Colourful Games

[Hides His Eyes]

Can anyone recommend any recentish games with vibrant colour schemes and beautiful settings? This is connected to the old brown-and-grey complaint, I suppose, but I'm also getting sick of the amount of man-made stuff in game locations nowadays. I've just finished Human Revolution and although I thought it was very good, it took place entirely in corridors and city streets. Everything is not only brown and grey, but angular and designed. Skyrim and Arkham City are very impressive, visually, but again everything is stark and dark. I'm wondering if there are any good games around, especially action games, with varied colour pallets and natural, organic locations...? Enslaved and Borderlands are the kind of thing I'm thinking of.

 

[Andy Shandy]

It might not be the most full on action game, but if you're looking for colour in your games I would say you can't go wrong with the Viva Pinata games

 

[Scrustle]

Out of my personal collection (from this gen.) I'd recommend Darksiders (the sequel appears to be even more colourful), Oblivion, KoA: Reckoning, El Shaddai, The Darkness 2 (obviously pretty dark but it has strong colours too), Mirror's Edge, Zelda: Skyward Sword, and Muramasa. If you want racing games I guess the Forza games are pretty colourful too, especially Forza 3. Forza 4 is still colourful but they toned it down a bit from Forza 3. It was a bit intense. Forza 2 wasn't really colourful though. It hasn't aged that well. It looks pretty rough and dull now. Test Drive Unlimited 2 has very strong colours as well.

 

[TehCookie]

The viva pinata picture reminded me of this:

A lot of JRPG still have color, one of the tropes is dipping their hair into paint buckets.

 

[Gurgleflob]

Can anyone recommend any recentish games with vibrant colour schemes and beautiful settings? This is connected to the old brown-and-grey complaint, I suppose, but I'm also getting sick of the amount of man-made stuff in game locations nowadays. I've just finished Human Revolution and although I thought it was very good, it took place entirely in corridors and city streets. Everything is not only brown and grey, but angular and designed. Skyrim and Arkham City are very impressive, visually, but again everything is stark and dark. I'm wondering if there are any good games around, especially action games, with varied colour pallets and natural, organic locations...? Enslaved and Borderlands are the kind of thing I'm thinking of.

Have you ever played Jak and Daxter or Ratchet and Clank? those are really good. They're last gen but They both have HD re-releases (Unless you're in NA, I think ratchet and clank comes out at the end of August for us)

Bulletstorm was very colourful, as well.

 

[Pearwood]

You may have already tried them but I'll recommend the Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games anyway. Recent stupidity aside they've done a brilliant job with that series. They also remade the first game which is about as big of a fuck you to the old developers as you can get. LittleBigPlanet's another one.

 

[TrevHead]

Imo the best games developer in the use of vibrant and contrasting colours is CAVE Co, it's almost as if they have a magical colour pallette that no one else uses and look mouth wateringly good in motion in full HD glory on the 360.

Other games just tend to use saturated colours, but CAVE mixes in unusual colours that contrast with each other and with slightly muted backgrounds which makes the vibrant colours pop out even more (Outlander uses the same technique thats common to bullet hell shmups)

Death Smiles

Mushihimisama Futari

ESP Galuda 2

Dodonpachi Resurrection

Akia Katana

Nin2Jump

Their games on iphone are on sale this week if anybody is interested

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Saw the title, came to post about Viva Pinata and Katamari Damacy, only to find they'd been included in the first three replies. BOO. BOOOOOOOOO.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Err the Wii game De Blob? Ok it start out as all white and grey ish but since the game is just one big paint palette, it can be as colourful as you want it to be!

 

[Catfood220]

And de Blob 2 which is also awesome and colourful and out on all consoles. It starts out all grey but by the time you finish the level its practically a party of colour and flying cars and upbeat music. It may come across as a bit of a kiddie game, it probably is, but it also has an grown up sense of humour and it does get quite hard later into the game.

Buy it.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

You could always give Fable The Lost Chapters a go, There are some cityscapes sure but mostly some very lovely and varied colorful locations.

Or there is always the very fun Rayman Origins and Earthwrom Jim.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I would say Mirror's Edge, i'm going through it again now and it still looks amazing though it's been quite a while since it was released.

I find quite a few older games better looking than the newest high-res grayathon games. Persona 4 and Okami on the PS2 are my best examples

Deus Ex: Human Resources is a good example of a modern game remembering that aesthetics > graphics. Don't know if you would call gold and black "colourful" though.

 

[Reyold]

I would recommend A Boy and His Blob for the Wii, if you've got one. Not only is it charming, it's got fun and challenging gameplay. Rayman Origins, Pikmin 2, and LittleBigPlanet 2 are also great choices.

I also second the aforementioned Muramasa: The Demon Blade. It's an amazing game.

 

[MBurdock]

Other relatively bright and colourful games with nice settings: Just Cause 2, Infamous 2, Scott Pilgrim, Marvel Pinball, most fighters (lots of red in Mortal Kombat), aaaaand Red Dead Redemption. There are browns, but also reds and greens and amazing skies in Red Dead. They got the skies perfect.

 

[Pearwood]

Imo the best games developer in the use of vibrant and contrasting colours is CAVE Co, it's almost as if they have a magical colour pallette that no one else uses and look mouth wateringly good in motion in full HD glory on the 360.

I'm not so sure about recommending Cave games to someone who hasn't shown any interest in shooters. I'd use something like Touhou 8 (also a very pretty series, doesn't have the kind of graphics power the DoDonpachi remake has though) as a starting point, that game's not TOO bad on easy.

Just Cause 2, Mortal Kombat, Red Dead Redemption.

Not exactly what I'd call vibrant. I think someone's spent too long staring at brown.

 

[Hazy992]

Sonic Generations is pretty darn colourful. Really good looking game IMO.

Spoiler

 

[MBurdock]

Just Cause 2, Mortal Kombat, Red Dead Redemption.

Not exactly what I'd call vibrant. I think someone's spent too long staring at brown.

The jungle is Just Cause 2 isn't vibrant? The villages? The beach? The game is set in an island paradise. Yes, there are bases and cities, but it's a bright game.

Mortal Kombat. Fair enough. It's much brighter than Quake, Killzone, Battlefield, and Half-life 2 but that ain't saying much.

Red Dead Redemption does use a lot of brown, but it is bright. Go up into the hills or into the Mexican desert and tell me that it isn't more colourful than most AAA titles.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

All of the Halo games. They are some of the most colorful big budget triple A titles on the market.

Look, bright colors everywhere!