Slashdot Mirror
Videogame Graphic Advances - Not That Important?
Thanks to the IGDA for its 'Culture Clash' column discussing the recent advances in graphics quality for games, and why increased detail isn't always a good thing. The author, referencing a previously Slashdot-covered article about "unsettlingly funereal" hi-poly face models in games, points out: "Dependence on increasingly real visuals alone to generate emotion will inevitably hit a wall: at some point game graphics will look as good as real life. Developers have an arsenal of emotioneering tools at hand; to limit themselves to just one, however prominent, would be ill-advised", before further warning: "Overfocus on hyper-realistic graphics and modeling, while not a bad idea in a general sort of way, can also impede quality of gameplay."
The author, referencing a previously Slashdot-covered article about "unsettlingly funereal" hi-poly face models in games
Huh?
Again, in English please.
Graphics might be good to look at but if there's no gameplay what's the point of putting down $50? If it's no fun, no matter how life like it looks I'm not going to spend my hard earned money on it.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
To say that focussing on graphics at the expense of gameplay is a bad thing is obviously true. However, the reverse is equally true. These days, when I hand over the money for a game, I expect to get a product which not only plays well, but also looks decent.
This doesn't necessarily mean it has to have the latest 3d modelling techniques and uber-realistic lighting; you can achieve decent visuals as much through stylised 2D work as you can through the latest 3d engine. What it does mean is that I don't want to end up with a game which looks like it belongs in the late 90s.
It's true that the pace of advances in graphics has slowed as we get closer to the point of photo-realism. Doom was gob-smacking visually, Quake was very impressive, Quake 2 was fairly pretty and Quake 3 left me frankly unimpressed. However, it doesn't mean that developers should stop trying to push back the envelope. Far Cry gained a lot of atmosphere from its stunning visuals and I'd be surprised if Doom 3 didn't have a similar effect. On the console side of things, the visuals of the PS2 Final Fantasy and Gran Turismo games continue to be among the most powerful arguments against those who say the PS2 can't manage decent graphics.
Dependence on increasingly real visuals alone to generate emotion
Just look at South Park, for example.
The characters are full of emotion expression, even if the graphics are ridiculously simple.
Firstly, I think graphics are over-rated. I still play System-Shock 1 and 2 for the gameplay. Sure, by today's standards they look like crap, but they're fun as hell to play.
Secondly, I think more games should have a cartoon feel, via cell shading or whatever. Too realistic, a la photorealistic, would just plain suck; unless we're up to VR or holodecks, but they're probably a LONG way away (if we ever see them at all).
While I didn't like the child-like nature of Zelda: Wind Wakers, I thought the cell shading looked great. "Gish" for the PC is also great.
Non-realistic, if done well, can still look superb, and might require fewer resources. It would also get those stupid people complaining about games causing Columbine-type situations, as they'd have a harder time justifying it if a game was cel shaded, than uber-realistic.
Parent article is definitely true.
Compare the "legs," or longevity, of games like Angband and Nethack to those of Quake and the Diablo games. No contest.
This is because there are different production values: the roguelike games have a lasting cerebral appeal, while games that are built on eye candy concentrate elsewhere. This may have to do with the business models of modern game companies.
Take id software for instance. For gameplay internals, it doesn't get much simpler than id games. Doom was actually a playable game from the map screen if you turned on display of objects, and doing this shows how moronically simple Doom and Quake are. The appeal of the games, however, came from the presentation of the data, and the atmosphere produced by the amazing, moody artwork.
Mid-end graphics are comparatively simple to do, and using OpenGL actually makes it simpler, once you get over a certain learning curve. The models are the sticking point: you're not going to be doing amazing mo-capped human character models, but there's quite a database of MDL format models already out there, and there are other types of games, such as modern military RTS, that don't really require extremely detailed models-- a good example is the amazing TA, a game that has excellent longevity despite rather dated graphics.
TA is a game where the graphics are just good enough. At the time, there had to be a lot of trickery to render that many units at once, and the trickery in the TA engine involved giving the graphics a stylization that is still quite capable of bringing its gritty, desolate image home. TA is a sterling example of turning flaws into advantages.
Linux games should focus on extensibility, replay value, using randomness (cf. Roguelikes), and multiplayer, which gives games far more gameplay depth than the engine would seem to warrant (cf. Quake, Diablo II).
We could have a hundred original, interesting games on Linux. Instead we have 45,000 versions of Freecell and Tetris. In fact, Linux is the indisputed king of these types of games, because of the minimal thought required in their creation.
One idea for curing this might be to leverage the existing codebases of games like Angband and grafting semi-modern rendering engines onto them. Even turnbased play is wonderful with these games, and I think realtime play a la Diablo might not be very difficult to achieve.
One thing we DON'T need is more Tetris and Tuxracer clones.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
At GDC 2003, Jason Rubin, head and founder of Naugthy Dog, a highly successful development studio for PS1 and PS2, delivered a speech (slides available here, audio and slides available on Gamasutra (free painless reg. req.)) on a closely related subject : improvements in graphics quality will not be sustained over the next few years, and relying on them to impress potential customers is a bad idea.
Moral : as long as gameplay, character development and story do not suck, nice graphics are of course an asset, but they're useless in case of an already shitty game...
Who needs a
What's the most popular game ever made? GTA? Doom 2? Halo?
/. still play MUDs.
Tetris. Look at the GFX budget and how it's aged.
If you want to make money and impress people, concentrate on graphics. If you want to create a game with redeeming value, they're not really that important. Many people who read
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
A friend of mine does not like to play most shooter style games, she will watch them but not play, this is ever since Quake 1 or so. The reason is that she does not like to die, even in a video game she knows isn't real. I could see it possible that as graphics get better and better, more and more people feeling like this and games starting to lose money.
I came to the conclusion that the article author is insane, and, as a consequence of that, full of shit.
Amen to that. The astonishing graphics on today's games are quit fantastic, but I find myself increasingly disturbed at how shallow the plot lines and characters are of many modern games. Final Fantasy X is a good example. I loved the final fantasy games because of the complexity and the personal connection with the story line and characters. When I played X I was bored to death because I was just being strung along from one battle to the next and/or graphic cinematic. They had spent so much time creating the graphics that they could not devote programming time to creating a more interactive gamespace. Unless developers can budget both programming and graphics they need to stick to programming so that we have games that are still fun to play and get involved in.
I think that the recent increase in nostalgia gaming and the decline of the PC gaming market are proof of this. Look at all the games Nintendo is selling hundreds of thousands of copies of. Not one of them has ultra-realistic graphics. What they do have is nostalgia and gameplay.
To contrast lets look at the PC gaming market. HL2 and Doom3 are the only games of note for the entire PC platform. Virtually every other game has been ignored other than MMOs, which are a seperate story. But that doesn't mean that there aren't any PC games. Look at games like Farcry you got some crazy awesome graphics there. But these games aren't selling nearly as well as the Nintendo games.
People keep forgetting that what makes a video game is the game not the video. The interactive element between the player and a virtual world is where the innovation has to happen. Just increasing the quality of the output doesn't do the trick.
The idea is not new, but think about this. Let's say you have a team of guys getting ready to make a new FPS. Instead of making a new 3d engine, models, textures, sounds, etc. Spend that time instead doing this. Make a game with so-so graphics. Do it at SNES quality graphics, or PS1 quality graphics at the most. But spend that time you would have spent working on fancy graphics to make the game bigger. In the space of just one FMV how many levels of Super Mario can you fit? In the space of just one fully rendered model with textures how much plot and detail can you add to a game like FF6?
Don't waste time on graphics. Use the computing power at your disposal to make an old school game, with high quality gameplay, but make it bigger and badder than ever before possible. If you look at how the market is swinging these days, its sure to be a big hit.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
This is a trend I've been seeing in Movies (Shrek comes to mind) as well as in computer games: Recently, the enhanced realism in computer graphics only shows how hard it is to do, and how much we aren't quite there yet (and maybe never will be). I find stylized CG (XIII or say, The Incredibles) much more interesting.
Games like double dragon, TMNT (original), street fighter, they all were cool games, but it didn't make sense that you could dodge backwards and vertically (by jumping or ducking) but not in a 3rd dimension. Yes, you you had limited movement in the 3rd dimension, but you couldn't turn diagonally like you could in true 3d games like Mario 64, or Quake or DOOM. Wolfenstein 3d doesn't count btw, no vertical movement
That added a lot to the gaming experience over games like Mario Brothers, OutRun or Adventure of Zelda.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
"at some point game graphics will look as good as real life."
Yeah, because I see dozens of corpses every day in REAL LIFE, and *gee* it gets boring after a while.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Good gaming is about good gameplay; if you don't believe that, go play with MAME for a bit. The problem is, game marketing has changed.
Once upon a time, you either watched someone else play in an arcade, risked a quarter to play it yourself, or went over to the house of the kid whose father bought every new console game that Nintendo advertised. Marketers had it easy.
These days, there are so many games available, and prices are so high, that you're at the mercy of relying on review articles or limiting yourself to the games that your friends have already bought. Articles can't show gameplay, and game companies can't control the games your friends choose to show you. What is a marketer to do?
Answer: great graphics! Great graphics == great screenshots for the magazine review. Great graphics == your friend using the game to show off how good their new video card looks. Both of those == increased sales.
Not all graphic improvements are bad -- certainly, I wouldn't play my trusty late 90s copy of Gran Prix Legends using software rendering -- but beyond a certain point graphic improvements are marketing-driven, not gameplay-driven, and we've long since passed that point.
For a driving-centric example of this, play Test Drive: Le Mans (Dreamcast version only). Then, play Gran Turismo 2 (PS2). Marvel at how crappy Test Drive: Le Mans suddenly looks. Then play Test Drive: Le Mans again. Marvel at how dull and unresponsive Gran Turismo 2 suddenly feels. And in a week, see which one you're still playing.
I would pay more money for a new chapter of Fallout, with the same graphics as before, than I would for Doom 3.
... enjoyable, fun, repeatable OR with tons of content (if not repeatable). The benefit of having the most up to date graphics engine will quickly wear off if the game itself is not up to par.
... but beware that any more hardware limit will severely limit your market as well.
I think the stuff going into Half-Life 2 is awesome, but I -still- would have wanted the game if it looked the same as before (ok, some higher resolution textures would be good but the engine worked well). Most of my gripes with 3D games have been on the mechanics side of things, not the whizbang graphics side.
I wouldn't mind seeing a 3D treatment of my all-time favorite Squarez! but it would be QUITE well handled with 5 year-old graphics technology.
Games should focus on being -games- first
I am not saying that people who want to tweak an engine to use every possible CPU cycle should be fired, merely:
a) That should not be the focus of the game (in other words, don't expect me to want to play just because it looks pretty)
b) That a game should never be SO far out on the bleeding edge that only a small percentage of rigs can run it. Doom 3 seems to be close to this bleeding edge but probably not quite too far based on specs I've read
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Sooner or later all these high end engines are going to raise the cost of games. Every time these guys go from 10,000 to 100,000 poly models, that's just that much more time spent in a studio trying to get killer models done, and then there's the additional texture work, sound, etc.
... or they're small pro shops looking to make a name for themselves.
The engine might come out of the box to run at these level, but the asset work still requires that much more work to complete.
I'm seeing this all over the place in the (unreal) mod community. People don't want small mods anymore, they want commercial quality games. The problem is - making that quality gets more time consuming, requires more organization, etc. Few mod teams have the steam and those that do can rarely get out innovative work (which IMO, is the job of mods)
I'm actually looking to make use of the 2D aspects of Unreal to lower asset costs.
But back on topic - the high end nature of the graphics keep increasing the production costs, which eventually are going to have to increase product cost.
If I had mod points you'd be getting a -1 troll. you sound like a linux user, bitter that decent games dont come out for your os. your claims of Angband and Nethack having more longetivity than Quake and Diablo are humourous. I know hardly anybody who plays nethack and have never even heard of Angband, yet I know loads of people who still play quake (well, quakeworld, but its the same thing). I will give you diablo, that got old fast... JUST LIKE NETHACK
Sometimes graphical advancements can actually augment gameplay in certain situations. Take Splinter Cell for example. You may or may not like the title all that much, but the gameplay is greatly improved upon by the fact that the graphical engine includes shadows that you can hide in. Without the accurate visual representation, you'd have to rely on a stealth meter which is archaic in comparison.
Splinter Cell is one of the titles out there where better graphics pushed better gameplay. I'm hoping that Doom3 follows that trend.
Get Virtual.
> "Overfocus on hyper-realistic graphics and modeling, while not a bad idea in a general sort of way, can also impede quality of gameplay."
Gamers know this already; a game is not graphics alone. Without good gameplay to back it up, a good-looking game will still do rather poorly. And a game with relatively dated graphics can still do quite well with exceptional gameplay.
-lw
Mods: Disagreeing with me != my post Offtopic / Flamebait.
World without hate or war, invaded. Tragic?
We used to play game for their abstractedness! Games would take us to weird and wonderful places that couldn't ever exist in reality! You young 'uns today have no imagination! Everything has to be real. Well dag nabbit, real is boring!!
Now fetch me my cane.
And unfortunately, the Xbox is usually the system that proves this example time and time again. take Brute Force, for example. Beautiful game, but it's just not fun. The same could be said for Blinx, Munch's Oddesy, Blood Wake, MechAssault, etc.
On the other end of the spectrim, look at Rock 'n Roll Racing for the SNES. That game, to this day, still earns my appreciation. I have yet to find a person that didn't like it, in fact.
Get Virtual.
I play Half-Life Counter-Strike. Every map in the game consist of crates/boxes which are square-shaped. These are the few places where people can hide.
Now, the new game-engines out there seem to sport many new elements like trees, vehicles, grass, bush, etc. Which by the way makes us have to look really carefully for an enemy when we play. This really removes the "action aspect" of the game.
Mind you that when people make small arenas in real-life games, they often remove these complex things that slow down the gameplay.
Games based on high quality graphics isn't going anywhere soon. Action movies still pull in viewers no matter how crappy the plot/acting is. I'll admit that I highly doubt that any game based on eye candy alone will ever be the number one selling game, much like that of the video industry I doubt an action movie will ever be the number 1 grossing movie.
They are niche markets so to speak and will always draw people. If you look at the video industry the number 1 grossing movie of all time is Titantic, and the number 1 selling game of all time is The Sims. Both of them I personally don't care much for, but the fact that they have such a broad based market allows them to do well.
I do admit though, Graphics have reached a point of diminishing returns, that being the amount of time spent on the graphics doesn't make it all that much better to the eye. This allows games that aren't based on state of the art graphics to catch up so to speak to the game engines that are based on eye candy.
Basically what I mean is that the eye candy market isn't going anywhere, rather more games which aren't based solely on eye candy are filling the needs of eyecandyaholics!
Well.. the real problem I see is that companies are adding realistic graphics without the mandatory elements that go along with them i.e. if you are going to render each finger individually, you better make them move like real fingers. If you are going to make the characters mouths move when they talk, you better make damn sure that the speech lines up with their motuhs, or else it will stick out like a big fking X painted across your face..
I've seen plenty of games that only used 2d sprites, cel shaded or low poly(relative) 3d graphics that had more expressive and deep characters than some if not many of todays games with lifelike chars
That said, as someone who uses game technology for uses other than playing games (ie machinima,) I can say that the real-time lighting effects in Doom 3 are a huge change, and a sort of breakthrough in terms of what's possible.
When making Machinima, we are able to come very close to the techniques of real film-making. But the lighting has always been a limitation. Film-making is all about light. So the fact that we can now position lights in-game in real-time and create shadows, means we are that much closer to real film-making techniques.
Of course, if the past is any indication, we won't actually start to use Doom 3 for Machinima until Doom 4 is released. ; )
The ILL Clan - Machinima Pioneers
I've been thinking about this for quite some time and I realize that I'm more comfortable around cartoon and animated graphics than I am with pseudo realistic graphics. I've seen some movies and games where they try to make the face of a character as realistic as possible. However, it just feels eery to me. The closer they get to reality the more eery it feels. There is always something that just doesn't fit. Lips don't move properly, the skin is too shiny, the face too perfect, or the features too symmetrical.
In fact, I just looked on Google to see if anyone else noticed this and found this article.
Having worked for a gaming company and in the game industry for over ten years, gameplay and graphics go hand in hand. Yes, good graphics will improve sales but it will not make the game. I think most of us are smart enough to know that while eye candy is dandy, being real is the deal. But there is a lot more to developing a decent product.
There are four important factors in a games success:
1: open sourced/editable for improvements and new version (i.e. battlefield1942 morphing into desertcombat or starwars's galactic conquest, nethack)
2: gameplay that can extend beyond the original campaign(dynamic campaigns, add-ons)
3: good customer interaction and support for the game community (ie.combat mission, halflife, quake)
4: product that does something new or is not scared of rattling the conservative right (Grand Theft Auto).
The fourth will garner attention as free marketing. Rockstar used it for GTA:Vice and it worked brilliant.
Put those into a game, you've got a home run every time.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
I see you weren't on the high school debate team.
The appeal of the games, however, came from the presentation of the data, and the atmosphere produced by the amazing, moody artwork.
I guess the well-tuned low level gameplay had nothing to do with it?
Linux games should focus on extensibility, replay value, using randomness (cf. Roguelikes), and multiplayer, which gives games far more gameplay depth than the engine would seem to warrant (cf. Quake, Diablo II).
Holy Shit!! One thing linux doesn't need is more retarded armchair designers.
Games have increasingly getting more and more complex over the years, and thankfully so have the graphics associated with them. The higher production values are noticeable, and the entire affair is more engaging than it's ever been. While highly simplistic gameplay can be great, no one mentions that it's also damned hard to pull off so one doesn't get bored of it.
Does that mean that all old games are junk? Definitely not, but classic games that can hold one's attention indefinitely like Tetris are flukes. They aren't the norm, and on balance the majority of games being produced today are far better than their predecessors.
Think back over the games that really immersed you... was it the graphics or the aural environment?
For me, sound makes a huge, *huge* difference to immersion. The tension of hearing an unknown bump in the night, the thrum of big machinery, the startling screech of something nearby, a ricochet shot that just missed my head... these add a lot more to my game experience than a more-accurately rendered face viewed from 100 feet away...
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I personally prefer the texture oriented detail found in DOA2 VS the higher polygonal detail found in DOA3. Sure, they both look great, but those characters are not meant to look, and more Anime'ish. Making full 3D representations kind of break the feel.
Not That Important?
As graphics become more advanced, you run into a problem a Japanese researcher discovered called the Uncanny Valley which I believe has been mentioned here before. Basically, there is a zone right before true biomechanical and visual accuracy where the viewer's affinity plummets. Thus the success with anthropomorphic game characters--Jak, Sonic, Conker, et al--and the intentionally lowered parallelism in GTA3, Prince of Persia, Beyond Good and Evil...et al. Thus contriubting to the underwhelming sales of Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3 (which were also a bit buggy and not sufficiently optimized for the PC).
Despite that, the valley can be overcome by providing a generally lush environment, like in Far Cry and Doom 3. In Deus Ex and Thief 3, the "funereal" nature of the character models stands out like a sore thumb because the environments are relatively middle-of-the-road, Thief 3's lighting model notwithstanding. They *do* look a little creepy and waxy.
However, money has to be made in PC gaming, much of which is pushed by the inevitable upgrade cycle. This is mainly brought on by competing titles and publishers, instead of being demanded or even requested by the buying public. We just want the game to work, really, and looking nice is also good, but not necessary. However, the upgrade cycle creates a cognitive contradiction, where we *need* the games to look nice because we've spent so much money keeping our systems upgraded--a requirement spawned by industry competition. It becomes a vicious cycle--for the gamer. The industry reaps the rewards either way.
But, with the increasingly impressive spec lists on consoles these days, with the price tags remaining relatively static (around $300 at launch), it becomes increasingly difficult to convince the PC gamer to plunk down more money for a videocard than he would pay for both the console and the game. Heck, you can get a GameCube, the game, and a brand-new TV for less than the cost of an X800 XT.
So many people ask, "Will my system run this game?" And it's getting difficult for the undustry to convince them *not* to buy a console, especially when many within it have made that decision already. Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 will just work on the Xbox. One disc, no driver issues, and if you find out that you don't like it, you can just return the game or sell it back to the retailer for, typically, twice the money you'd get for the PC version. Or you can rent it for the tenth of the cost of the PC version.
In the end, if the PC gaming industry wants to retain its user base, I think it needs to innovate in design, not in visuals. Easier said than done, granted. But the PC still has capabilities that the consoles can't touch, like online communities, mods, and other various sundry. If a dev can integrate things like patch updates and the above items into the game design, seamlessly, they might be able to keep ahead of the tide. Some of them do these things already, but there needs to be a standard, IMO.
One day I woke up and realized that I didn't need the latest technology. I realized that there really is life behind the leading edge. A good game from 5 years ago is as good as a good game from today, except the game from 5 years ago costs $4.99 or less instead of $49.99 and plays on a used PC that costs $200 instead of $2000. And if the game made today really is that good...then in 5 years I'll be buying it for $4.99 to play on my $200 system. And I'll have no trouble waiting those 5 years because I'm nowhere near finishing those games from 5 years ago yet.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
story driven games with immersive plotlines and characters fare better with me than fancy graphics. I think players miss the meat and potatoes and are getting sick on the icing.
GameDude http://www.download-free-games.com/
There are many games that fall outside of the four factors.
Myst, Far Cry, Baldur's Gate, Splinter Cell. They don't have customization, open source, or anything breakthrough like you list; They just executed an existing genre really well.
Myst was just an adventure puzzle game, with [at the time] mindblowing graphics, and really well executed puzzles.
Far Cry is just an FPS with mindblowing graphics and really good physics. The story, the multiplayer, even the gameplay is pretty good, nothing terribly special.
Splinter Cell is a good stealth shooter with good gameplay but not spectacular, once again graphics and level design make the game.
Baldur's Gate series was just a great story, mediocre graphics, average gameplay
On the flip side there are games that have one or more of the four things you list, but aren't great (there are no sure homeruns) because they executed poorly. Tons of me-too RTS that have dynamic campaigns, lots of sucky editable FPS, and even more badly made "controversial" games.
The only one that I think does make for a successful game is number 3, but often that is more something that happens as a result of a good game. It doesn't matter how much a dev supports the gaming community if the game is bad.
I think the items you list can take a good game and make it a great game, ie Neverwinter Nights, or take a great game and make it genre defining. But none of those things really "make" the game either.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Fscking illiterates! English is not your native language? It isn't mine either!
I prefer a game with realistic breast physics than realistic breast sizes.
Big breasts bouncing is just so much better than average breasts not bouncing.
I guess we have to do with someone very unimaginative, who is discarding lighting/gravity as a non-gameplay item.
Bontago (www.bontago.com) proves for once that gravity can be used for the gameplay, and not gimmicky-like as in , for example, Mac Payne 2.
For the lighting : I see plenty of options, since it's the cornerstone of most 3dengines (the shadows give something 'real ' depth) , ifnot our real lifes.
I can see how someone can make a stand that only graphics, or only a cool gravity engine, can't make a good game on itself : But there are plenty of examples that are/will be.
What the PC needs really badly is decent, standard controllers (with games that use them) and more games that support split-screen. Neither too tricky to implement, but hardly anyone is doing it.
With the controller issue it's possibly because most of the players who have the weight and tech to do it don't want to hurt console revenues, but I really don't see why e.g. Doom 3 won't be doing split-screen co-op (and DM) on the PC, when it will do for the Xbox. Perhaps windows(/linux?) needs better support for multiple keyboards and mice? And, ok, two keyboards won't fit on every desk. But I don't think these are huge issues.
It's similar to the problem I have with cel-shaded games, especially the ridiculously cutesy Wind Waker. I can handle stuff like that with hand-drawn 2D, because even the best artist can't make a 2D drawing compare very well to real life; inaccuracies are expected. But convert a cel to 3D and the deficiencies of the style become blindingly apparent.
What's my point? I guess it's the fact that ultra-realism isn't the only way that high-tech graphics can become jarring to the eye.
Rob
I couldn't agree more, but then I'm biased coz I'm a sound-guy. One of the things about Return To Castle Wolfenstein (apart from the nice rocky rock-textures and great doomy Ramms+ein-like feel) was the great score and SFX. The downside of all this sonic realism is that when playing said game at 3AM on headphones in the dark, on the crypt level, surrounded by the undead, a bag of books falls off the bed behind me, causing me to nearly blast a hole clean through the seat of my chair.
In the classic Dungeon Master on the Atari ST the programmers used to make the Floppy drive whir occasionally to increase the tension in the player, the intention being that the player would imagine the game was loading up some monster for around the next corner. Being an utter saddo I used to put a bit of wire in the monitor port's mono sound out and one in the earth and connect these to the mixer in my studio, where, with a bit of stereo reverb from my Midiverb One (it was the 80's remember) I could get all those dungeon clanks to sound really, really clanky!
I've mentioned this before, but in case anyone still wants to play Dungeon Master, they can download Return to Chaos from
http://www.ragingmole.com/RTC/
and let Mr Gilbert what a top chap he is!
Hands up everyone who refuses to obey orders.
Look, Tetris with great GFX is still good right? Halo wouldn't work with bad GFX. Vice City would be a different experience with different GFX (although I've been playing GTA & GTA2 of late and find GTA a little better, even with the not so hot GFX).
GFX without gameplay is like a movie (or something you don't actually play with).
Gameplay without GFX isn't as great.
It's about balance. I suggest we get a delegation from each camp and sort out some sort of peace treaty. This war has raged for too long.
Remember in the way back, before GFX were great? Sure there were great games then, but there were lots of really bad ones. And the same is true today. Hardware getting better doesn't change that at all.
Hmmm.... what was my point again?
In my opinion, there are multiple uncanny valleys that gasmes can fall into. Graphics is only one of them and the most obvious of them. The other two things that have uncanny valleys are AI and physics.
One of the problems that people are having now is the ability to make characters in the game behave in a realistic fashion. In older games, you had things that behaved in such an artificial manner that it didn't jar our expectations. Now that we're trying to make games more realistic, creating characters that act like humans, we're going to find the ways they fall short of actual humans rather jarring, for the same reason that we find the zombies of modern games disturbing. We're wired to react to people socially. We can deal with artificial things easily enough, but someone that acts like a weird human will push mental buttons that clearly artificial things won't.
Likewise with physics. I think one of the reason a lot of very old games do very well in replayability is that they had totally unrealistic physics. Of course they had totally unrealistic worlds so we weren't jarred by the fact that things did not obey the normal laws of physics. Why did the things in Centipede or an early platformer act the way they did? That's just the way the world worked, and that was that.
Now we're trying to create games with realistic looking worlds. And people wonder why they can't pick up a rock and break open a window. Or move aside crates blocking a hallway. Games are getting more real, and that means we're sliding into the Uncanny Valley again as our expectations rise up to demand realism and what we are wired to expect.
Eventually things will get better, as we get good at creating synthetic digital actors who can express a range of emotions, and artificial personality programs that process player-NPC interaction and generate appropriate NPC reactions, and we have libraries that automatically model the physics and behavior of realistic objects.
Incidentally, even as the polygon count goes up, I don't expect the artistic cost to go up proportionally. I do expect the artistic tools to get better over time. An artist who wants a forest scene will just tell the computer to create a forest and he'll be able to tweak parameters and make a few manual adjustments over time. Just because an object has a zillion polygons doesn't mean an artist has to specify each one by hand. I do expect the demands on artists to level off.
I think gameplay is the most important thing of a game, how realistic the characters move, react, and the physics in the game should be accurate. However, i don't think that graphics will get to the point that they are "too realistic" or "so realistic it looks fake/bad" because even now, graphics in some games add "garbage" to the graphics, imperfections, and "real textures" now instead of a few pictures taken with a digital camera, tiled all over the place, engines use randomness, to make textures, so it doesn't look like everything is tiled, also they can add "defects" i think if you look at a wall in any room of anything, you'll find some defects, you'll find little holes from nails in the walls, etc. games are starting to add those defects in, and lots of realistic dynamic trash, for example in GTA3 there is old newspapers and leaves all over the city, and if you drive a car by, the air movement from the car driving by moves around the leafs and newspapers. But that combines REALISTIC graphics with REALISTIC physics.
The Movies in particular comes to mind, without the ability to render realistic-looking actors, the idea won't work. Of course it remains to be seen if it will work since the game isn't out yet.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men... --Willy Wonka
... suck in the gameplay department. I also don't know anyone that buys games for their graphics alone. Both play their part in staying with the status quo. The graphics should be as good as the hardware is capable and everyone accepts that. I don't think anyone is suggesting a return to 8-bit nintendo graphics, but 2D 16-bit style games could still hold up on modern hardware at higher resolutions if the art was updated with 'quasi' 3d / 2D artwork.
The Gameboy advance while not being amazing in the graphics department is the best handhelds ever created because there are a lot good and original games for it, and they are fun (See: Advance wars / Advance wars 2, Golden sun, etc)
Almost all games sell based on how fun the game actually is. Games cannot simply rely on graphics, the best example of these failures are MMOG's. Take a look at EVE: The 2nd genesis, thats what you get for focusing too much on graphics and not enough on gameplay: Shitty subscriber base. I was bored out of my f'n mind while trying to play that game.
Now take a fun game like City of Heroes and you know why it is selling and doing so well. It's because it's a fun game and word of mouth and mindshare from previous success's is some of the best marketing you can get.