you know what?...fuck it....graphics ARE important

[Nadia Castle]

How do you feel about older films in this case? Is a Laurel and Hardy movie a lot less funny purely because its filmed in grainy black and white? The same with Clerks which is stylistically dated too.

Its probably different from person to person but I still think the first Silent Hill is the creepiest game of all time even when I replay it with lousy graphics. Lone Survivor looks like a 16-bit game but absolutely wrecks Dead Space when it comes to immersion. Its defiantly not true of all tho. Playing the first Resident Evil completely drags you from the experience because of its bizarrely colourful world and jerky monsters. Graphics can be important but if a game is well designed enough it can be irrelevant.

 

[Tony2077]

graphics aren't as important as you guys make them out to be. look at some of the games that have come out they look good but lack good gameplay, can you say that you'd play something that looks good but isn't fun to play

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Are they important? Yes, I don't think anyone would seriously say that without at least a hint of hyperbole but as important as the games industry and some people make them out to be? No, they most certainly are not. You not being able to play a game due to it having old graphics is a problem of yours and not of the game.

There is a difference between old and bad graphics. FF VII is old and bad to some due to design decision for 3d models in some situations, Half life has old graphics, Blacksite Area 51 has bad graphics with some nice touches like the rain. When you can see the seems of walls and the environment then we have a problem.

I'm here to play a game not look at pretty pictures with bright lights.

 

[michael87cn]

You're right OP, graphics are important in the exact situation you cited- where you compare a recent game to a very old one. I mean, it's entirely fair to complete ignore

In my opinion, I suppose that the character make up of the individual will decide if he or she can still immerse themselves in a virtual world. I have been stuck with old games and bad computers all my life, just like I've had bad financial luck and had horrible people for bosses in my careers, directly leading me to be unable to 'enjoy' certain things like shiny bells and whistles in my gaming hobby. Often times, I lose the ability to have my hobby at all, and I must be thankful when I can sit down and play an old game from 1997, or an 'old' game from 2004.

Currently, on my computer I can't run anything newer than 2004 or so, but when you've been playing games like StarCraft (the original) and Diablo 2, for like 8 years now, a game from 2004 looks extremely advanced and beautiful to you. I downloaded some demos from steam yesterday not expecting to be able to run them, but I was... and I was blown away by how pretty the games were and how well they ran on my semi-new-but-not-very-good-computer-(because it was affordable)-(it doesn't even have dual cores)

To me, graphics aren't important... no matter the game, I always retain my ability to immerse myself if I am interested enough, which is often MY difficulty with newer games - they have the graphics, but they sacrifice so, so very much of the game in the process.

The bells and whistles you love, oh how little you realize just what they cost you.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

They have to be serviceable, but you can't build a game around them.

Bad graphics can detract from an otherwise good game. Good graphics cannot save a bad game but they can make a good game better.

 

[michael87cn]

They don't matter to me. I am thankful to get what I can, even if I am 8 years behind in technology, the games still look very nice, and thankfully games from the 2004 era don't sacrifice nearly as much as the 2012 ones do.

You see graphics take a lot more work to provide than they did before. A lot more money as well. Games just aren't as good as they used to be. The ending to ME3 is a good example of how lack of money can ruin a great game. Let's not kid ourselves, there's no way they could have done such a good job on all 3 ME games and then at the very last 10 minutes of the final game forgot how to make a good game. It somehow some way came to money interfering.

 

[veloper]

Wonderful, so the OP has come to tell us he's joined the gfxwhore crowd.
This is not wrong, but the title of the thread as an objective fact is still stupid and shallow.

Gamers who've been around a bit longer could all play the classics just fine, when they were still new and sometimes we even appreciated the then state-of-the-art gfx. Those classic games have not changed a bit, so the crowd has.

Personally I only expect fancy gfx when they ask full price for a game.
Games that are cheap because indie or old, shouldn't be held to the same graphical standards. I can play them just fine.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

I feel really bad for you guys. I'm able to enjoy any game that has graphics that sufficient convey to me what's going on.

I agree with you, with only one game (or probably series) that is the exception.

Call of Duty: World at War for the Wii.

It is literally the first game to make me ill by just looking at the gameplay. And this wasn't displayed on a crappy TV either. The HUGE downgrade in graphics is not only daunting, but literally sickening to me.

I agree, that graphics are important, but it shouldn't carry the game, especially if it isn't an art game. I swear, people nowadays buy racing exclusive games because of the hyper realism. Where's the weapons? Where are the unique features to this games? Where's the customization?

I mean, that fine for arcade games, with a physical wheel and pedals, where physics is not your friend, but I want more from console/PC racing games. I just personally expect a racing game to be unique and exciting.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

A while ago I played Planescape Torment. The graphics are pretty bad and glitchy by today't standards. I also played Diablo 2, Baldur's Gate, and a bunch of other games with 10+ year old graphics. You know what? They were FUN. There were a lot of choices on how to play and a variety of elements to complement those choices. They were also fairly long and allowed me to invest myself in each game. After a while, I decided that I would finish the last bunch and move on to newer games. I should probably mention that I went back to playing older games that I felt I missed growing up. Prior to that I played fairly contemporary games.[/quogte]

The games you cited all looked good with respect to the time they were made. Just look at how those games were pitched - Baldur's gate specifically mentions the graphics and effects of the spells and Baldur's Gate 2 tells us there's even more of of a pretty light show.

What's more is they tend to illustrate quite clearly the point that graphics do not make a game great. But, can you honestly say that if all else was the same those games would be exactly as good if they looked much better than they currently do? Planescape Torment and the other infinity engine games you list are examples of games that remain good because of strong story and characterization. Diablo 2 uses the same skinner box at the heart of the modern MMO.

If you compare similar games you start to see a pattern emerging. Borderlands is the same skinner box as Diablo yet a part of it's charm comes from the visual design of the world (i.e. the graphics). Dragon Age origins featured lots of muddy and boring graphics and while technically superior to those of the old infinity engine games many would say that art direction detracted from what was otherwise a good game.

If graphics are capable of adding or detracting from a game it is safe to say that they are important. Not that they're the most important or that technology alone is sufficient to make a good game. Just that they do matter. Why such an admission is so hard for people to make when the visual part of the medium is spelled out in the name baffles me.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Nethack has more immersion with base ascii text than 90% of "modern" games.

Dwarf Fortress conveys so much information on a screen that I have difficulty with the base ascii but simple 16x16 pixel tiles make it perfect.

It isn't the graphics that make a difference, it is the style that does. The number of polygons matters much less than a sense of style.

 

[SirPlindington]

Of course they matter. They're just not the most important thing in the game.

 

[mad825]

Eh, my biggest requirements for graphics is to fit my resolution/FOV/aspect:ratio otherwise I'm all cool and dandy.

 

[Headsprouter]

I disagree, personally. Minecraft has bad graphics, but I think Minecraft is beautiful and it gets me very immersed!

 

[random_bars]

There's a definite difference between 'graphical power' and 'graphics'.

Essentially, the way I see it, increased graphical power increases the range of art styles which are possible to pull off well. A game can have terrible 'graphics' in terms of raw power but still look great - it all depends on the style of the game, and what it's trying to do.

I suppose it's similar to movies and special effects. A movie doesn't need amazing special effects to look good if the movie is just about people talking and running around and doing stuff in the real world. But if a movie is about exploding spacecrafts and close-ups of alien bodies and all other kinds of fantasy stuff, it needs good special effects to pull it off, or it's going to look bad.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

Damn it, I came here hoping to read people screaming bloody murder at the OP (no offense Vault, this is the internet, and its fun to read mindless shouting matches) but I come here to find people being calm and collected and either agreeing or attempting to refute the argument? What the fuck is this shit? What happened to this place?

No but seriously, Escapist, you impressed me. You're growing up.

My opinion, well I almost exclusively play games from this gen and occasionally last gen, so you'd think my opinion is pretty clear cut, but that's mostly because I think the GAMEPLAY is actually a lot better than before (the reason I can't play Deus Ex like you Vault is not because the graphics are shit is because the gameplay is shit, and that is a much more controversial argument to make so be thankful you're just a "graphics whore" and don't subscribe to my line of thinking )

But although I've only personally ever been turned off by games because of the gameplay, and have never played a game that actually hurt my eyes it was so ugly, I completely agree graphics are important. Technology helps to immerse, it can help to tell the story if used properly, it can amaze us and impress us and draw us further into a game. I appreciate a beautiful game more than anyone, and I'm the type who constantly wants to max out my settings and download graphics mods to make these virtual worlds even more impressive. So no arguments from me.

 

[razer17]

It's got to the point where I can play 16 or 32bit games, but I really dislike playing N64/PS1 era games because the graphics look dreadful. Even the early PS2 games I don't like. As long as its not too polygonal I don't mind.

 

[xorinite]

I play Dwarf Fortress. So that should give you some idea about how important I think graphics are.

That having been said graphics serve a function. Some games require graphics, even good graphics to work. Others simply don't need them nearly as much, and find resources better spent on simulating goblins melting in lava.