The Brown Argument

[SammiYin]

We've all seen it:
*Game anti thinker voice*
"Argh I hate shooters these days, everythings so brown and shitty, I can't stand it anymore! Why are things like the good old days where every spectrum of the rainbow was involved. Boo hoo"
Yea..these idiots. Now this isn't a major thing to get annoyed by, but I do, it's my duty as an Englishman to find flaws and administer them back to people, so here's my beef with the anti brown whingers.

1) How is a colour affecting your enjoyment?

2)A majority of the predominately brown games are shooters, there are plenty of other genres out there that don't use the colour so much, so why not go play them?

3) Games have been brown for years Half Life 2 had a lot of it [and is regarded as a masterpiece by some, even some anti brown people, [should I just call them racists?] figure that one out.] Even the first Mario had a hell of a lot of brown, every gosh darned brick was brown, so were the goombas, and the floor. Did that make you rage?

4) A majority of games emulate at least some semblance of the real world. Now take a look out of your window at the scary outdoors, if you live somewhere urbanised you'll see a lot of grey [which is one of the main colours in Half Life and Doom and other very early shooters, is grey OK but brown not? That's definitely racist] but if you live somewhere a bit more rural, you'll see what? A fuck load of brown things, trees and dirt mainly, which are both usually very brown. Also, a lot of modern shooters are set in the Middle East, where everything is brown, even the buildings and grass and people.

5) What would you prefer? A game where the ground is bright purple with floral patterns against a backdrop of luminous pink whilst you're fighting blue enemies? Because that's a headache waiting to happen.

Ooh, this was needlessly long for a vent, oh well. If you got this far thanks for reading, if not then I guessed you missed the bit where I horribly insulted you in part 3, so I guess you're better off not knowing what I said about you. Yes you

Now cue the people who are impressed that I "Have an opinion" and feel the need to post that.

 

[BanicRhys]

Modern Warfare 4 really should be set in a lush field of wild flowers.

 

[Dimitriov]

My complaint is that shooters aren't gritty enough yet.

I want to get dirt under my fingernails just by holding the controller.

 

[ace_of_something]

There are times when a game is so monochromatic it actually effects one's ability to see what the hell is going on. Usually those instances things are brown, tan, and/or grey.

Modern Warfare 4 really should be set in a lush field of wild flowers.

Poppy fields of unspecified-a-stan?

 

[Holyeskimo]

Number 5 would be fun, although i have no clue if the colors will generate the mentioned headache but it would the fun kind of weird till my head was trying to divide.

 

[Robert Ewing]

Games are using what we call in media, a HD filter.

You can see a HD filter in almost any Michael Bay movie. If you google HD vision sunglasses, you'll get a look at what sort of filter it is.

Basically, it's a quick and easy way of getting things to look more professional. And to a degree, it sort of works.

For example, most video's on youtube are filmed by amateurs right? If you add this filter over any of their video's it looks quite a bit more professional. Obviously this coupled with the likes of 720 - 1080p quality makes it look even better.

The browness in games are 'supposed' to give the same effect. It semi-works in games, success rate is very low. Because graphics aren't good enough to join with the filter. Which is why nobody complains that you're looking at a Transformers movie through a pair of Ali-G's sunglasses, but you do when you play a game through mud-lenses. Brown-ness is just a phase. Movies and games will move away from it in due time. Don't worry.

 

[enzilewulf]

Well I don't actually see what most people are talking about... I enjoy the shooters of today and most of the game is actually pretty colorful, I mean look at Black ops. That has a lot of color. Your guy is wearing a tropical shirt in Cuba. Then in BFBC2 there is a lot of missions in the snow and there is a multiplyer map in the tropics. I guess some people just hate current games because of some shit or other. Call me a stupid 15 year old shit or what ever because I love current games.

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

In Mario's defense there was at least some blue clear blue sky in the background, some trees here and there and the underground levels were supposed to be, well... under ground.

Colours do actually matter. They will affect your mood whether you're aware of it or not, but i don't really think this is the main issue. I don't really think it's so much the colour itself that bothers people, but all the game types that are associated with it. The shooters are a massive target here(no pun intended), because most shooters are brown and they've become what we like to call "generic" for most people.

You can still like a genre/franchise even though you'd wish they'd actually add something new to the series every now and then(See Call of Duty for referance) to liven things up a bit. (And no, i don't meant by setting it in the kind os psychedelic nightmare you pictured, but something a little more retinal friendly)

 

[WittyInfidel]

Not so much an "argument" as the title suggests, but more of a venting.

I stopped reading after the second sentence. There's far too many people in the world who rant for attention. I don't have enough time to give to all of them.

 

[Aethren]

If it's yellow, it's mellow.

If it's brown, flush it down.

 

[Blaster395]

Few modern shooters use enough colour. Halo is one of them, and probably my favorite thing about it.

Aesthetics are more important though, and its hard to create good aesthetics if everything is washed out and dull.

 

[Dorian6]

having everything be varying shades of brown and gunmetal grey is not visually stimulating. Can't I shoot things in a forest? or by the ocean?

I don't want to shoot things in hallway after identical hallway

 

[RGman]

Well, I think there is no point in asking for a game that propose itself to mimic reality to be more diverse in their color scheme. But there is nothing wrong in asking for more diverse proposals in a particular genre. Number 5 doesn't sound like something objectively wrong or bad, I'm sure that someone can fit that into a context and make a great FPS.

 

[staika]

I never really noticed what everyone is bitching about in the current games, they seem pretty colorful to me but what to I know right. Even if someone were to explain it to me in excruciating detail it still wouldn't bother me because I never notice things like this to begin with.

 

[DustyDrB]

A lack of color makes the game visually dull, plain and simple. I literally do not care a single bit about realism. Put some colors in there.

5) What would you prefer? A game where the ground is bright purple with floral patterns against a backdrop of luminous pink whilst you're fighting blue enemies? Because that's a headache waiting to happen.

Except that's not what people are asking for. An example I like to bring up:
Fallout 3 had some horrid visuals to me because its ridiculous amounts of grey and brown with very little else. Fallout: New Vegas looked perfectly fine to me. There was variation. It still looked like a post-Apocalyptic landscape. It wasn't cartoonish at all. But it had color enough to suit its world.

 

[Drakmorg]

When people complain about games being brown, they mean that brown is pretty much the only noticeable color.

Really what they're whining about is the lack of color variety. If you replaced all the brown with shades of red, people would start whining about the overuse of red.

 

[Woodsey]

Its boring to look at - and I like to have my eyes masturbated.

Does Crysis 2's New York look any less like a city riddled by disaster because real life colours still exist?

And "not brown" doesn't equate to having a rainbow shit on the screen - it just means using actual colours.