Videogame Graphic Advances - Not What They Used To Be?

Thanks to GamesRadar for its PC Gamer-reprinted article discussing why graphics alone aren't enough to sell a game anymore. The author explains: "During the final days of Steam, I found myself playing the original Half-Life. And, frankly, it looked perfectly acceptable. While it clearly lacks the fine polish of modern first-person shooters, the world it presented me with was entirely comparable with anything around. And, being a great game in the first place, it was more enjoyable than - say - Unreal II." He continues: "However, if you went back to 1998 when Valve's masterpiece was released, and attempted to play a game five years older than that, it would be a very different experience. To go back and play System Shock, Doom or Wolfenstein requires a whole re-arrangement of your thought processes to accept the difference in graphics quality." Do you agree that "...the days when graphics ruled videogames are rapidly drawing to a close"?

Comments

Silly kid

[SmallFurryCreature]

He is talking about the original System Shock. In case you hadn't noticed by either the titel or the story it was a sequel.

The original System Shock was a ground breaking titel at the time of doom but using a fastly superior engine for the enviroment and a fastly infirior one for the characters. It was I think one of the first true 3d shooters as opposed to dooms and duke nukems 2.5d. It also had a great story and if you had the cd version excellent voice acting.

Sadly it also was about a gazillion times more complex to play then doom. It was however a single player game so really they can't be compared.

As for outdated graphics. If you read the text files on the cd you will read that it has support for 3d headsets. So whenever these things actually appear in shops, System Shock will be THE game again :)

Disclaimer it is of course entirely possible that the poster had intended it as a joke. On slashdot you just never know for certain and System Shock is to nice a game to go unmentioned.