How important are graphics to you.

[stvncpr236]

I thought this might be a nice straightforward topic for my first thread.

This topic stemmed from a discussion that me and a co-worker had today. I am of the opinion that graphics are one of the last things you should look at then judging or critiquing a game, whereas he believes they are of paramount importance.

So I ask my fellow Escapees, where do you stand on this matter, remember there are no wrong answers.

Edit: I would like to thank all the Escapist member's who contributed intelligently to this discussion. Who have reminded me why I use these forums in the first place. It's a place where, for the most part, someone can ask a question and get a reasonable intelligent answer. So thank you.

 

[SycoMantis91]

I'm on your side. It's nice to have good graphics, but if the game/controls/story/characters/etc all suck, I'm not playing it. No matter how beautiful it is. It's kinda like how I look at women. I don't care how gorgeous you are, if you're not at least somewhat nice, you're dumb as a rock, you're insanely full of yourself, and you're just plain a *****, I'm not interested. Looks are one of the last things I look at either way.

 

[scorptatious]

Good graphics are nice and all. But I would much rather have a working game that's fun and interesting.

FFVII is a good example of this. It's graphics haven't really aged that well by today's standards. But it makes up for it with fun gameplay, an interesting cast of characters and a good story.

 

[way2sl0w]

Graphics certainly aren't the most important thing compared to good gameplay, polish and story (if applicable) but it's still pretty damn important.

I tried playing Deus Ex after really liking DX: Human Revolution but I quit after 10 mins because it just looked so awful!

edit: forgot to add original Silent Hill and Resident Evil to this list.

 

[zombieshark6666]

It's the first thing I look at. Especially if I'm going to be playing the game for long hours. It has to be clean, crisp and not hurt my eyes. I wouldn't want to be with a girl I'd rather not look at, that would be dumb as well.

 

[stvncpr236]

Graphics certainly aren't the most important thing compared to good gameplay, polish and story (if applicable) but it's still pretty damn important.

I tried playing Deus Ex after really liking DX: Human Revolution but I quit after 10 mins because it just looked so awful!

That's actually quite unfortunate, The original Deus Ex was awesome. That being said I do understand your issue with it.

 

[Brawndo]

I predominantly play PC, and one of my complaints is the obsession of the PC Master Race with the latest and greatest graphics that require computers from space to play (as Yahtzee puts it). Graphics are nice, but I don't like when they detract from gameplay. Mount & Blade was one of my favorite games in the past two years and it has graphics from 2004-2006. It also allows dozens and dozens of characters on screen at once with little to no slowdown, something which would likely not have been possible with modern graphics.

Actually one of the few benefits from having more console ports on PC is that I don't have to upgrade my machine every two years just to play all the latest games. Skyrim ran on my 2008 laptop just fine.

I tried playing Deus Ex after really liking DX: Human Revolution but I quit after 10 mins because it just looked so awful!

There's a mod with a graphics update for Deus Ex that makes it much more playable:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/deus-ex-new-vision

 

[ResonanceGames]

I tried playing Deus Ex after really liking DX: Human Revolution but I quit after 10 mins because it just looked so awful!

Yikes dude.

Graphics are far less important than the overall visuals, which take into account the art style. Play "The Sword" in Thief and tell me the art design doesn't perfectly compliment the blockiness of the graphics. Good sound is also much more important for immersion than visual fidelity.

 

[Snowblindblitz]

As long as it doesn't hurt or strain my eyes, graphics aren't the most important to me. I can play old games, but I do enjoy the HD remakes for the same reason I re-bought movies on DVD/Blue-Ray: So I can experience those enjoyable moments in a better resolution.

Sad part is, classics outshine a decent amount of newer material. Not all.

 

[stvncpr236]

Thanks for the mod suggestion, I'll have to check it out. Now if only I could find my copy of the game.

 

[TehCookie]

Graphics are extremely important. I should easily be able to tell one thing from another and important things should be noticeable. When you have ultra realistic brown graphics and you have to find a rusty key it's not fun. I'd rather have a rusty key that sparkles. If I can see everything and tell what it is, I'm fine with it. That includes pixel sprites or old polygon models. New graphics are nice, but when everything is detailed it makes it all look the same. Devs really need to find a working artstyle that goes along with their game.

 

[psychic psycho]

It depends I guess. I'd rather have an ugly game that plays well then a nice looking one that's stinks. That said sometimes nice graphics can elevate a game. Alice: Madness Returns was a fairly boring game but I still finished it because the game was interesting to look at (I guess it was more to art direction than actual graphics though). The enhanced gore in L4D2 made it more enjoyable for me. Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions is an average game but I enjoyed it a lot more than I normally would have because it looked amazing; it really captured the look of a comic.

These days it's pretty rare for a game to look terrible. Most games are decent looking enough that graphics aren't going to be a problem if it's below average. I don't think I've come across a game that looked so terrible I couldn't play it despite the gameplay being great.

To me the lack of state-of-the-art graphics can't hurt a game but it can certainly make it better. I like good gameplay as much as the next guy but I'm not going to deny that nice graphics can make a game better.

 

[PuffinBox]

Not much, as long as I can see what is going on I have no problem with graphics. While its always a plus too have great looking game the gameplay is the most important.

For example the I had no problem playing Deus Ex(yay, steam sales!) after the playing Human Revolution and hell I played it on the wrong resolution for 4 hours.

 

[Jailbird408]

Well I'm a Nintendo fanboy, so...
No. Not at all.
Yeah, games like Gears Of War have loads of polygons and hi-res textures, but you'd have to be daft to say that they were easier on the eye than, say, Okami.

 

[evilneko]

Hey look, it's this thread again!

Gameplay > Graphics. Pure and simple.

To quote myself from a very similar thread:

[T]he gameplay is so vastly more important than either graphics or music that those two are just irrelevant next to it. If a game is fun I don't care if the graphics are 8-bit sprites and the music is a looped chiptune. All the graphics and sound in the world can't save a shitty game, either.

 

[Tupolev]

This discussion is extremely game-dependant. Graphics matter insofar as they enable art styles.

Something like a bit.trip game might function just fine, and even be gorgeous, with an unimpressive graphics engine. But Crysis' art style would look awful if you tried to realize it on an engine made to run on a Dreamcast.

It's not like graphics is a sliding scale, either; different graphical power aspects affect different games differently.
Halo 3: ODST, for instance, uses some (relatively) high-contrast high-frequency detail in dark areas that looks fine from a 360's 720-or-1080-line output. But compared to the other Halo games, it looks horrible on a 480-line TV, largely because this type of detail simply doesn't scale down well. Reach, meanwhile, looks surprisingly good on something like an SD CRT, but also has a much more powerful graphics engine than ODST.

What sorts of things a game needs from its graphics depends entirely on what the game is trying to do artistically.

 

[Rheinmetall]

Graphics are very important to me. Essentially they are the whole game. Graphics are not just the looks, but they define the function of game-play.

 

[Coller]

Not important at all. Although some old games i can't play becouse of the old graphics, they are so old, and my eyes are so not used to the appearance, that they actually cause dizzyness. (Arcanum: of steamworks and magick would be an example of graphics causing dizzyness for me. I really wish i could finish that game.)