I feel like at this point, we've reached the graphical peak and should be focusing on optimizing as much as we can. John Carmack, as I recall, was able to get Rage to run on a fricking iPhone.
Poll: Was i the only one who was satisfied with PS2/Xbox graphics?
- Thread starter The Chemist
- Start date
Recommended Videos
I still buy PS2 games, I still think they look slick as hell. My 360's graphics on the other hand are just really gross. After using a PC for games for so long, I really don't enjoy the graphics on the 360. Either look super nice w/ AA and legit 1080 resolution, or go back to making solid looking PS2/Xbox games with great gameplay.
I played MGS2 and thought "Damn, it's probably not gonna look much better than this." I was mistaken. Assassin's Creed came out in the next console generation and I thought the effort to make things look nice had reached it's peak, but we're still going, aren't we? I don't really care to see each individual pore and grain of sand on a character's face to enjoy the experience, but does it seem crazy that we can practically get more realistic looking people than when they filmed real people for cutscenes some years ago?
Captcha: "Oribro Represent" Captcha is starting a street gang, methinks.
Captcha: "Oribro Represent" Captcha is starting a street gang, methinks.
We haven't, not even close.PrinceOfShapeir said:
However, we have reached a point where the production costs of graphics has become a severe limiting factor in the development of games.
When the credits to a game have more artists than everyone else combined (excluding QA testers) you've got to think that maybe, just maybe, the industry has it's priorities a bit screwed up.
Except that the game designers aren't the same people who develop either the models or the graphics engine.KarmaTheAlligator said:
Honestly? This was never a thing. People THINK it's a thing because a lot of big moneymakers tend to employ a high degree of spectacle, but the only thing you've got to blame for bad writing and bad gameplay is good old fashioned incompetence on the game designers' parts. The real stink of this generation is just how many people get a slice of the pie, how prohibitively expensive it is to develop and produce a game, how many DEMANDS there are on a game's feature set--either artificial or genuine--and how many barriers to entry these things place on the world of game development.
Every game's gotta have social features now. Every game on Xbox 360 has to have an online feature set. Every game has to be accessible to everyone and their dog in terms of user interface. Every game has to have a thick coat of spectacle. Every game has to be at least as successful as "GAME X" in its own genre. Every game of that genre, meanwhile, has to incorporate EVERY feature of "GAME Y." Every game has to reach a certain distribution, because every game has bills to pay--to the publisher, to the console developer, to the retailer, to every middleware developer who contributed something to the project, to the engine licenser, and then FINALLY to the company that actually put together the IP and developed the bloody game.
The simple fact is that game developers need to learn to say "no" to some of these things, recognize that they don't have anything to do with their product's appeal or success. Say "no" to overblown scripted events, say "no" to adding EVERY SINGLE FEATURE that has ever been developed for a shooter even though it has no place in YOUR shooter, say "no" to DLC quotas and social network connectivity, and say "no" to doing another miserable, unnecessary sequel for the sake of squeezing another dollar out of a franchise that had nobody's interest in the first place. All of this shit takes time to develop AND puts actual demands on the game designer--as opposed to just the fact of high graphical fidelity and new technology, which often adds interesting tools for game designers to work with.
If we just stepped back and relaxed for a damn minute, took a deep breath, and dropped the ball and chain this mentality has given us, we'd probably find that we can do just as much with this console generation as we could with the last one. Hell, probably a lot more.
That's part of the reason I love stylized graphics, especially the cel-shaded style, which hardware could handle since last generation.Vault101 said:
And there's definitely nothing wrong with improving graphics, I just don't like when they're improved for the sake of it, at which point technical limitations lead to, well, Gears of War's palette.
PS2 graphics were great (but I've been playing since the Intellivision days and I was satisfied with that back in the 70s) and really the only thing I was looking forward to with the next gen was to up the processing power.
I play Burnout Revenge at least once a month and really, I would've appreciated Burnout Paradise a lot more if it was the same thing but with more cars in the crash junctions exploding more spectacularly.
I play Burnout Revenge at least once a month and really, I would've appreciated Burnout Paradise a lot more if it was the same thing but with more cars in the crash junctions exploding more spectacularly.
A) Graphics matter. You wouldn't watch an animated movie if the animation was shit. It's obviously of a smaller scale in video games, but the logic still applies. People can go on and on about the soundtrack in a game, but when you reach graphics all of a sudden it's a taboo? Please.
B) If this is video gaming's graphics plateau, it's a sad plateau indeed, because games still look like ass. When you take into account that the first Toy Story was made in 1995, I'd say we still have a ways to go in terms of hyperrealism.
C) To be quite honest, I don't really see that big a difference between PS2/XBox/Gamecube graphics and Wii/360 graphics. PCs and PS3s are rather different, but PS3 still gets games with 360-level graphics, because actually using PS3's expensive hardware is apparently too much work.
D) Yes, I was satisfied. Are you okay with being satisfied? Because I tend to expect a little more than satisfaction.
B) If this is video gaming's graphics plateau, it's a sad plateau indeed, because games still look like ass. When you take into account that the first Toy Story was made in 1995, I'd say we still have a ways to go in terms of hyperrealism.
C) To be quite honest, I don't really see that big a difference between PS2/XBox/Gamecube graphics and Wii/360 graphics. PCs and PS3s are rather different, but PS3 still gets games with 360-level graphics, because actually using PS3's expensive hardware is apparently too much work.
D) Yes, I was satisfied. Are you okay with being satisfied? Because I tend to expect a little more than satisfaction.
Graphics aren't as important as game-play mechanics, permitting you can make out what's happening.