My skills in creating a fairly attractive looking game are horrific,trust me,they look fucking hideous. In some cases,I rather just keep the standard checkered textures that Unreal provides for me and just play the game.
Don't get me wrong, having the right skills to make a pretty looking game is nothing wrong and I'm pretty sure half of you know this,but just because it looks good doesn't mean it's fun to play.

I bring this up for only one reason: I took a level design course this past summer semester, I absolutely adore to see what others have come up with and see if anyone has any new gameplay mechanics to apply to their level,but I must say,I was highly disappointed.

A good number of individuals highly believed that they were better than everyone and that no matter what they did,it was great, it was the best goddamn thing ever. I even had someone believe that they would even be better than Hideo Kojima.
There is nothing wrong with giving yourself a little praise,but,um,dude your level is a fucking mess.
It looks good,great, you coded everything just fine so theres no bugs,awesome,but honestly,who the fuck would play this?
You have a guy who spawns in front of you with a rocket launcher,so you really can't get anywhere without getting KO right in the very beginning, the level is too small for the amount of people that you have in this place, and you don't even have an objective for the game.
The primary goal for our assignments was to test our abilities to create a fun,playable game.Our teacher just wanted to see if we could make a fun game to play,he didn't want us to make some elaborate pretty looking game with a fuck ton of meshes and emitters going to make it look amazing,he wanted to see if could make a fun playing game.

After this,it only has me thinking,does everyone highly believe that they too can be a game designer,just because they know how to use unreal or any other game editor? Is this why half of this years graduating class couldn't get a job? Primarily since they made a great looking game,but it was boring as shit. Some even went to showcase their prized baby at GDC last year for hopes to get a job ...And I'm sad to say,bombed. They where beautiful looking games, they had their own original art, the controls where smooth and there where hardly any bugs, but no one wasn't going to play a game that played exactly like Super Mario,it's been done,a lot.

I know it's getting hard to find a new and innovated way to come up with a new type of game play,I know all too well,but just because it's been done before, doesn't mean that there isn't anyway to improve it and doesn't mean you should keep it the same,but it just gets annoying and obnoxious when I see my fellow classmates bragging about how amazing their unreal level looks when it's no better than thousands of other people who are doing the same thing that you are doing.I just wish to meet others who find it important that a video game needs to be fun, it needs to keep the player intrigued and caught up in it's world! Its ok to have it look pretty,but we can't forget what makes a video game,it's the game play! Heck,I'm pretty sure if GTA IV still had all of it's gameplay mechanics and looked like Custards Revenge(lol), a real gamer would still play it,because it's fun not because it looks pretty.

I could be wrong about this whole issue,or maybe I'm bitter because I can't seem to get in a project because I rather try to figure out the gameplay rather than show off how I can make the level look pretty.It s just everything that we make here at my school, it's always the same thing. And if this is to be our future of game designers, then how are we to entertain future generations and inspire them too to keep this great past time of our culture to keep thriving and moving forward?
I feel that I have ranted on long enough,but post whatever you want,whether you disagree or agree.I don't care,but these are my opinions on the matter.