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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?"
is important in any game. Graphics can be cool and all, but they shouldn't be the primary reason for any game.
Not so sure, look at roguelikes. They consumed years of my life with naught but ascii characters. I think graphics are a luxury, not a necessity. Games can definitely get by with little to no graphics.
In the end it is all about communication. You could ask the same about movies, and conclude it's all about the story. The lion king would not work as well as a live action movie, since it will not communicate emotions as well. On the other hand, special effects nowadays aren't as scary anymore, because they have the sense of being unrealistic (see Michael Bay Movies).
For me, the appeal of pretty pictures wear off quickly, so I prefer simpler graphics with beautiful effects so my senses do not get overloaded. Also for crysis, I think all the detail clutters the screen and distracts attention away from the gameplay.
The better the graphics the easier it is to be immersed in the game. Immersion is probably the best generator of enjoyment in a game.
I guess it depends on the person. I find good looking 3D games much more enjoyable than 2D games (with the exception of Peggle, maybe) - and I have played my fair share of 2D games as I did not have a decent computer for quite a few years.
I think people might be coming to actually *expect* good looking graphics too, so when they see a game that is not aestetically pleasing as games of a similar type this would make getting immersed in the game more difficult.
Video games are an entertainment medium. So are movies. No one is going to argue that good CG effects can make a movie better, yet when it comes to graphics people want to stomp their foot on about gameplay and how graphics are meaningless.
They're not. Of course, it depends on the game--many games don't translate well to 3D, and the retro charm of 8bit is always nice--but let's not kid ourselves that "immersion" (yeah, yeah) is a part of game enjoyment. You can't make an 8bit WoW, now would you want to try, but a 3D pacman isn't going to translate well either.
You can't say "Oh, well I prefer this over that" because graphics depend on the type of game. Comparing pokemon to Crysis isn't fair at all. FPSes, which put you in an actual environment where you have to run, hide, and hopefully slaughter your opponents are a "Far Cry" (ha, ha, ha) from a lightweight (but yes, fun) RPG game on a portable. And imagine an 8-bit Silent Hill! Survival horror didn't really become popular until the PSX for a reason.
I find myself greatly missing the graphics of some of the old-school SNES rpgs such as FFVI's look, but I'm not going to say that FFX's (last FF I played) graphics detracted at all from the game's experience. So I can't say it's the type of graphics I enjoy so much as it is the game and how well the graphics fit in with the genre and the game's design. I don't see why it has to be a one-or-the-other situation.
Graphics can be great for immersion.
I've never really felt that nethack was fun, because it was ME running around in dungeons.
Nethack is fun because it speaks to logic and bad puns (i like bad puns. I like bad punch too, if it's spiked).
when first played games such as quake or bioshock, good graphic and soundscape helped me feel in danger of whatever was around the next corner.
I like a good shock once in a while, the sudden appearence of a darg grey 'D' or '&' just doesn't hit my nerves.
This might also mean that it's most im
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
Actually, yes, graphics should be the #1 focus of survival horror primarily because those games are supposed to draw you and and hopefully unnerve you. Nobody plays Silent Hill for super-innovative gameplay. Trying scaring someone on 8-bit arcade graphics.
Graphics can be cool and all, but they shouldn't be the primary reason for any game.
Case study: Heroes of Might and Magic III vs. Heroes of Might and Magic V: same fundamental gameplay, except 5 was done entirely in 3D. The result? 5 is unplayable on a dual-core Dell laptop, (except with minimal settings in 640x480), and it got harder to recognize objects you can interact with.
Graphics should be appropriate to the game experience you're trying to create. That's all there is to it, really.
In some cases, that means pushing for absolutely cutting edge technology. A big part of the Crysis experience is the "shock and awe" factor of the visuals, as well as the heavy use of foliage and other environmental factors that need to be done to a very high standard if they're not going to look silly. Personally, I think Crysis is a very, very good game - one of the best of recent years on any platform - and the graphics are a big part of that (though the fairly free-form gameplay is another big element). To be honest, if you're making a first or third person shooter these days that doesn't have a deliberately abstract setting, then you really should be pushing for the most technologically advanced graphics you can, because as gamers' expectations improve, games which fall behind the curve face a bigger and bigger challenge in not having their immersion broken through poor graphics. I remember playing Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth back when it was released and being generally very impressed by the atmosphere (despite the bugs). I tried replaying it recently, and the way that the graphics had aged so badly was quite a shocking bar to getting back into it.
However, not every game needs to be a technological powerhouse, and there are even cases where flash-whizz-bang 3d graphics can work against a game. My favorite example here (and yes, I know it's an old one) concerns the third and fourth Monkey Island games. Monkey Island 3 was for many years the closest thing I'd played to an interactive cartoon. The graphical quality certainly wasn't far short of the animation you were seeing in animated movies at the time, and was actually ahead of much of what you'd see in kids' TV cartoons and anime of the era. For a cartoony graphical adventure, it was perfect. Then for the fourth installment, everything went 3d and it looked rubbish. So we went stylistically from "interactive cartoon" to "badly designed Quake mod". You can see the same thing with the transition from Baldur's Gate 2 to Neverwinter Nights - beautifully drawn 2d backdrops changed to boring, bland 3d tilesets (though I guess this was necessary to make user created content easier).
Interestingly, the recent Sam & Max episodic games seem to have found a decent middle ground here. They balance 3d and 2 graphics in a way that works really quite well, and have finally pulled things back up to the "interactive cartoon" level (and a prettier cartoon that Monkey Island 3 was, though perhaps not by far).
Then occasionally you get one of my favorite experiences; something which uses really quite advanced graphical effects to produce a deliberately highly stylised effect. The best example I've seen of this recently is Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3, which uses some quite advanced 3d graphics and visual effects, but aims for a unique look, which is going neither for realism, nor for the typical anime look you see in a lot of Japanese games. I know cell-shading is nothing new (and has been much abused, particularly by Nintendo), but Valkyria Chronicles combines it with other techniques to pull off a unique and distinctive look that really fits the game well.
If I want reality, I turn off the computer. As for video games, they should:
1. Have graphics simple enough to quickly locate usable objects without having to strain through all the distractions. Myst series is a bad offender, especially since the objective is to solve puzzles.
2. Take you to an alternative world to take your mind away from real life
3. Be installable on a typical hard drive in dozens, without a need to hunt for - or worse swap - CDs or DVDs
4. Be playable in half an hour intervals, so that someone with kids can also participate.
I have the disposable income to buy pretty much all the titles I like and have time to play. Yet, chiefly because of #4, I am mostly downloading DOS games from abandon ware sites. I would gladly pay if someone was selling them for reasonable price and with instant download available. As a hobbyist, I think you would do well to write some adventure-style games and gain some audience without competition from most commercial developers.
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.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Trying scaring someone on 8-bit arcade graphics.
Maybe not 8-bit arcade graphics but.... it has to do with locking someone in a room with an Atari 2600 and one game. That game being E.T.
I AM THOGULUS WARRIOR OF THE UNDEAD. I EAT YOUR LIVER TO REGAIN HEALTH. Yeah I hate it when I am raiding and I start referring to myself in the third person and act more like the character than myself. Once in high school I put my characters name on a test instead of my own.
I think that plot and good gameplay is much more important that graphics in the kind of games I do like, but this is not true in any kind of games.
IMHO Gameplay come always first, a game must be fun to play, then came the rest in an order depending on the game kind, as an example an online fps doesn't really need a plot.
Anyway it is also difficult to describe what "good graphics" means.
Saying that "good graphics" means high-resolution and photo realism is like saying that a photo is better that a painting.
It's not a matter of pixel, is something more complex, it's a form art, you have to choose your canvas, and you have to use it well.
An example is Okami (wii and original ps2 version), its low-resolution/low definition graphics to me is the most beautiful eye experience I had from a videogame. The plot and the game-play are just as beautiful, so to me is one of the best game ever.
Anyway It's a matter of taste ;)
Cya
Unluckily Murphy was right.
Just as it takes more than skillful special effects to make a great movie, it takes more than good graphics to make a great game. You'd think these points would be obvious but there are quite clearly game (and movie) makers out there who don't get them.
Abstract games do work. It's just that they don't work unless they're compelling in every other way.
A pretty but otherwise bland game will leave you bored. The key point here is the ability to entertain comes from several angles. The ability to be entertained by something is also subjective. There's no point in Slashdot routinely knocking Doom IV as bland and an attempt to put a new engine to use, because it has a target market who enjoyed it.
Games with good gameplay, good graphics and a compelling storyline are, sadly, a little rare. Part of the reason games like Portal are perceived as winners in every category is that Portal was unique and fresh. Therefore speed of release is also a factor in our perceived enjoyment of a game.
So what's left? What sure-fire thing can a game developer do to ensure his game is well received once he's met all other criteria for an entertaining game? Be original - that's pretty much it.
I've been more scared and nerve-wracked in a single game of X-Com than in many of the 'hyper realistic' gory zombie games that have come out recently.
In a way, it is a vicious cycle, but it's also innovation, you don't want games to become stagnant in terms of how they look.
Only focusing on realism is stagnation. There's very little innovation in realism. It takes very little artistic vision. It's the easy wasy, all you need is money.
I can't stand to watch black & white movies from the 50s with claymation special effects anymore either. No matter how great the game play and the story are, if the artwork isn't up to the same standard, it's just not a finished product.
I have to agree with that. It has to be a combination of both story and graphics. I used to play nethack, I used to play muds (can we say wall of text?). A lot of them were great at the time. For the time. Now the world has moved on, the ability of graphics on these types of genre have helped to enhance the gameplay not detract from it.
Starcraft is a good example. When it first came out, the story and graphics blew my mind. It had me hooked from the first mission. Now, however, the level of the graphics has moved on. I would like to play it again but the graphics now detracts from the immersion that I once experienced. I will always look back on Starcraft with fondness, but I doubt I will ever install it again and spoil my memories of such a great game.
Yes, graphics are important, but they will never fix bad gameplay.
;)
Crysis had perfect graphics, and not that bad gameplay. Still, it scores low on my list, because it's to short in my opinion. They sacrificed game length for graphics, they shouldn't have.
Braid is a perfect combination of gameplay and graphics, the whole environment blended nicely with the game, and the gameplay was a wonderful experience. It's not that long, but also not that expensive to buy.
The new resident evil on the Wii is a perfect example of fail in my opinion. The graphics show horrible aliasing and the controls work frustrating making for a bad experience.
Now, as a hobby game builder, you don't always have access to perfect graphics. So you'll have to make up with gameplay for that. But still work on the graphics, they are very important. A screenshot can 'sell' your game, if your game looks like an old 8bit nintendo game, it's harder to get people to try it. But not impossible (see 'Cave Story')
Graphics are also an important gameplay element. I'm working on a GuitarHero clone which plays FretsOnFire songs for the Wii. And I noticed the game became much more enjoyable AND playable with a few very simple effects. As they provided more visual feedback on your actions. See how the dark grey area and small gauge on the left and right don't seem to fit that well. A few simple things can make a whole lot of difference. The gray star provides feedback that you hit a note, and the rest just makes it more pleasant to look at. While you are playing you don't even notice the backdrops that much, but notice how they caught your attention just now
It's clear that graphics alone do not make a good game. But graphics do remain very important in games, especially in 3D oriented titles.
For one, better graphics capabilities give game artists more flexibility in creating the right look and feel in a game. Think for instance how Team Fortress 2's unique visual style has been made possible by the advanced capabilities of modern 3D hardware and the Source engine. While graphics are getting closer and closer to photo-real, many game developers in the future will likely favour a more pseudo-real, stylised look. Why? In order to avoid falling into the uncanny valley.
While there is an obvious trend towards photorealism (this trend is nothing new), many of the best games of this generation aren't quite photorealistic. For example, in GTA IV, while the cityscapes are rendered in a more realistic style, the characters are rendered differently. Even in Crysis, while the environment looks amazingly real, the human characters are ever so slightly cartoony.
But ultimately, your question, pitting the world of Pokemon against Crysis is a bit pointless. It's like asking why people shoot live action film when animations can be just as entertaining. I'm not sure if titles like GTA IV or Crysis or CoD4 would have the same impact if they looked like Pokemon.
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.
I wish I had mod points for you, X-Com was definitely scary even with huge pixels all over the graphics. The fact that you could not know where attacks came from, the music, all that helped to create this creepy atmosphere. Same thing with Maniac Mansion, big pixels, but weird people everywhere, the door bell ringing whenever you didn't expected it, and Edna chasing you in the kitchen, I was scared of that as a kid.
You can't really compare the graphics between Pokemon and Crysis because the purpose of their graphics are completely different. Games that are trying to get as close to realistic as possible are doing so because there is more immersion than in a top-down RPG like Pokemon. Not immersion in the sense that "I could play this game for hours" but immersion in the "I'm actually there" variety. Pokemon is trying to be more cute and iconic as a way of making the characters more lovable. Pokemon with realistic graphics would be a completely different game for a different purpose. There's nothing wrong with either of them and both types can be beautiful, as you said.
When picking an art design, you have to know the audience and the type of feelings you want to evoke. Also, more often than not, your design is dictated by your budget. If you're a single developer working on a game in his/her spare time, then chances are something like Crysis will be way out of your budget, as opposed to a game with a few stylized icons or models. The reason why it seems more emphasis is placed on realistic graphics is that realism is a challenge that only the big budget guys can attempt to accomplish. It takes millions of dollars to have hours of mocap sessions, hire cleanup artists, high-res modelers, animators, texture painters, environment designers, etc to make a full city of locations and characters. Then it's also a lot more challenging to figure out how to make that world realistic and still function on modern day machines, with physics, animation interpolation, various gameplay mechanics and effects, etc.
While it seems that most games are going for the realistic look, I'd wager that the vast majority of games are going the more stylistic approach. Pretty much anything on the biggest gaming platforms right now (Web, iPhone, Nintendo DS, and Wii) take the stylized route, whereas only the $20 million AAA titles on the XBox 360 and PS3 are going the realistic route, of which there are only a few dozen a year.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
"is important in any game. Graphics can be cool and all, but they shouldn't be the primary reason for any game."
Actually graphics are a *primary reason* for any game, but not the only thing obviously. They are called VIDEO games for a reason.
Art sets the tone of the game, if you check out the extra's on the God of War 1 disc they show you models that never made it into the game, and the different versions of Krato's that never made the cut, looking at some of the models you can see that *art* the vision in someone's imagination *definitely* makes the game better when one can bring it out of one's mind and one has good artistic discernment.
This isn't to say that graphics are the only thing obviously, but when it all come's together it's about putting all the pieces together properly to make the experience.
God of War would not have the same visceral Impact using the other model heroes seen on the God of War 1 disc as Kratos.
Technically God of war is an action button mashing 3D beat em up, yet there are other games like that that never reach the level of fun or success God of War has.
The truth is every part of the game experience matters in the game ideally. The problem is game developers don't have the resources to focus on all the parts equally so they have to pick the "core" and focus on making the the core they've chosen as best they can with the resources they have.
Graphics matter only in so far is that they are done artistically well enough.
I doubt anyone would take Metroid 1 (NES) over Super metroid for instance.
Yes - the original half life was a spectacular game and it still is. But you know what? It's not the graphics that did it - at least not by modern standards. And still I enjoy playing that game (both single and multiplayer) a hell of a lot more than pretty much any new game with shiny graphics.
If you must err on one side or the other, err on the side of gameplay. But you should make both as high-quality as you can.
Concerning graphics technology, that's down to audience. Hardware-oriented fanbois will drool over the latest gear and games that exploit it; adult women playing games on Yahoo during their coffee break will not. Decide who you are serving and what your game really needs first.
I piss off bigots.
I don't think that kind of immersion is much related to the graphics, really. Graphics is more like this: Imagine you were sitting down to watch the latest Bond movie. You don't think you're Bond, you have no control over the action - but there's a story unfolding. Now Bond trips over something so it breaks and you see it's only a cardboard prop. That'd break all the immersion and remind you it's all just illusion.
Of course, in a movie they'd cut it but since a game is rendered live you don't have that luxury. Every time the graphics act unnatural it breaks the fantasy, reducing you back to "Yeah, it's just a bunch fo pixels thrown together". Of course you knew that all along just like you know Bond is a fictional movie character but it doesn't matter. It's not about making the fiction reality, it's about not breaking the fiction.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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, [...]
Serious question. Do you have any imagination? If I say imagine you're a trogladite in a territory war, what did you have for breakfast? Can you tell me the story or are you lost in a see of "why?" and "WTF are you on about?".
Playing a good game in part is escapism, make-believe. If a game doesn't somehow take me beyond my current reality in some way (even if that means intellectual immersion or a Skinner Box) then why play? Why not do something productive?
tells you that game does not have to be photo realistic to be fun, enjoyable.
What do you mean by "his movies are not realistic"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRS90V8BQGo
Ah, so your not a fan of casablanca, or more likely since this is a /. crowd 2001: a space odyssey?
I'm sorry, but just because something is old does not by default make it crap. Quality is quality, if something was ever truly good it should be able to stand up on it's own regardless of graphics.
I find it odd that a former nethack player/mudder would not see that towards the end of your argument you are essentially saying that if it isn't shiny, it is pointless.
Perhaps you need to remember that games are for having fun, maybe?
From time to time i load up Dune II to play it once again. And it has never spoiled my memories of it being a great game.
Dune II? You barbarian!
I replay the original Dune about once every 2 years, just for the heck of it.
"I am Duke Leto Atreides, your father". Gee, thanks dad for finally coming clean, I never would have guessed!
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
I'm glad someone else mentioned this!
X-COM still has the distinction of being the only game that has ever caused me to jump out of my chair. If you don't think you can get scared by 640x480 graphics or whatever that was...try it.
I still think the original was the most terrifying though; Terror from the Deep never quite worked for me.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Oh hell yeah. The moments when you twitched when you heard that PZAUH from behind your team when you thought you already scouted an area, only to find out one pesky grey managed to hide behind a blind corner. Especially during night missions when you couldn't see well, plus the general creep factor of the music.
I hope I can still find my copy, I think I know what I'll play when I come home. Anyone know how to run it sensibly on XP or Vista?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Suspension of Disbelieve" is the professional term for the thing you're describing.
No, this isn't true. Half-life is, of course, such an important milestone in gaming mainly because of stuff not directly related to the graphics. However, Half-life simply could not have existed if it had looked like Doom. A certain level of realism was required for Valve to reach their goals in terms of gameplay and story telling.
Graphics alone will rarely make a game better, but better graphics actually create the possibilities of certain types of improved gameplay. Could Star Wars have been created with 1950s movie tech? No, the advances in special effects had to be created first and then used in an exciting way.
Clovis
^ Clovis, look! It's that guy you are!
Trying scaring someone on 8-bit arcade graphics.
OK, done.
I believe you mean "Suspension of Disbelief"
I can't believe you don't know what a Hasemalphaginnojinglanaporphomism is.
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.
Sigs are for losers
I used to play various Vampire Wars based MUDs and was only limited by my imagination....... When I play a game with graphics I'm stuck with what's on the screen
When you're hammered everything looks like it needs nailed....
Playing a good game in part is escapism, make-believe. If a game doesn't somehow take me beyond my current reality in some way (even if that means intellectual immersion or a Skinner Box) then why play? Why not do something productive?
Because of the challenge. In what way would you say that chess, poker, or basketball takes you "beyond your current reality"? I don't think they do, they're fun because the game mechanics are good. You don't need make-believe to have a good game.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
So Might and Magic V had, wait for it, bad graphics! You just made the argument that graphics go hand-in-hand with gameplay. You can have great gameplay that is ruined by bad graphics, you can have great graphics that are ruined by bad gameplay, or you can have both.
Now let me explain "good" and "bad" here. "Good" graphics are those that support the immersion of the player within the game. Good graphics complement the gameplay. Good graphics let you slip into the story. Bad graphics remind you that you are just moving pixels.
Good and Bad gameplay and graphics are purely subjective of course. It's possible that someone out there thought that Might and Magic III was a neat game crippled by horrible graphics, and fanatically adores Might and Magic V.
Funny that nethack and Diablo 1 and 2 are mentioned in the same sentence - Diablo 1 was originally intended to be a turn based, graphical rogue/hack clone, but when they experimented with realtime they found it extremely fun and addictive and thus the game evolved into what it ended up. Having worked for another game company, I can tell you we'd have never been given the chance to do experimental changes like that - if it didn't fit into the original design document, it didn't go into the game (and they tossed games entirely rather than changing them to make them fun).
To me, gameplay often makes or breaks a game, as well. I played Wing Commander on the PC and absolutely loved it, but Super Wing Commander on the mac was terrible, despite updated graphics. Why? the mouse controls were awful, and the joystick controls mediocre (a cheap joystick may have been better than the flightstick like I had). Really it was almost unplayable. Civilization was just the opposite - while civ 1 was good on the PC, the mac version was vastly better. Not only were the graphics vastly improved (256 colors vs 16), but it included numerous easy-access convenience features like civpedia.
As far as graphical realism goes, I don't think there is a wrong answer - Dali did cubism, surrealism, dada, sculpture and even realism and animation (Destino, with Disney), Picasso did cubism, drawings and ceramics, Disney did cel shading and animation. All created fantastic pieces of art in their own respect.
As far as the original post goes, effects like true radiosity are still a ways off, though they can be approximated. True radiosity rendered in realtime would be extremely expensive, even in simple scenes - when I used it with ray tracing, my ray tracing was about 100x slower - note that I was using a 100MHz MIPS processor at the time and it took about 7 hours to render my scene, and I believe the scene had about 200 objects (one of my teammates wrote the shape code and the scene, another wrote the ray tracer, and I wrote the radiosity code).
IMO you can tell if a game is innovating or not when you look at what they are boasting. If people only talk about the graphics in the game, you can almost always be sure there are no real innovation in game play. It's a long and annoying running theme in FPS games. In the end, a FPS is a FPS is a FPS. Regardless of story or mini games, the core game play of these games changed very little since the 1990s. How people can get immersed in the same thing over and over again is beyond me. Why people would 'escape' to a war zone is even more mind boggling. I think that rather than being immersed in a FPS, people play those kind of games to vent frustration or to prove superiority at the comfort of their own home. If it is only about realism, they might as well stop playing games and start playing paintball.
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
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.
Immersion doesn't mean "I have forgotten that this is a game and I now believe that I'm Bob the Dwarf."
Immersion means "Holy shit, it's 4 AM, when did that happen?"
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
I've been immersed in a book before, not to mention an interactive fiction game. I don't mean that I completely forgot that I was holding a book or typing "take no tea." I just mean that if an experience is compelling enough, it draws you in whether by great description and powerful language or high realism. Once you abandon a verbal description, you kind of have to rely on the graphics, but a great deal can still be achieved by words, sounds, tones of voice, etc.
Take Diablo II as an example. Half the fun of that game is the sound. This post is getting a bit directionless so I'm going to stop now :|
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
If the game is abstract, for example, realistic graphics generally don't make a lot of sense. Should somebody do an abstract game with realistic graphics, I would appreciate the art of doing that, but I don't feel it's needed.
Simulation type games lean toward realistic graphics. On those, I find quite a high value associated with realism. The game is more immersive when this is done well.
RPG games are all over the map, but generally best done with recognizable objects and good art direction. These things are an escape of sorts, and too much realism breaks that.
Then there is the simple text adventure. No graphics at all! I'm quite sure somebody could do up a 3D "Zork" like place, and a whole lot of people would recognize it for what it is, just like many people "recognized" places depicted in "Lord Of The Rings".
Pretty graphics alone don't add a lot of value, unless the game is lightweight, or maybe some kinds of puzzlers.
There just isn't one answer to this question. There are enough variables to make it an art, not a science IMHO.
Blogging because I can...
Microsoft's xbox community requires that the style be consistent throughout the game. This is more important (in their game acceptance criteria) than how flashy the graphics are. They want a person to be able to identify the game if they see a picture of any random unit, building, weapon, or anything like that.
Did you not read his post or are you just unable to comprehend English? Starcraft had great graphics when it was released. I can remember as a kid how cool the cut scenes were and how I couldn't wait for the next one. But the core of Starcraft is fantastic gameplay and balance. That is what makes people keep coming back for more. Do you think if Starcraft was released today it would be as popular? Of course not, people wouldn't be able to get over the awful resolution. But since we played it when it was new and the graphics are good, we know the gameplay to be great and keep playing it.
Furthermore, right in the guy's post he states that the graphics need to match a games settings. A simple puzzle game doesn't need to look like Crysis. But Crysis would sucks pretty hard if it had Tetris level graphics. Understand? Graphics don't have to be cutting edge, but they have to be good enough that they don't detract from the gameplay.
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Playing pinball isn't gaming and it's not a sport.
It's a religious experience.
Hell, I've seen text adventures that are scarier (and way, way better written) than the average horror movie.
Babel* comes to mind.
* it's down that page a bit, you'll need TADS to play it.
Does a good movie look better with a higher quality camera and better film? Yes (in many cases).
Would Psycho or The Twilight Zone be any better in color? No.
Would Star Wars be any better with modern CGI? No.
Would North By Northwest be any better if "the blonde" was Xena The Warrior Princess and Roger O. Thornhill was a bumbling slacker? No.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
So I'm sure that studio special effects people like Ray Harryhausen and the people who did /Forbidden Planet/ would have done just as well.
I totally disagree. While I enjoy Forbidden Planet for what it is, Star Wars was so appealing to me when I first watched it not in small part because it was a pioneer in special effects and really was fun to watch. I agree that the story holds its own, but can you imagine having the same kind of intensity if Luke's fighter was a cardboard flat grey "rocketship" firing super crappily animated lasers into a super obviously cardboard deathstar?
Basically, I think that Star Wars story was kind of cheesy, but the effects legitimized parts it and made it feel somewhat feasible. It's the difference between having a scene where you get really into it and hear "Use the force Luke!", then react with a "hahaha" "yea right" when you see the crappy effect. And hearing "Use the force Luke!", and then getting the hairs on the back of your neck on end and reacting with an "ooohh!" "hell yea, nice!" after the semi-realistic effect.
No, it's not a mature approach to gaming. Being completely unable to appreciate graphics for what they make a game is more or less a slap in the face to the developers who put all that elbow grease into making the game pretty and immersible.
Now, granted, the opposite view, that graphics make a game, can be just as much a slap in the face, and is definitely an immature way to judge games, but that doesn't really raise it's counterpart into the realm of legitimate views, it just means that the ideal, mature way to judge games is somewhere in the middle.
Graphics are important for many games - they add a sense of realism. Far Cry 2, for instance, was a decent game. It had a barely average plot, absolutely painful voice acting on all characters, and the vehicle mechanics were awful. At the same time, though, I could spend hours just playing with the fire mechanics, something that wouldn't be possible with, say, 2004-level graphics.
That's not to say that graphics make a game - many games are, in fact, good without good graphical presentation, but just as good game play or a good story can save a game, so can good use of graphics and special effects.
Behind the 'log in' button.
You failed at fundamental logic in those arguments, since none of your examples are examples of what I stated at all.
Better quality film & camera is completely orthogonal to colour vs. b&w and even CGI.
That aside, even if you'd made a relevant point, which you didn't, I covered that with 'in most cases' which I'm pretty sure precludes any subset of two or three movies you'd prefer on lower quality film, filmed with lower quality cameras. Think home-video.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)