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Miller, Wright, Mechner Discuss Videogame Graphics
Thanks to GameSpot for its article covering a panel discussing videogame graphics at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. According to the article: "The panel of designers--The Sims and SimCity architect Will Wright; The Manhole, Myst, and Riven-creator Rand Miller... and Prince of Persia and Karateka designer Jordan Mechner--presented ideas which simultaneously praised the progress made in the past decade and cautioned against relying solely on the bells and whistles those faster GPUs provide." Interestingly, opinions on graphical fidelity differ, with Miller arguing: "We draw every little blade of grass, because we can", but Wright "reiterated his overall recipe to making great games--a less-is-more approach to leveraging and relying on graphics to drive the user experience."
For me it's simple: The two are not mututally exclusive. Of the two, of course, as I predict the majority of readers will say, I'd choose gameplay over graphics. Civilization II, for example, only has "OK" graphics and still is an amazing game to play to this day. But that doesn't mean that I don't want beauty too.
FOr example, Super Monkey Ball on gamecube. Basically, I've described it as "Sort of like Marble Madness" to people. It is. However, it has GORGEOUS backgrounds and fun details all over which do, in my opinion, make the game better. Is the point still to get the monket from A to B? Yup. Could this have basically been done on an NES? Sure. But would you have seen the monkeys do 360s within the tubes and giggle the whole time? Probably not.
For another example, take a look at the new "Realistic Zelda" that was previewed at E3. The water, the emotion in Link's eyes. That does add to the game. Is it needed? No. I felt emotion in Link in the SNES game A Link to the Past (link praying, link realizing that the game isn't over, it's only halfway there, as he is sent to the dark world, etc). But this is easier and better with graphics.
more enjoyable? You bet...
I wouldn't consider it a "less is more" approach, more another example of nintendo putting concept first, and then building the graphics engine around the atmosphere/gameplay style.
With four swords they needed a game that would:
a) allow four people to fit on a small screen easily
b) allow the action to be continued on a gameboy screen.
Obviously the Link To The Past approach suited it well, but to Nintendos credit they also threw in some of the more impressive moments of Wind Waker and Links Awakening onto this 2D canvas.
Throw in another case of Nintendos increasingly humorous nods to their own past (see: Wario Ware, Superstar Saga, Mario vs Donkey Kong) and you have a true game of the year contender. It's just a pity that your friends opinion is so widespread these days.
Both Jordan Mechner and Rand Miller based their entries into computer game design around elaborate, cutting-edge graphics. The popularity of Prince of Persia (and Karateka originally) was because Mechner used primitively-rotoscoped sprites to create fluid character movement. Myst, of course, was the first CD-ROM that allowed you to navigate through a pre-rendered CGI environment. In my opinion, neither piece was particularly innovative or fun to play as a game because the focus was on storytelling and visuals. Now that computer graphics are getting closer and closer to photorealism and it's getting harder and harder to differentiate a game on graphics alone, the industry is beginning to shy away from them as their main focus (as evidenced by the middle-ground position taken by the designers in this article). Of the three designers here, only Will Wright will make an impact in the future because he's the only one that was actually creating innovative games from the start. The others were just low-budget filmmakers working in an underdeveloped medium.
Gee THANKS! And my friends keep asking me why their less than 6-month old, top of the line PCs have trouble playing games with all the settings turned up. You CAN draw every little, individual grass and then give it its own individual animation and whatnot, but that doesn't mean me, as a gamer, is even gonna be able to run the game in the first place. Some developers need to understand that less is more sometimes.
Admittedly there are some cool cases (in Soldier of Fortune 2 in one of the jungle parts, they used the grass to hide a tripwire connected to explosives) but after a certain point in the game, often times it goes unused after that point. (In C&C:Generals the game shows you its game engine capability by freeze framing and then rotating the camera around a guy sent into the air by an explosion. Cool, now show replay that again with 500 guys being sent into the air. What do you mean you're not gonna do that again? Wth? I gotta make my own scenario if I wanna see that? Oh forget that!)