What's the Importance of Graphics In Video Games?

An anonymous reader writes "I develop games as a hobby. I've experimented with games on almost every platform available. For me, the gameplay is the most influential factor of a game, with history and graphics dividing second place. But, for some reason, it's not the technical beauty of the graphics that appeal to me. I have played Crysis, and I've played Pokémon games. The graphics of the Pokémon games entertain me as much as the graphics of Crysis. I think both are beautiful. So, why is the current generation of games giving so much importance to the realism in graphic games? I think it is sufficient for a game to have objects that are recognizable. For example, while the water in some games may not look as good as in Crysis, I can still tell it's water. What are your opinions on the current direction of game graphics? Do you prefer easy-to-render 3D scenes that leave space for beautiful effects, like with Radiosity, or more complex 3D scenes that try to be realistic?"

Comments

Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics.

[GF678]

WHat the hell is immersion anyway? I never feel like I'm a character in any game- I'm me. I'm playing a game. I don't want to feel more like I'm a pretend character, I want the gameplay mechanics to be more fun to use and the strategy level/difficulty level to be correct. If that's there, I have fun. If its not, trying to make me think I am the character won't help.

That great, you're of the "old school" traditional gaming camp.

However, many gamers have shown that they like being sucked into games to the point of becoming part of the story, the setting, the protagonist. Valve have run with this via Gordon Freeman - the game is designed to make the player play as if they ARE Gordon. He has some back-story, but the player ends up feeling as though they're the one fighting the combine instead of controlling some guy who's doing all the work. Hence the lack of cut-scenes or any concept of Gordon talking.

And you know what? The gameplay mechanics are fun too! You can have fun and gameplay AND get sucked into becoming the character, it isn't mutually exclusive. I don't know why you were modded insightful - maybe some people believe that opinions that buck the trend are somehow insightful for this very reason.

Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics.

[am 2k]

"Suspension of Disbelieve" is the professional term for the thing you're describing.

Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics.

[sqlrob]

Trying scaring someone on 8-bit arcade graphics.

OK, done.

Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics.

[Camann]

I believe you mean "Suspension of Disbelief"

Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics.

[Cornelius the Great]

Technically no. Half-Life was near cutting-edge when it was released. The Quake2 engine added colored lighting and multitexturing to the Quake1 engine (I've looked at both sources- they share a lot of the same underlying code). Half-Life was based on the Quake1 tech, but Valve added multitexturing and colored lighting as well, as well as Direct3D support (HL1 had software, OpenGL, and D3D modes out of the box).

I could possibly argue that HL was technically superior to Quake2 as it had decals (bullet pock marks and blood spatters) and skeletal animation.