoyed. A lot of time and effort is spent making graphics and I don't think people would buy games if they didn't have textures or if bits of polygons were missing, or the textures were so blurred that they couldn't distinguish the ground from the houses, or what character they were talking to.