or something like a dadaist painting, which is made puspusfully to break conventions and not have any meaning. but I am sorry -that painting is crap.

minimalisim, abstraction and playing on conventions is fine, but I am sorry to say so that Juhn Cage makes horrible music, I much prefer the calmnes and structure of Erik Satie. Same with games, you can break conventions and purposfully make games that are anti-games - Desert Bus is still a crap game.

I also like it when the game allows you to take an "insurance policy" such as a Reraise or the more direct "Try again" that was popular in 16 bit RPGs such as Mystic Quest.

I actually see these two things as being very different.
* Try Again is really a variation on reloading a save. In fact, if you see a game that lets you try again without limit, then the game likely allows you to save anywhere, or at least save right before the parts where it's enabled. (Ys Origin doesn't let you save anywhere, but it has try again for boss fights, and it also makes a point of putting save points before bosses.)
* Reraise, on the other hand, is something you'd do to prevent the party wipe in the first place, like a protection spell. In fact, it probably is best classified as a protection spell rather than a healing spell. (On the other hand, something that grants temporary HP, like the Guardian Angel spell in Wizardry 8, behaves strategically more like a healing spell. The relevant distinction is that protection spells work best on characters who are still healthy, while healing spells are best used when the character is already injured, though something like Guardian Angel will work in both situations.)

(By the way, SaGa 2 actually has a short cutscene the first time you lose a battle, incorporating the ability to try again into the story.)

Rewarding exploration. Being allowed to roam freely, jump and climb around and discover exciting things on my own, be it relating to environmental storytelling, beautiful views, or hidden areas, treasure, rare resources and collectibles. Or nice tactical positions, tricks and traps in combat-heavy games - finding options and alternatives for making combat more interesting and fun. Also finding exploits. And I like puzzles, too, but not necessarily those that require you to rack your brain with some abstract logic, more like simple problem solving with the tools at hand, without the game holding my hand and spelling everything out for me.

At least a basic story/reason for what I'm doing that moves forward at least somewhat as I progress through the game. That's why I never enjoy sandbox games or something like Minecraft.

Of which game(s)?

This question can't be answered in general terms.

My favourite element in "game X" might be combat - at the same time I may absolutely hate combat in "game Y".

The same goes for all other game elements.

creating characters/sims, building houses - The Sims 3
building bridges - Pontifex II
solving puzzles - Crayon Physics Deluxe
tactical combat - Jagged Alliance 2
open world - TES IV: Oblivion
multiplayer mode - OpenTTD, Worms: Armageddon, Armagetron Advanced, Soldat

Puzzle games that have an end are fine, even better when given a background reason for doing them.

Tetris belongs in the category of endless/survival games, which I also pretty much never play.

Oh ye of little imagination. "General terms" as answers for this question are basic things that appear in nearly every game. I already described my favorite save systems, and my favorite visual element is when crispy textures are illuminated with advanced lighting in a high framerate. That particular mixture works more for me than more modern graphics which overload the screen with moving particles and force my middling PC to run at less than ideal fps.

Then there's the music aspect of every good open-world driving game; I simply must have at least 1 licensed music station to complete the best relaxation games can offer.

I think you slightly misunderstood what the OP was asking for. =]
But that doesn't matter.... say... is armagetron actually still played?! Last I looked into it, it appeared the game had died. :<
Or you listed it because you played it in the past?

Courtesy reply to OP
Not so much any single element, but how they all interact - how does the music fit to the genre; how does inventory management fit into an FPS; does this game really need a leveling system? Stuff like that.

If you would have to describe it all in one word, I guess it would be - atmosphere.
The genre doesn't really matter in that case then.

1. Save anywhere. I especially hate (quite often Japanese) games which use the save game feature as to make the game more "challenging" ie. annoying, by giving you only a limited number of times you can save the game.

I don't necessarily mind the separate ironman-modes where you can't save the game at all, as long as it is a separate mode from the rest of the game. Good for those who enjoy such ironman game. Oh yes, I also used to save scum in ADOM and other hack-like games, especially as quite often you died for bad luck.

2. Good unforgettable soundtrack for the single-player game.

3. No difficulty levels. Don't make me try to guess at the start of the game which difficulty level is the "right" one for me, how am I supposed to know that? I can tell only after I have played the game extensively. In some games the hardest difficulty is easy-peasy, in others the medium difficulty is very hard.

Rather, design the gameplay so that you don't need to choose that, but you can compensate for your lack of skill by the way you play the game, ie. advancing more cautiously. Slapping difficulty levels into a game can be a sign of lazy game development so that you don't have to optimize the gameplay as described above.

Yes this can be done, lots of games have only one difficulty level, e.g. Super Mario Bros, Dungeon Keeper, Magic Carpet etc...

4. No time limits in levels. God I hate those, generally speaking.

5. In CRPG games in particular, please give me an option to skip the character/party creation part, by offering already optimized characters/parties. Sometimes I enjoy creating a character or a party from a scratch, sometimes I just wish I could skip the whole party creation which can take hours upon hours when you try to understand all the different races and classes and stats, and what affects what...

While many games also offer e.g. premade parties, unfortunately quite often they are very poorly optimized, like handicapped characters or parties. Like you are penalized for using them and not creating a new party from a scratch. Stupid things like having shared skill points to skills and stats that are mostly useless for the given character (like strength for a magician, or wisdom or intelligence for a barbarian).

With single-character RPGs, I actually prefer you start the game with an empty "tabula rasa" character which evolves during the game based on how you prefer playing the game, ie. if you keep fighting with melee combat, you become that brutish dumb barbarian, if you mostly cast spells you become a magician, if you do both you become something in between like some kind of paladin or whatever. Or you choose during the game which guilds you join etc.

Story combined with actual content (adventure), music, presentation, locomotion.



Downers: Ratings at the end of a mission.
You fight through a 3 hour mission and then you get told what you could have done better ... thanks, but no.
This ruined Desperados 3 for me.

Why is having the *option* to make the game harder or easier a problem?

What's wrong with having a game default to the difficulty that the game was designed around, but having the option to change the difficulty from there?

(Specifically, the game could be designed around a certain difficulty, and that difficulty would be the default (the one the cursor is on before you move it), but the other difficulties would still be there for those who want more or less challenge.)

Also, Super Mario Bros. actually has 2 difficulty levels. Once you beat the game, you are returned to the title screen, with the option of selecting the world you want to start in. Wherever you start, however, you will be playing the game on hard mode, with such changes as:
* Goombas are replaced with Buzzy Beetles
* Moving platforms are smaller
* There are some cases where two levels are identical except for some minor changes to make things harder. (For example, 5-3 is 1-3, but with bullet bills.) On this hard mode, the first stage of each pair is now as hard as the second. (So, in this example, 5-3's bullet bills are added to 1-3.)
* I think there might be an increase in the speed at which enemies move, as well.

Mechanics utilising logic and reason, in the form of realism. Defined in short as, a logical progression to a reasonable expected conclusion.

For those of you that do not speak english first; Cause and effect, similar to any expectation of real life.

How about I provide a game name and give a short example of what would be realism or make it not?
Examples:

Skyrim-
The trappings and potential, yet fails in the logic department. Size and scope of the map is the target of my derision here. Why? Because the population of sentient beings and non sentient beasts were cut to small to provide a world space capable of supporting said world space.

It is understood, some people do not want this. However, the reason for development was for console systems and a lack of interest in making content to fill in the game world, were it larger in scale.

RimWorld-
This has both size and scope world logic. But ironically lacks most logic in character development. Damn impressive modding community to attempt at, correcting NPC shortcomings. Just imagine character development of The Elderscrolls games, coupled with the world scope of RimWorld. Truly an endless adventure, where the player lives vicariously through his or her character!

How would this work you ask?

World generation->
Faction generation, based upon logical probable resources of the world->
Random event timer simulation to account for global events over years (weather/ astrological impacts upon planet/ ecological destruction such as radiation, solar flares or contagions)->

Fine tuning of the previously mentioned ingredients, to account for faction conflicts.->
Then character creation to have back story and who and what the character will be. Start small and enjoy the random, yet logical course the game storytelling provides.

At this point, it may boil down to games like, UnReal World or Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead. But those games, with a visual of Skyrim would be appealing. Imagine being in a 3D CatDDA environment? Perhaps a 3D RimWorld space western with stuff ala Fallout!