Graphics; yay or nay.

[Ubikvitaarinen]

Absolutely. Bioshock rocked hard primarily because the smart storytelling and gameplay and then because of the awesome art deco artistic design. Crysis looks undoubtedly well but like innocent42 said, it probably lacks some personality. I mean, c'mon we've seen that thousands of times -Predator anyone?- and the gameplay isn't that revolutionary. Standard stuff to me.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

MMmmmm TF2 is cool looking and plays well but only has 2 levels or was it 4, alil lacking, for me each game carries its own art and most art is the "same" or at least no better/wore than most others.

Its all in the details of what they do not so much the art but what can be done with the player/weapons/enemies and enviroment it all mixes to make a game this is what I judge a game on before I start dissecting graphics, I rarely find any real issues with graphics Halos glitches(including partical) and BSs 50's style doll human models(they look more like dolls from the 50s than people from the 50s)

You sound like you're coming down on the side of graphics being less important, and I agree to the extant that more polygons is not always better. But what I was saying in my earlier post is that I don't like it when it comes down to polygons.

When that happens, you get two factions, one saying "More polygons are great, and I only like games with lots of cool effects." The other one says "No, developers waste too much time cramming as many polys as they can into a frame buffer, what they should be doing is focusing more on gameplay/controls/balance/etc." As I said earlier, the more interesting debate is about the relevance of art style in games, and I think it is incredibly important. One thing that games strive to do is create believable, compelling worlds. Good art direction helps immensely in that regard. To cite HL2 again, its graphics impress me even to this day 3 years later, and they do so because, though they are not photorealistic or effects-laden like Crysis, the art is so good that it creates a wonderfully believable and compelling world.

This brings me to my second point. You say that most art in games is pretty much the same. I agree with that, and I think it's too bad. However, it makes games with unique art styles, like TF2, really stand out, just as games with incredible polygon counts, like Crysis, stand out. Hopefully developers will realize this and stop cranking poly counts in favor of more original styling.

Note that I am not ragging on Crysis; I think that one of the reasons that its graphics are so good is because it also has a strong art style. However, I don't see it as hugely better than HL2 Ep.2 in terms of graphics, because you just cannot beat Valve for art.

Ummmm you missed the BS is unique bit

But ya 3D art tends to be a bit generic and frankly I don't think the industry needs to spend more time on it to make it look diffrent, the whole industry is cought up in what looks pretty and what concepts they can pull over the eyes "X"(suits,consumes,ect) IS ti really so hard to spend alil more time on coherent and fun gameplay, instead of generic and flawed game play designs?

Look at the witcher its a great looking high conspect game however, however the gamepaly is a bit rough due to bugs and lack of polish work the dialog and voice action is even more rough because scripting and voice work is always sloppy 2nds in this industry, what I would like to see is a dialing back on the mindless advancement of physics and graphics the industry has fallen into.

 

[Girlysprite]

Games aren't buggy because too much time is spent on graphics. Artists do graphics, not the gameplay. Programmers don't spent time modeling. It doesn't constrain each other as much as people think.
Even with worse graphics, the witches would likely still have been buggy .

 

[GrowlersAtSea]

It might be a bit late, but on the Art/Style vs Graphics.

I'm of the opinion that good and unique art is far more important than good graphics (graphics being polygon counts, levels of AA and AF support, etc.) while art is the style and presentation of the game. The reason being is simple to me; an art style takes much longer to just look outdated or obsolete, and even in retrospect you can respect it. While graphical standards change with the season, what looks gorgeous now in two years will be wholly unremarkable.

I still have a ton of respect for older games with good art styles and I can look back on them even today and see much good in them (from Yoshi's Island on the SNES, to Okami on the PS2, to Teamfortess 2 of today) while older games with good graphics at the time age far less gracefully (from the original Battlezone, to Starfox on the NES, to the more recent FarCry).

So, I think going for pure graphics, particularly games that try for more life-like visuals are often not heading in the best direction. Sure, they continually push the envelope, and eventually years and years from now as a result we'll probably hit true photo-realistic games, but in the mean-time, these games just wind up being stepping stones to final goal, rather than their own little islands of uniqueness and style.

Gameplay of course takes precedent over style or graphics (or both combined in my opinion) since we tend to remember the good games for being fun games, not for being pretty games. But that seems to be a no-brainer to me.

That's how I feel.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Games aren't buggy because too much time is spent on graphics. Artists do graphics, not the gameplay. Programmers don't spent time modeling. It doesn't constrain each other as much as people think.
Even with worse graphics, the witches would likely still have been buggy .

that BS and you know, art and graphics take the brunt of dev time along with engine work polsihing the gameplay and its details come last.
dev time needs to be knocked up as much as 50% in order to finish games properly that and halving prices is soemthing the industry will never do.
(quickexsplnation over price halving, the price on games is artificially set high, if they halve theprice they will make as much profit as they do now and with mroe stock being sold more companies would make more money, tis better than not pushing stock and have those 50+$ titles fal into the 19$ bin or whole sale.)

GrowlersAtSea
beautifully said, gameplay>art>graphics

 

[Girlysprite]

Zippy I know what I'm talking about, cause I'm in it.

It's not just graphics...its a lot of other things. games are more interactive these days, behaviors in the world more complex, and forces which control the entire world...These weren't around in the past. In the eighties there was no AI to worry about, no gravity, and there barely were any interactive objects.
Such things create a lot of unexpected behaviors, which in bad cases only happen once in twenty times or less. These are the kind of problems that often bounce between the leveldesigners and programmers. Artists don't have anything to do with it.
Of course the render engine takes time, but not all of it, or most of it.
The only problems that new graphics lead to is a possible low frame rate.

 

[Katana314]

I have to be a fool then. I've seen plenty of new ideas that did not take amazing amounts of modern technology. And I've seen plenty of amazing game screenshots that didn't have the graphical horsepower of a Geforce 8-series behind them.

 

[Fraeon [deprecated]]

Errr, I seem to be the only one here who thinks that graphics are normally part of gameplay.

Let me explain: graphics also have a lot to do with the input the player gets from the game. A good chunk of the main atmosphere comes from (consistent graphics). I can list a lot of things that graphics play a part in that also affect other aspects of the game. And I'm not into huds yet.

As you can see, I come from the school of thought where gameplay is the sum of all the other parts of the game. I was going to go into a longer rant about it, but I might as well stop here and do it when I get paid for it.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Errr, I seem to be the only one here who thinks that graphics are normally part of gameplay.

Let me explain: graphics also have a lot to do with the input the player gets from the game. A good chunk of the main atmosphere comes from (consistent graphics). I can list a lot of things that graphics play a part in that also affect other aspects of the game. And I'm not into huds yet.

As you can see, I come from the school of thought where gameplay is the sum of all the other parts of the game. I was going to go into a longer rant about it, but I might as well stop here and do it when I get paid for it.

I think you've got a good point there. There's two main levels on which graphics function as part of a game, design and technical.

The design level is where your point about graphical feedback to players comes in. The scene the player sees should, ideally, tell them everything they really need to know about a gameworld in order to make functional decisions in it. Take, for example, Team Fortress 2. All the classes are very visually distinct, and they are all distinct from the environments, but also they are largely all designed to draw the player's eye to the chest of the model, having some kind of bright identifier there, like the bandolier on the Heavy, that draws the eye and helps to identify what class they are, all at a glance.

The next is technical, and that's all about effects and detail. That's the part of graphics that most people would dispute the value of to a game, but I disagree, the right application of graphical effects is fantastic for building atmosphere, even in a game that wouldn't normally be associated with it. An example from my own memory is the first time I really noticed HDR lighting, which was in Project Gotham 3. I was barreling down the lower level of George Washington Bridge, went through an enclosed section at the end and burst out into sunlight and got light blindness for a second or so. Fairly common effect, but it really makes you think "Help, I'm going fast and I can't see I'm going to craaash!!". That second and a half of trouser browning made the game feel so much faster and more satisfying.

 

[Num43]

pfft YAY alright at some point they'll hit a wall considering graphics and start making new games and not the same one again with Better graphics...cause there wont be better ones

but untill that expect to see atleast ten more FIFA games

 

[gameloftguy]

Good graphics are nice but good game play always trumps good graphics. Good graphics might get me to stop and take a gander but good game play will keep me coming back.

 

[Mr. Hanh [deprecated]]

I think that's the PS3's real downfall, the absolute power of it.

Companies release games for it, boasting the graphics are amazing and what-not, then the game sucks and the only people that can defend them are 'Gamers' (qoute marks representing sarcasm, as these so called 'Gamers' have never played on anything that wasn't built by Sony so don't actually have any real understanding of the industry and have a very opinoinated view on things) who know jack and believe that graphics make a game.

Why can't companies be more like Nintendo? They don't boast about graphics, Mario Galaxies looks amazing and is still a great game, and they didn't make a fuss over the graphics.

Games like Bioshock, Crysis, Halo 3 (to name three) are all good games, but the only thing people seem to comment on is "BUT CHECK OUT THE GRAPHICS ZOMGLOL".

 

[Copter400]

Graphics, for me, are a nice extra to good gameplay and not really a necessity.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Zippy I know what I'm talking about, cause I'm in it.

It's not just graphics...its a lot of other things. games are more interactive these days, behaviors in the world more complex, and forces which control the entire world...These weren't around in the past. In the eighties there was no AI to worry about, no gravity, and there barely were any interactive objects.
Such things create a lot of unexpected behaviors, which in bad cases only happen once in twenty times or less. These are the kind of problems that often bounce between the leveldesigners and programmers. Artists don't have anything to do with it.
Of course the render engine takes time, but not all of it, or most of it.
The only problems that new graphics lead to is a possible low frame rate.

Its not the artist fault the game was aimed to high than the hardware can really manage,

To often the industry chases tech that can not support it leading to poorly built games because they aimed the graphics to high, I wish it was a option to dial back on them because they are more often than not supruples to the needs of the game, to run smooth and look ok is better than looking great but playing badly.

Also dev time needs to be added not reduced publishers need not be so quick to have unfinished games launched, not when they are harder to make and polish now adays.

If anything dev time needs to be increased just for finish work and polishing, even then I think "gameplay design" is a lost art.


Mr. Hanh
I am startign to think the power of the PS3 was oversold and devs are wondering why games are not working quite right...it could just be poor optimizations... and I feel the WII is nice but the industry will not sustain it for more than 2-4 years.

If sony can not lower the PS3 and raise its features I do not think it will regain its 2nd and 3rd party support, leaving MS with the ball, and if MS moves all new units to HDVD opening HDVD gaming they will have breathed life into the aging 360, but for now the wii has the ball and its not sharing .

 

[Feehl]

Graphics are nice but graphics on their own aren't something I look kindly to. Most people around here play games with review stats like the following:
Graphics 9.6
Sound 8.9
Gameplay 4.8
All together 7.7
Which pisses me off! I don't give a (insert random censored word here) for graphics if the game has no gameplay or no story! I am willing to sacrifice gameplay and graphics for a good story. For example : Back in the day when Unreal 2 came out (Not to be mistaken with Unreal Tournament) It had low graphics and lame sound but after I played it I realised that this game is one of the best games that would probably come out for the year.
Aaanyway the point is I'd rather have story and gameplay over sound and graphics. So graphics Nay

 

[Girlysprite]

Zippy, I agree with you that devs need more time in many cases. Problem with polish and testing is that it comes last in the timeline (can't be in another way) and if the devs run behind on schedule, the cuts go to testing and QA.
Developers can do much, really much. There aren't many boundaries, while there used to be a lot decades ago. A gae now is not only defined anymore by how good and new it is anymore, but by how much it is polished. There are plenty examples of 'was/could have been a great game, but failed because of lack of polish and bugs.
Nowadays, systems barely are a bottleneck, it's the amount of people, manhours that become the bottleneck. I think it is part of the growing process that games go through. Game have been punished before for being too unpolished, too clunky.

When it comes to good or bad games...vote with your wallet

 

[Pyrrian]

Graphics are nice but graphics on their own aren't something I look kindly to. Most people around here play games with review stats like the following:
Graphics 9.6
Sound 8.9
Gameplay 4.8
All together 7.7
Which pisses me off! I don't give a (insert random censored word here) for graphics if the game has no gameplay or no story! I am willing to sacrifice gameplay and graphics for a good story. For example : Back in the day when Unreal 2 came out (Not to be mistaken with Unreal Tournament) It had low graphics and lame sound but after I played it I realised that this game is one of the best games that would probably come out for the year.
Aaanyway the point is I'd rather have story and gameplay over sound and graphics. So graphics Nay

I can't think of a single game that fits that sort of review score - the closest being Doom 3, maybe. Quite simply, games that look better tend to play better. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the visuals in a game are a notable part of the gameplay. They're how you interact, what you see, what you can interact with, and part of the atmosphere. The second reason is that someone using the time, effort, and talent necessary to make a good-looking game is going to have a lot of time, effort and talent working on the design and production of gameplay mechanics, too.

Game development is often divided into teams. Depending on the size of your company, you'll have some designers working on ideas for play mechanics and level design, artists and animators working on visuals, some software developers working on coding, almost always some testers, a producer or two (and assistants), and a few other groups of people I ignored because this isn't an encyclopedia entry. There is some overlap, and they do work together quite frequently, but the work they do is often somewhat independent. You don't need to code, for instance, to do some of the artwork. You don't need to code or be an artist to design. You don't need to design or be an artist (or code, depending on your level of testing) to be a tester. So, the people spending time on the visuals usually aren't going to be taking away from the designers, coders, and testers - they usually wouldn't be doing those things, anyway.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Zippy, I agree with you that devs need more time in many cases. Problem with polish and testing is that it comes last in the timeline (can't be in another way) and if the devs run behind on schedule, the cuts go to testing and QA.
Developers can do much, really much. There aren't many boundaries, while there used to be a lot decades ago. A gae now is not only defined anymore by how good and new it is anymore, but by how much it is polished. There are plenty examples of 'was/could have been a great game, but failed because of lack of polish and bugs.
Nowadays, systems barely are a bottleneck, it's the amount of people, manhours that become the bottleneck. I think it is part of the growing process that games go through. Game have been punished before for being too unpolished, too clunky.

When it comes to good or bad games...vote with your wallet

I try hell I wont buy before I try anymore because of how poorly finished games are,if retail would go back to watching consumers and stop letting abusers return games then mbaye I would buy more new games but IMO things suck and are gettign worse because more often than not publishers are protected from bad games because they have alrady made a profit off the fist wave or 2 to retailers.

Price and quality is a issue2,I would be almost happy to buy a new game for 30 then I would not care if it was bad or not but over 40+ I refuse to put up with poorly made games.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Graphics are nice but graphics on their own aren't something I look kindly to. Most people around here play games with review stats like the following:
Graphics 9.6
Sound 8.9
Gameplay 4.8
All together 7.7
Which pisses me off! I don't give a (insert random censored word here) for graphics if the game has no gameplay or no story! I am willing to sacrifice gameplay and graphics for a good story. For example : Back in the day when Unreal 2 came out (Not to be mistaken with Unreal Tournament) It had low graphics and lame sound but after I played it I realised that this game is one of the best games that would probably come out for the year.
Aaanyway the point is I'd rather have story and gameplay over sound and graphics. So graphics Nay

I can't think of a single game that fits that sort of review score - the closest being Doom 3, maybe. Quite simply, games that look better tend to play better. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the visuals in a game are a notable part of the gameplay. They're how you interact, what you see, what you can interact with, and part of the atmosphere. The second reason is that someone using the time, effort, and talent necessary to make a good-looking game is going to have a lot of time, effort and talent working on the design and production of gameplay mechanics, too.

Game development is often divided into teams. Depending on the size of your company, you'll have some designers working on ideas for play mechanics and level design, artists and animators working on visuals, some software developers working on coding, almost always some testers, a producer or two (and assistants), and a few other groups of people I ignored because this isn't an encyclopedia entry. There is some overlap, and they do work together quite frequently, but the work they do is often somewhat independent. You don't need to code, for instance, to do some of the artwork. You don't need to code or be an artist to design. You don't need to design or be an artist (or code, depending on your level of testing) to be a tester. So, the people spending time on the visuals usually aren't going to be taking away from the designers, coders, and testers - they usually wouldn't be doing those things, anyway.

Try again DOOM 3 is full of fail beyond fail the walkable level layout is more simplistic than DOOM and most adventure games made in the early 90s,the weapons are at best throwbacks to the mid 90s just befog alt mode became mandatory, the lack of a shoulder light,night vision or other light devices a sign of the lack of depth in design...... DOOM 3 is everything wrong with modern gaming.

Hell its officials ID dose't build games anymore they build demos/movies to showcase their engine and because of that ID has become illrelevant to FPSs outside alil engine work for others to try and build real games on.


And heres the saddest thing Daikatana was more of a fun game than D3 was,hell its almost better than quake 4.

How are bland designs (music,weapons,levels) and high art direction "better"?
IMO the only thing Q4 and D3 offer over the rest of the ID games is graphics and physics and some AI the rest is a loss.

 

[Pyrrian]

Try again DOOM 3 is full of fail beyond fail the walkable level layout is more simplistic than DOOM and most adventure games made in the early 90s,the weapons are at best throwbacks to the mid 90s just befog alt mode became mandatory, the lack of a shoulder light,night vision or other light devices a sign of the lack of depth in design...... DOOM 3 is everything wrong with modern gaming.

Err... the point was that Doom 3 was the only game I could think of that might remotely fit the description of a game with an emphasis on the visuals and neglect to play mechanics. Who are you arguing with?

Though you also seem to be saying the shortcomings and discrepencies of Doom 3 are typical of modern games, which is complete nonsense. Doom 3 is the exception, not the rule.