The Comparative Value of 2-D Vs. 3-D Graphics In Games

GameSetWatch is running a feature discussing the value of graphics styles in games. The authors point out that while certain genres, such as first-person shooters, benefited immensely from the advent of 3-D graphics, some types of games didn't handle the transition as well. A player's perspective, and his interaction with the game's camera, can often make or break an otherwise excellent release. "Before making the full jump to 3D, many genres made a move from classic 2D to isometric 2D as an intermediary step. For example, the original Civilization had a traditional top-down grid view while Civ 2 had a three-quarters isometric view. While this new perspective gave the game world a more life-like appearance, the change did come at a cost to the user's game experience. Namely, distances are much more difficult to judge on an isometric grid as the east-west axis takes up twice as many pixels as the north-south axis. To solve this problem, for Civ 4, our 3D perspective actually hearkened back to the original game as we showed the game's grid straight ahead and not at an angle. The easier the players perceive the grid through the graphics, the better they can 'see' their possible decisions."

Comments

In the CAD World...

[pipingguy]

...distances are much more difficult to judge on an isometric grid...

This is great fun to try to solve when a 3D CAD user moves an element "only" 500 feet away (temporarily, so s/he can re-use it later, and then forgets it) in the X-Y plane, but it goes 6 billion kilometres away in the Z dimension, making the graphic environment slightly larger than the solar system.

What usually happens then is that the wildly out-of-proportion 3D model is appended into visualization software (along with hundreds of others) and it's near impossible to figure out why the designed facility is so hard to find in the blackness of space.

I want 2d metroid back

[not already in use]

Metroid was better as 2D. I thought Zelda was too. I can understand if they want to throw most of their weight behind 3d titles because they sell better, but I think new 2d titles of classic series would be cash cows on something like the virtual console, and cost a lot less to develop. Your only option to play good 2d games is on a hand held. No thanks, the last thing I need is to start at a 4 inch screen a foot from my face after 8 hours of looking at a computer monitor.

Re:I want 2d metroid back

[corsec67]

One thing I hate about the transition from 2D to 3D is, especially in 3-rd person games, how controlling the camera becomes as important as controlling the character.

Look at how many Playstation games have one stick for controlling the character and the other stick for controlling the camera, which just isn't an issue with a 2D game.

Re:I want 2d metroid back

[7Prime]

I agree and disagree. In the case of both series, my favorite games are 3D, but the 2D games really had their merrit, ESPECIALLY metroid. Metroid Prime is probably my favorite game in the series, however, it's the only 3D Metroid that I thought was anywhere close to being as good as Super Metroid or Zero Mission. The other 3 3D metroids (if you want to even count Hunters) were pretty terrible (well... Prime 3 had it's moments).

Zelda, I have to completely disagree. I think the nature of that series really made it shine in 3D. Since it's a more epic, cinematic adventure game, with less attention on action, and more on problem solving... adding a third dimension really opened up a lot of new possibilities in their puzzle creation and navigation... not to mention expanding the epic/cinematic feel. Twilight Princess, Majora's Mask, and OoT far surpassed their 2D counterparts, and I think the team really learned a lot about good storytelling as the series progressed (especially Twilight Princess), while Link to the Past and Minish Cap have their charm, I've been forever greatful for the mainstays of the series going 3D. The exceptions were Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass, which I thought took the series in an unbelievably boring direction.

All-in-all I think that Nintendo has been the best company to make the transition from 2D to 3D. I really trust their judgement in the matter. Metroid is Retro, who as creative as they are, do not have the 3 decades of experience behind them in game production, and sometimes end up tripping over themselves. However, Mario Galaxy, and the Zelda series really proves to me that they really know how to make the jump from 2 to 3 dimensions while a) keeping the games as easy to control as in 2D, and b) knowing what to change and what to keep when making the transition.

That's the thing. Some companies throw everything they've done previously in the series away, and basically create a new series with the same characters. This means that the series suffers, once again, from the same basic learning curve as any new series. Other companies try to keep everything EXACTLY the same... and in the process make a game that is completely out of its own dimension. The wise game designers are able to pick and choose elements that work well in the transition, and throw out the old.

RPGs don't count, however... pretty much every RPG can be done well in 3D, since the lack of timed action means that precise control is not an issue. Not that every first in an RPG series to go 3D is great (I'm not a huge fan of FF7 when compared to the games on either side of it, for instance), but there's no reason why 3D should hinder that genre. That pretty much goes for adventure too, with some exceptions.

Worms

[ozphx]

The Worms series suffered greatly from 3D. The extra degrees of freedom made craters and other hazards much less of an obstacle (side-stepped!) - and stray ordnance was much less likely to hit anything hilarious.

I've been playing around with Entanglar lately - which is a 2D physics / multiplayer library. Hopefully I'll be rich off the next Geometry Wars, and I will donate my considerable riches to the person who can troll twitter in the funniest way possible.

Re:Worms

[fractoid]

You're saying that sex has bad gameplay? Try it before you bag it bro! [Edit] Oh, btw, you gotta try the multiplayer, the single player game's just a tutorial.

good in some games, bad in others

[jollyreaper]

The advantage of 3D graphics, even without zooming the camera, is that it means you've gone away from the limits of the sprite sets. Consider how silly top-down flying games like Star Control looked when the ships could only point in eight directions. You fire your gun and the shot passes to the right of the target, turn one click, now it passes to the left. Ridiculous. IF this ship were rendered, you would have a true 360 degrees of rotation without creating an intolerable number of bitmaps.

Like anything in games, you can use too much and too little of the right tools. Dawn of War was pretty neat to look at but most of the capabilities of the engine were wasted. Yes, it's very cool to do in-engine cut scenes and yes, it's cool to be able to zoom right in and look a unit in the eyes but there's simply no time to do that when playing a frantic battle. There's not even a playback feature so you can see the results of your handiwork from the ground. No, you zoom in like that and you lose the ability to play properly. In the end it is a cool yet useless feature.

The thing that developers have kind of forgotten from time to time is that some play mechanics work in 3D, others don't. Others disagree with this but I never thought Sonic worked in a 3D format, it was always meant to be 2D. You can use 3D to render it but the camera should remain fixed and it should be a side-scroller. Was never a Mario fan so I don't know how they feel about the classic versions versus the 3D ones but I would imagine that they feel like entirely different games. Of course, we know why this happened in the PSX/N64 era. 3D graphics were the new thing and management pushed the mandate that everything should be 3D, period, just like Ted Turner colorizing old classics.

I like that they brought up Advanced Wars. The beauty of that game is that it looks great on the small screen and does it using techniques familiar to us from the SNES days, just with higher bit depths. But the core gameplay is there, the graphics look great, and the game accomplishes exactly what it set out to do and looks good doing it. I can just imagine some designer coming into the sequel and getting all gaga over making it 3D. Nope, it ain't a 3D game, never was and never should be. There's many good 3D combat games that could be made but they wouldn't be Advanced Wars. If that's the game you want to make, go make it and leave AV alone.

Stickers are most likely best

[Ostracus]

"2D gameplay is generally best when playing on a 2D surface."

Chess as a peel'em and stick game.

Re:Age of Empires a great example

[grumbel]

Along the same lines, I'd say that Super Mario 3 was better than the Super Mario for the N64,

I disagree. Not because Mario64 is better, but because *both* are damn good. The thing to realize is simply that 2D isn't 3D and visa verse. You can't really do 3D gameplay in 2D and neiher can you do 2D gameplay in 3D (well, you can, but it will most often feel ugly and restrictive). None of them is better then the other, they are simply very different forms of gameplay, with 2D being much better for clearer graphics and straight forward gameplay, while 3D is better for more complicated exploration orientated stuff.

The annoying thing is that almost all developers see 3D a a 'must have', so you see close to zero 2D games on the big consoles, the DS still gets some, but even there 2D is slowly dieing out for no good reasons, on the PSP its already as good as dead. I just wish that there was more stuff like Braid or Wario Land: Shake It!.