Are graphics really that big of a deal?
- Thread starter Cody211282
- Start date
Recommended Videos
I'm late to the party too, having installed it for the first time just 3 weeks ago, and I'm completely hooked. It's the first time I've ever chosen to replay a level INSTEAD of the new unlocked level simply because I want to explore it some more. For me graphics are a perk, but next to gameplay it is nothing.Bob_Bobbington said:I don't see graphics as a huge part of what makes a game. Lately I've been playing Deus Ex (I know, late to the party) and the graphics from it have not diminished the immersion one bit for me. Pretty much the only thing that diminishes immersion graphics wise is inconsistencies with graphics (looking at you Far Cry 2 draw distance). Graphics are never a make or break with me.
Also
I'm actually beginning to associate graphics pushing games like Crysis with instant lack of quality in all other areas, mostly because it's happened just so. Many. Times.
Oh and I got Operation Flashpoint 1 (from 2001) a few months back. Best modern warfare game I've ever played. Blows away those COD, BF and MOH corridor shooters
I still could live with the graphics from Fallout: Tactics. Maybe I remember them as better as they were, but i liked them, and if it was for me, most games suffer from the First-Person Bloom graphic-thingy. I really liked Oblivion and its look, but that didnt make it a better game for me. The immersion was great, so i can see a point in good graphics, but as long as the freaking gameplay isnt on par its a moot point.
My opinion? Yes, graphics are important. But not in the way seems to be typical.
What's important is that the graphics - however technically demanding or otherwise - be done /right/. It's polish that matters not how much they overheat your GPU.
Aquaria, for instance? Or Ecco II? Resources demands are negligible. But their graphics are so wonderfully achieved as to be integral to the whole experience.
What's important is that the graphics - however technically demanding or otherwise - be done /right/. It's polish that matters not how much they overheat your GPU.
Aquaria, for instance? Or Ecco II? Resources demands are negligible. But their graphics are so wonderfully achieved as to be integral to the whole experience.
And the games you describe are exactly the sorts of games I was talking about - the once that sacrifice substance for just looking flashy. I think I'm just about the only gamer on the planet who didn't buy MW2, for instance, or who has never finished a Halo game. I'm a story gamer, personally, and so I avoid games like those like the plague.Continuity said:Thats the problem though, to the gaming industry graphics are what sells so they invest nearly all their time and money in making games look "as pretty as possible" so that you* will buy them (yes I am blaming you personally for thisMeemaimoh said:) and gameplay and story come a very distant second place. Just look at the games we have from the last few years, look at their incredible budgets and consider how many of them are actually pretty mediocre if you peel back their pretty skin.. then weep for what could of been if you weren't a graphics whore...
*I jest with the blaming you BTW
(I loved COD4, though. It may not have had much of an original plot, but the single-player mode was thrilling and each level had a ripping narrative in its own right.)
I misspoke when I said that games should be "as pretty as possible"; what I really meant was that effort should be made on that front. AAA titles from this year should not look like Goldeneye, but they can look like anything else from Pokemon to Crysis. Is it so much to expect a certain standard of effort, be it accomplished through abusing my gaming system or simply clever art design?
As long as I know what is what graphics are not any problem for me. If it was I would not be able to play games that are many many tears old .
For me story and gameplay are FAR more important than nice looking graphics.
Just realise:
- You can have fun with a game that looks like shit but plays awesome
BUT
- You can't have fun with a game that looks awesome but plays like shit.
Easy.
PS.
Also I'm afraid I need to find my copy of Operation Flashpoint because it's true. This game was and IS to this day awesome.
.For me story and gameplay are FAR more important than nice looking graphics.
Just realise:
- You can have fun with a game that looks like shit but plays awesome
BUT
- You can't have fun with a game that looks awesome but plays like shit.
Easy.
PS.
Bloody hell now I need to install Deus Ex AGAIN...Squilookle said:I'm late to the party too, having installed it for the first time just 3 weeks ago, and I'm completely hooked. It's the first time I've ever chosen to replay a level INSTEAD of the new unlocked level simply because I want to explore it some more. For me graphics are a perk, but next to gameplay it is nothing.Bob_Bobbington said:I don't see graphics as a huge part of what makes a game. Lately I've been playing Deus Ex (I know, late to the party) and the graphics from it have not diminished the immersion one bit for me. Pretty much the only thing that diminishes immersion graphics wise is inconsistencies with graphics (looking at you Far Cry 2 draw distance). Graphics are never a make or break with me.
Also
I'm actually beginning to associate graphics pushing games like Crysis with instant lack of quality in all other areas, mostly because it's happened just so. Many. Times.
Oh and I got Operation Flashpoint 1 (from 2001) a few months back. Best modern warfare game I've ever played. Blows away those COD, BF and MOH corridor shooters
Also I'm afraid I need to find my copy of Operation Flashpoint because it's true. This game was and IS to this day awesome
.Like most things I have mixed opinions.
I think graphics have gotten up to the point where artwork looks like artwork. It's been like that since the last gaming generation. While there is definatly a differance between say PS-2 era games and high end PS-3/360 era games for example, the differance isn't as extreme as it has been in the past. Plenty of people play older games, especially today, and series like "Silent Hill" have substantial cults of rabid fans behind them. For all of the mocking, games like "Deadly Premonition" can put together a pretty solid cult of fans as well by having good writing, and a fun enviroment.
This is to say nothing of games with a truely minimalist approach like ASCII RPGs like various "Roguelikes" and of course "N" and "N+". Things like Nethack are still played heavily and in circulation, and people periodically create new versions. Then you also look at games like "I Made a Game With Zombies In It" which seems to be the consistantly most downloaded and highly rated indie game on X-Box Live.
The point being that I think a consistant art direction is what is most important to a game nowadays than the best overall graphics quality and so on.
The reason why I think graphics are made such a big deal of is simply the fact that reviewers are pretty much the slaves of the gaming industry. Not just developers, but also hardware manufacturers (albiet to a lesser extent). Simply put developers being by their nature tech geeks want to play around with whatever the highest end stuff out there is, heck they are getting their hardware and such on the dime of the producers with rare exceptions.
Pimping the latest in "uber graphics tech" plays to the interests of the devs, as well as helps keep a certain path of development rolling forward. I mean if the attitude is that the new tech in the newest console is extraneous to making a good game with solid gameplay, it's not going to convince people to upgrade to the next gen. What's more given the general lack of experimentation/creativity in the industry, what else do you say to sell the latest shooter that plays exactly like every other shooter from the last two generations of technology? You sell the fact that it looks slightly prettier "oh yeah, look at how the smoke from that explosion curls, and how well we can now texture a rock".
This kind of hype of course leads people to buy new hardware to support the newst games, and people who dish out that money of course are going to parrot the arguements made to justify their purchuse. Typically however the developments take place in such tiny micro-steps that they are irrelevent to most game play. As some people have pointed out "Alpha Protocol" has decent graphics, even if you don't like it's choice of art direction. Sure, someone can point out games with better texturing or whatever, but those differances are minimal and are only going to matter to someone caught up in tech-hype, or with a serious eye for graphic art... or simply put it doesn't matter to most gamers who are focused on sneaking around and shooting people in the head. Does the door look like a door? does the rock look like a rock? Does it fit in with the rest of the setting? does the setting look fairly good, and like what it's supposed to be? If the answer to those things is "yes" to the player then the graphics are decent. Someone going "OMG, when I stop and look at the textures of this grass closely it seems a bit off" is not your core gamer who is not going to be stopping to examine the bloody grass in minute detail.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that such things don't matter at all, it's just that they don't matter that much beyond a certain point. I'm not saying it's fine for most current games to say use pixelated 32 bit sprites or whatever.
I'll also go so far to say is that I feel that this is also related to the proliferation of certain kinds of games for business reasons. Things like "turn based games" are picked on by the gaming media, which of course influances the user base, especially those from the mainstream just coming in. The gaming media very much tells people what games should be. It is however notworthy that the kinds of games being lionized to the mainstream are also the easiest kinds (relatively) to produce. Putting together a relatively slow moving RPG or strategy game with a consistant set of mechanics that can be managed by the player is harder than coming up with a "shoot them in the face" action game, which is probably just going to be a tweak on existing third person or first person action games that already have existing engines. Creating a new gameplay engine (which is usually required for RPGs and turn based games) is arguably the most difficult part.
To some extent getting people to look at the pretty graphics helps detract from the lack of actual game design going on at the core.
Such are my opinions.
Keep in mind also that I am also pretty well influanced by current events where we had Squae-Enix claiming that somehow with current, more advanced technology, it has rendered it impossible to create a game equivilent to something they turned out many years ago (Final Fantasy VII). I don't entirely believe their claims, but if it WAS true consider that this would mean in a very literal sense that the current graphics technology has actually regressed gaming because the industry cannot build on what it has done before and actually move forward on a basic level.
I think graphics have gotten up to the point where artwork looks like artwork. It's been like that since the last gaming generation. While there is definatly a differance between say PS-2 era games and high end PS-3/360 era games for example, the differance isn't as extreme as it has been in the past. Plenty of people play older games, especially today, and series like "Silent Hill" have substantial cults of rabid fans behind them. For all of the mocking, games like "Deadly Premonition" can put together a pretty solid cult of fans as well by having good writing, and a fun enviroment.
This is to say nothing of games with a truely minimalist approach like ASCII RPGs like various "Roguelikes" and of course "N" and "N+". Things like Nethack are still played heavily and in circulation, and people periodically create new versions. Then you also look at games like "I Made a Game With Zombies In It" which seems to be the consistantly most downloaded and highly rated indie game on X-Box Live.
The point being that I think a consistant art direction is what is most important to a game nowadays than the best overall graphics quality and so on.
The reason why I think graphics are made such a big deal of is simply the fact that reviewers are pretty much the slaves of the gaming industry. Not just developers, but also hardware manufacturers (albiet to a lesser extent). Simply put developers being by their nature tech geeks want to play around with whatever the highest end stuff out there is, heck they are getting their hardware and such on the dime of the producers with rare exceptions.
Pimping the latest in "uber graphics tech" plays to the interests of the devs, as well as helps keep a certain path of development rolling forward. I mean if the attitude is that the new tech in the newest console is extraneous to making a good game with solid gameplay, it's not going to convince people to upgrade to the next gen. What's more given the general lack of experimentation/creativity in the industry, what else do you say to sell the latest shooter that plays exactly like every other shooter from the last two generations of technology? You sell the fact that it looks slightly prettier "oh yeah, look at how the smoke from that explosion curls, and how well we can now texture a rock".
This kind of hype of course leads people to buy new hardware to support the newst games, and people who dish out that money of course are going to parrot the arguements made to justify their purchuse. Typically however the developments take place in such tiny micro-steps that they are irrelevent to most game play. As some people have pointed out "Alpha Protocol" has decent graphics, even if you don't like it's choice of art direction. Sure, someone can point out games with better texturing or whatever, but those differances are minimal and are only going to matter to someone caught up in tech-hype, or with a serious eye for graphic art... or simply put it doesn't matter to most gamers who are focused on sneaking around and shooting people in the head. Does the door look like a door? does the rock look like a rock? Does it fit in with the rest of the setting? does the setting look fairly good, and like what it's supposed to be? If the answer to those things is "yes" to the player then the graphics are decent. Someone going "OMG, when I stop and look at the textures of this grass closely it seems a bit off" is not your core gamer who is not going to be stopping to examine the bloody grass in minute detail.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that such things don't matter at all, it's just that they don't matter that much beyond a certain point. I'm not saying it's fine for most current games to say use pixelated 32 bit sprites or whatever.
I'll also go so far to say is that I feel that this is also related to the proliferation of certain kinds of games for business reasons. Things like "turn based games" are picked on by the gaming media, which of course influances the user base, especially those from the mainstream just coming in. The gaming media very much tells people what games should be. It is however notworthy that the kinds of games being lionized to the mainstream are also the easiest kinds (relatively) to produce. Putting together a relatively slow moving RPG or strategy game with a consistant set of mechanics that can be managed by the player is harder than coming up with a "shoot them in the face" action game, which is probably just going to be a tweak on existing third person or first person action games that already have existing engines. Creating a new gameplay engine (which is usually required for RPGs and turn based games) is arguably the most difficult part.
To some extent getting people to look at the pretty graphics helps detract from the lack of actual game design going on at the core.
Such are my opinions.
Keep in mind also that I am also pretty well influanced by current events where we had Squae-Enix claiming that somehow with current, more advanced technology, it has rendered it impossible to create a game equivilent to something they turned out many years ago (Final Fantasy VII). I don't entirely believe their claims, but if it WAS true consider that this would mean in a very literal sense that the current graphics technology has actually regressed gaming because the industry cannot build on what it has done before and actually move forward on a basic level.
I don't care if the game is so realistic I would swear I was watching real people. If I can distinguish objects and friend from foe that's pretty much all I need.
That said there has to be some effort put into the graphics, but I wouldn't be upset if they cut back on graphics to lower production time.
That said there has to be some effort put into the graphics, but I wouldn't be upset if they cut back on graphics to lower production time.
I think it's great to have a game look good but it isn't important enough to sacrifice story or gameplay for.
I'm not all that much for pretty environments but I will say that Red Dead Redemption's night sky made me stop playing and stare in awe for a bit
I'm not all that much for pretty environments but I will say that Red Dead Redemption's night sky made me stop playing and stare in awe for a bit
I want to be one of those people that say "GRAPHICS ARE UNIMPORTANT, DAWG," but I honestly think it depends on the type of game. There's triple-A mainstream games (gamestream?,) which graphics are very important commerically and to the individual - after all, a lot of games are bought solely on graphics by a lot of the mainstream audience. Then there's more obscure games like Killer7, which have a little more wiggle room with graphics to toy around in. Then there's indie games, which have tons of space to toy around in. So, Triple-A is where you get the graphics-based games that tend to have graphics be the main focus even above gameplay, (I'm looking at you CoD, Halo,) games that are more about gameplay or story, (Killer7, and I can't really think of much else right now,) and Indie games that are about... anything really. (Spelunky, Passage, Today I Die, I Wanna Be The Guy... why yes I am an indie games nerd.)
To me, personally, graphics aren't THAT important, as I've always owned systems when they were out of date, and can't afford a good gaming computer.
To me, personally, graphics aren't THAT important, as I've always owned systems when they were out of date, and can't afford a good gaming computer.
not for me I do have extreme,s (I dont play Atari 2600) but graphics dont matter much too me I,d rather have a good game with horrible graphics than the other way around
Splinter Cell has small, linear maps. Fallout 3 is a massive open world. Considering the amount of memory available and constant loading going on, the graphics in F3 are actually really good.SlyderEST said:
It's not just about resolutions either, great graphics can be all about the style, as in Fallout's case.
You got a point there. Also, you gave me another idea. Though I pretty much copy or just evolve your idea/thought.MiracleOfSound said:
Graphics aren't that important becouse: you can choose a linear game, in which the textures will be seen when you enter from one of two directions and you have better graphics (like Splinter Cell: Conviction, pretty much). Or you could choose a game where you can explore (like Fallout 3), you need to load same amount to everywhere around the player becouse the player could turn around, go left, go right, run around in circles, etc. If your going to load great graphics over and over again while the player runs around then the game's probably going to slow down. That's why Fallout doesn't have great graphics.
That all could be BS and it's only the way I see it. And by "You" in the text I usually mean the computer/developer/someone else.
Also, could anyone tell me what OP means?
...and it's also why Fallout 3 slows down a lot and has some framerate issues. Still... though they are low res, I find the visuals in F3 very beautiful.SlyderEST said:
In game terms, Overpowered (i.e. noob tubes)SlyderEST said:
In forum terms, original post or original poster (as in the first post on a thread)
I was not aware of the framerate issues, probably becouse i have a good computer (definetly not saying yours is bad).MiracleOfSound said:
Thanks. I was so close to get it but couldn't guess it. My guesses were: Own post, owner post, own poster. But those didn't seem to fit into this sentence: "OP is a troll. Move along."MiracleOfSound said: