• Is graphical quality important in video games?
    234 replies, posted
I played Runescape for years. Fucking [B]Runescape.[/B] Do you know why? Because I thought it was fun. I enjoyed killing for loot, joining world 1 to sell the loot to suckers, and using the resulting currency to buy decent, if not good equipment to kill for even larger loot to do much more [I]inventive[/I] things with. I enjoyed starting my own clan and supplying my friends (real-life friends, mind you) with armor before we went PKing (Player-killing) in the Wildy (PvP area) since I was the only one who was into Mining and Smithing. It was [B]fun to me.[/B] But then Jagex released several retarded updates that killed it for me and that was the end of it. My level 80 something character has been rotting in stasis for a good 5 years now, and I have little to no intention of going back. It's never about the graphics for me, but the gameplay and what can be done with it.
Aesthetic is more important to me than the graphics engine. If a game has shit aesthetic AND shit graphics, then I'd probably find it less enjoyable, but a good aesthetic makes up for shit graphics almost completely. I'll make an example. Vanilla M&B:W compared to M&B:W with polished landscapes. No changes have been made to the graphical engine, the textures and models have just been swapped out. The polished landscapes variant looks better, and that's not because of any improvements to the graphical qaulity, its due to improvements to the game's aesthetic qaulity Vanilla [img]http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/9843/mb1pm.jpg[/img] PL [img]http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/3739/mb2tt.jpg[/img] No changes have been made to the graphical engine, even the texture resolutions are the same. The first one is comprised of a palette comprised mostly of washed-out beige and intensive greens, the second has better looking models, and the color palette is comprised of a variety of rich greens, browns, reds and yellows. You dont need an amazing graphics engine to make a beautiful game. While graphics dont make a good game, I think its reasonable to say the aesthetic can make quite an influence... I guess what Im saying is, the actual graphical technology is not very important, but the game does need to look [B]good[/B] in one way or another for it to be a good game, though "good" in that case can be subjective. [editline]24th November 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=JaegerMonster;33414014]Not really. Operation Flashpoint had an insane following well after the graphics became incredibly dated. Hell it still does to some degree. Morrowind too.[/QUOTE] Morrowind and OFP both have a good aesthetic though, Morrowind is self explanatory.... Even though OFP looks like shit from a graphical qaulity standpoint, there's something about the chunky yet grand visuals that have an eerie appeal to them.
It depends a lot on resolution and what genre it is, etc, etc. I have some standards for graphical quality, but if the gameplay itself is great, I'll keep playing. If the gameplay is awful, a coolio graphics engine and art design won't really save it.
Absolutely zero. Aesthetic is good, but quality is nothing.
Well I think that today, the graphics of a game are importants. We are in 2011, so we can have some games with at least twenty hours of gameplay, a good multiplayers mode (off/online), good graphics, a good scenario, and a lot of goodies who extend the fun.
A game is like a girl, her personality might be good, but if shes fat you Probably won't date her.
[QUOTE=Crossu88;33472189]A game is like a girl, her personality might be good, but if shes fat you Probably won't date her.[/QUOTE] um this is really really stupid
[QUOTE=Crossu88;33472189]A game is like a girl, her personality might be good, but if shes fat you Probably won't date her.[/QUOTE] What. No. Just no.
Ico was a beautiful game without graphical beauty
Graphics quality should never be a game's priority unless the graphics are supposed to be deliberately primitive like Minecraft or Megaman 10. At the same time they should (unless as I said they intend to make the graphics "bad" on purpose) try to do at least an average job on graphics and NEVER end up re-using as much as content modern warfare 3 did.
Quality is not aesthetics. Doom is a classic example, where the quality of graphics may not be the best since the game is quite old, but the aesthetics of them are still delicious and pretty. From dusty browns to more clean browns with nice blues and pastel greens. Also monsters are easily distinguishable from each other, since they make different sounds and have different silhouettes. Just try Mt. Erebus level in Doom. In my opinion it's really nice. The quality dates, but well-planed aesthetics don't. You can have 5000 polygons made out of pure yuck, and also have 500 polygons which may not be the best quality but are quite appealing to the eye. A good artist can make the best sculptures out of scrap metal and junk, while a bad artist can't do anything good even with the best tools and best materials.
I think gameplay overpowers graphical power, therefore if someone is having fun and enjoying their game, they won't really care about the graphics. A lot of people do consider the graphics of the game, but honestly, those who do really don't understand what makes a game a good game.
[QUOTE=wauterboi;33398821]Well some people need them HD's with the 1080p's or else Samus just ain't cool enough. ...which is retarded. A game is a game, and while the graphics are a good chunk of it it's like dissing an album because you don't like the album cover. Don't judge a book by it's cover. Time for Super Mario Bros. 1.[/QUOTE] nnno. if anything about a game were like an album/book cover it would be the game's, wait for it... cover. which, believe it or not, is still a common thing these days. and serves absolutely the same purpose. [editline]28th November 2011[/editline] i don't even know what "need them HD's" means or where you're going with "1080p" since most console games are nowhere near 1080p [editline]28th November 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Antdawg;33359907]As I said before, artistic direction doesn't matter in terms of graphical quality, graphical quality being things like quality of the models, textures, lighting and after effects. Take Alice: Madness Returns: [URL]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7jAxyDneFHk/Tgjk-r27tyI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/itEeTx-ajdg/s1600/Cards_view_656x369.jpg[/URL] [URL]http://files.g4tv.com/ImageDb3/266695_S/alice-madness-returns-screenshots-cheshire-cat-needs-a-sammich.jpg[/URL] [URL]http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4135/4815307833_baeaab6832_z.jpg[/URL] Alice has an amazing style to it, but the graphics are let down due to a low texture resolution, and dodgy animations. Notice the ground texture on the second image. [editline]21st November 2011[/editline] Also if you focus on textures in the third image, you'll notice that they are low resolution. Look at tree to the right, and ground textures on bottom left.[/QUOTE]must be a console thing, on pc the game is quite gorgeous
Graphics are not as important as gameplay, I'll happily go back and play old PS1 games I used to play, but I find it hard to get into and play games like Deus Ex (don't kill me) now because the gameplay is pretty much no hand holding and the graphics are obviously dated. I guess I'm just not used to that. Of course that is just my opinion. TL;DR Gameplay > Graphics
Like others said, aesthetics are way, way more important than graphics. For example I thought Oblivion looked much worse than Morrowind despite higher poly models and higher resolution textures, simply because the art direction... didn't resonate with me, to put it lightly. Aesthetics and style are very important for a game. Its value is somewhat diminished once the player is immersed in gameplay, but visuals are very often the first impression (boxart, screenshots, trailers), and a common means of advertisement. Like a book cover. A book can be great but go completely under the radar if it looks bland or the first chapter is bland. So [b]first impression[/b]s are important, and thus by extension aesthetics. A good art direction also works hand in hand with the [b]storytelling[/b] department to improve world crafting, character crafting and by extension immersion, which is a very important part of the experience. A good artstyle can tell you a lot about a person or a landscape without using so much as a single line of dialogue. Beyond that, if you consider gameplay, also consider the [b]GUI[/b]. That can be the health bar and compass on your screen, that can be the inventory screen. You can easily create a clusterfuck there or add to the immersion. Metro 2033 showed us how it's done.
My main thing is immersion. Graphics have a job to do: to make you feel like you're actually there. The cockpits in Il2 Sturmovik, the periscope view of Silent Hunter, and the first person view of Red Orchestra make you feel like you're immersed within the game, without any use of intense graphics or fancy bloom effects. However, these games' graphics succeed at their roles exceptionally well. However, games like Trine and its sequel rely heavily on graphics to make the world seem impressive and beautiful. In this respect, they succeed as well. This is simply because every game is different, and the graphics serve a slightly different purpose depending on the premise of the game.
In my personal opinion I think that the graphics alone is not the main point in gaming. I have been playing and rewieving games that hasn't got such graphics like Crysis and that kind of games but yet they are better than the games with nice graphics but and mediocre plot. Everyone should think that the graphics aren't always why people play games. It's the immersion, the combination of eyecandy and good story. For example, old games and movies didn't have so much effects, CGI or anything more than the story and sometimes plain and simple graphics, but yet people loved those games and movies. The kids of modern day doesn't understand anything more than: "It looks cool so it must be cool." If you TLDR'd heres the main point. Graphics are not the only thing that makes the game good, it's the reasonable combination of graphics, story and the overall immersion.
Graphics are just a bonus. Think of it like this. Bad gameplay + bad graphics = 1-7 Bad gameplay + good graphics = 1-7+ Good gameplay + bad graphics = 9-10 Good gameplay + good graphics = 9-10+
[QUOTE=TomoAlien;33472883]Quality is not aesthetics. Doom is a classic example, where the quality of graphics may not be the best since the game is quite old, but the aesthetics of them are still delicious and pretty. From dusty browns to more clean browns with nice blues and pastel greens. Also monsters are easily distinguishable from each other, since they make different sounds and have different silhouettes. Just try Mt. Erebus level in Doom. In my opinion it's really nice. The quality dates, but well-planed aesthetics don't. You can have 5000 polygons made out of pure yuck, and also have 500 polygons which may not be the best quality but are quite appealing to the eye. A good artist can make the best sculptures out of scrap metal and junk, while a bad artist can't do anything good even with the best tools and best materials.[/QUOTE]Doom looked graphically breathtaking at that time so it's not really a good example.
[QUOTE=Fire Kracker;33472706]Ico was a beautiful game without graphical beauty[/QUOTE] That's not true it's a 2001 PS2 game.
To me it matters because I can't even play the original Halo anymore because of those graphics. I can barely play the old Spider-Man games on the PS1 anymore either. Well that's more of the clunky controls anyway.
When I bought S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The Shadow of Chernobyl, I was running it on a shitty laptop that could only run it smoothly on low. And yet, the atmosphere, audio direction and gameplay pulled me deeper into that game than probably any other game I've played. Planetside was the same way, it was old and silly looking, but the gameplay made me feel like I was a part of [I]something[/I]. I think that graphical quality is definitely important in games, but I think that mood and atmosphere are much more important aspects (in my mind), and if done properly, can be conveyed at any graphical level. A game that is fun to play should always be fun to play, no matter the visual quality. That is good game design. Visual effects are the icing on the cake, and while they do separate good games from great games, they are [I]not[/I] the most important part of a game by any means.
Graphics is important in some aspects. Games without lighting or shadows will feel two dimensional and extremely flat, things will look extremely weird also without being able to see shadows.
[quote]Is graphical quality important in video games?[/quote] If it's Tetris or Pong no. If it's anything else yes.
I think lots of us are spoiled by graphical quality due to newer generation games. I like to see top notch graphics because that means there might be really good technology in it (Euphoria, DMM, DX 11, etc.) which should also mean there stellar gameplay mechanics which make it an overall enjoyable game, Arkham City for example looks amazing and has awesome mechanics like freeflow combat and DirectX 11 parallax mapping and tessellation. But I still go back to games I played in my childhood and don't mind the graphics as long as the controls aren't clunky.
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;33472208]um this is really really stupid[/QUOTE] Not really. You're even one of the guys who used bitch in the Screenshot forum when someone used a low poly model in really good, well crafted scene.
to me, of course it's important to have pretty graphics, but 'pretty' doesn't mean technically advanced for example, in my opinion Heroes 3 and Blitzkrieg 1 are graphically very pleasing, where as I couldn't bear to finish CoD1 because of how unfinished it looked, even though the graphics were technically more advanced
Let me present my argument for gameplay over graphics: Dwarf Fortress
When I talk about graphics I split them into two things to avoid confusion. I consider art style to be just that, while graphics are the purely technological aspects of the game's looks. I know the term "graphics" is pretty broad and means just about everything having to do with what you see, but still. Examples relative to current AAA titles: Minecraft - good art style, poor graphics. Morrowind - Ditto I can't really think of a game that has a bad art style but great graphics at the moment, but I'm sure you guys can think of some. It's pretty hard to make a game look bad "graphically" in this day and age though, so I never really complain about graphical quality at all. To me, from an aesthetic point of view, art style and resolution are all that matters when it comes to making a game look good.
Gameplay beats all! Went to my friends house one day and played through half of spyro on ps1 even though bf3 was an option... I still go back to Gauntlet Ledgends on N64 over skyrim sometimes...
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