On Gameplay

I was talking with a friend about Battlefield 2 this morning, and the subject of how much I used to love Counter-Strike came up, which got me thinking about a few things:

CS is a solved game for me - I know exactly what to do and when, what's left is just a matter of teamwork/reflexes, which is uncontrollable/boring.

And I've been thinking about this .. for some people, that's enough. There seem to be non-exclusive variants of gameplay appreciation:

1. People who just enjoy being able to move things on the screen (ie all of us who played shit shareware in the 90s).
2. People who are in it for the cinematic experience.
3. People who are in it for the mental aspect (I particularly enjoy the fast-thinking game in 1-1 duels in most indoor FPSs)
4. People who want to get a higher score than anyone else.

My problem is that a lot of games, particularly console games, are ignoring (3), and seem to cover it up with devices such as low-damage, which makes thinking and suprise less important than the ability to keep a stream of fire on a moving target.

I spend a lot of time thinking about gameplay, as it's a subject very close to the whole 'user experience' thing that I enjoy so much. Raph's Keynote at the GDC about patterns and the brain and how they related to fun really hit close to home on a lot of things. Patterns are awesome.

Just not knitted ones, those are boring.