What's the Importance of Graphics In Video Games? 506
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Soulskill
from the not-all-pixels-are-created-equal dept.
from the not-all-pixels-are-created-equal dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I develop games as a hobby. I've experimented with games on almost every platform available. For me, the gameplay is the most influential factor of a game, with history and graphics dividing second place. But, for some reason, it's not the technical beauty of the graphics that appeal to me. I have played Crysis, and I've played Pokémon games. The graphics of the Pokémon games entertain me as much as the graphics of Crysis. I think both are beautiful. So, why is the current generation of games giving so much importance to the realism in graphic games? I think it is sufficient for a game to have objects that are recognizable. For example, while the water in some games may not look as good as in Crysis, I can still tell it's water. What are your opinions on the current direction of game graphics? Do you prefer easy-to-render 3D scenes that leave space for beautiful effects, like with Radiosity, or more complex 3D scenes that try to be realistic?"
A good combination of a storyline and graphics... (Score:5, Insightful)
is important in any game. Graphics can be cool and all, but they shouldn't be the primary reason for any game.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:5, Insightful)
One word (Score:5, Insightful)
In the end it is all about communication. You could ask the same about movies, and conclude it's all about the story. The lion king would not work as well as a live action movie, since it will not communicate emotions as well. On the other hand, special effects nowadays aren't as scary anymore, because they have the sense of being unrealistic (see Michael Bay Movies).
For me, the appeal of pretty pictures wear off quickly, so I prefer simpler graphics with beautiful effects so my senses do not get overloaded. Also for crysis, I think all the detail clutters the screen and distracts attention away from the gameplay.
Graphics enchance immersion! (Score:4, Insightful)
The better the graphics the easier it is to be immersed in the game. Immersion is probably the best generator of enjoyment in a game.
I guess it depends on the person. I find good looking 3D games much more enjoyable than 2D games (with the exception of Peggle, maybe) - and I have played my fair share of 2D games as I did not have a decent computer for quite a few years.
I think people might be coming to actually *expect* good looking graphics too, so when they see a game that is not aestetically pleasing as games of a similar type this would make getting immersed in the game more difficult.
Video games are an entertainment medium. (Score:5, Insightful)
Video games are an entertainment medium. So are movies. No one is going to argue that good CG effects can make a movie better, yet when it comes to graphics people want to stomp their foot on about gameplay and how graphics are meaningless.
They're not. Of course, it depends on the game--many games don't translate well to 3D, and the retro charm of 8bit is always nice--but let's not kid ourselves that "immersion" (yeah, yeah) is a part of game enjoyment. You can't make an 8bit WoW, now would you want to try, but a 3D pacman isn't going to translate well either.
You can't say "Oh, well I prefer this over that" because graphics depend on the type of game. Comparing pokemon to Crysis isn't fair at all. FPSes, which put you in an actual environment where you have to run, hide, and hopefully slaughter your opponents are a "Far Cry" (ha, ha, ha) from a lightweight (but yes, fun) RPG game on a portable. And imagine an 8-bit Silent Hill! Survival horror didn't really become popular until the PSX for a reason.
I find myself greatly missing the graphics of some of the old-school SNES rpgs such as FFVI's look, but I'm not going to say that FFX's (last FF I played) graphics detracted at all from the game's experience. So I can't say it's the type of graphics I enjoy so much as it is the game and how well the graphics fit in with the genre and the game's design. I don't see why it has to be a one-or-the-other situation.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:5, Insightful)
Graphics can be great for immersion.
I've never really felt that nethack was fun, because it was ME running around in dungeons.
Nethack is fun because it speaks to logic and bad puns (i like bad puns. I like bad punch too, if it's spiked).
when first played games such as quake or bioshock, good graphic and soundscape helped me feel in danger of whatever was around the next corner.
I like a good shock once in a while, the sudden appearence of a darg grey 'D' or '&' just doesn't hit my nerves.
This might also mean that it's most im
Graphics are a poor substitute for substance (Score:1, Insightful)
Much like any form of entertainment, graphics represent the final gloss on a product. A film that relys only on graphics to be successful (Final Fantasy Spirits Within anyone?) will usually find itself dead and forgotten months or years later. However, sometimes movies with poor special effects (or none at all) stay with us for lifetimes. We don't judge The Godfather based on how realistic the horse's head looked.
Graphics are required to give a game a theme and a feel. In that respect they're essential in creating an immersive environment, probably a bit moreso than the story or the voices, if only because while poeple do stop talking in-game, you never stop seeing the game rendered. This does not always mean that the graphics need to be good, advanced, or photorealistic. It means the graphics need to be appropriate to the venue.
If you're making a high-powered, over the top, epic game about a larger-than-life hero who can defeat whole armies singlehandedly, then the realism of the graphics becomes less important than being able to render large groups at once, or pretty particle effects for special attacks. If you're doing a film-noir detective story where you investigate dead bodies, then gritty, realistic, high-contrast graphics are probably appropriate.
You'd never want photorealism in pokemon; it has no identity outside of being a cartoon. At the same time you wouldn't want to play a Dawn of the Dead made with the graphics engine they used on Wind Waker.
Re:Graphics enchance immersion! (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple example - book versus movie made from the book. Many who read the book first prefer it because the movie does not match up with what they have imagined in their head. (Regardless of the fact that most books are better than the movies that come later)
Some of the people who get MOST immersed in their 'games' are people who roleplay, either in text based games, table top, or in graphical simulations. These people get far more immersed than almost anybody who plays Crysis.
Realism and/or suspension of disbelief are paramount to immersion. The environment may look real, but if your belief is not suspended it's impossible to be immersed.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, yes, graphics should be the #1 focus of survival horror primarily because those games are supposed to draw you and and hopefully unnerve you. Nobody plays Silent Hill for super-innovative gameplay. Trying scaring someone on 8-bit arcade graphics.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:5, Insightful)
Graphics can be cool and all, but they shouldn't be the primary reason for any game.
Case study: Heroes of Might and Magic III vs. Heroes of Might and Magic V: same fundamental gameplay, except 5 was done entirely in 3D. The result? 5 is unplayable on a dual-core Dell laptop, (except with minimal settings in 640x480), and it got harder to recognize objects you can interact with.
Graphics need to be appropriate to the game (Score:5, Insightful)
Graphics should be appropriate to the game experience you're trying to create. That's all there is to it, really.
In some cases, that means pushing for absolutely cutting edge technology. A big part of the Crysis experience is the "shock and awe" factor of the visuals, as well as the heavy use of foliage and other environmental factors that need to be done to a very high standard if they're not going to look silly. Personally, I think Crysis is a very, very good game - one of the best of recent years on any platform - and the graphics are a big part of that (though the fairly free-form gameplay is another big element). To be honest, if you're making a first or third person shooter these days that doesn't have a deliberately abstract setting, then you really should be pushing for the most technologically advanced graphics you can, because as gamers' expectations improve, games which fall behind the curve face a bigger and bigger challenge in not having their immersion broken through poor graphics. I remember playing Call of Cthulhu - Dark Corners of the Earth back when it was released and being generally very impressed by the atmosphere (despite the bugs). I tried replaying it recently, and the way that the graphics had aged so badly was quite a shocking bar to getting back into it.
However, not every game needs to be a technological powerhouse, and there are even cases where flash-whizz-bang 3d graphics can work against a game. My favorite example here (and yes, I know it's an old one) concerns the third and fourth Monkey Island games. Monkey Island 3 was for many years the closest thing I'd played to an interactive cartoon. The graphical quality certainly wasn't far short of the animation you were seeing in animated movies at the time, and was actually ahead of much of what you'd see in kids' TV cartoons and anime of the era. For a cartoony graphical adventure, it was perfect. Then for the fourth installment, everything went 3d and it looked rubbish. So we went stylistically from "interactive cartoon" to "badly designed Quake mod". You can see the same thing with the transition from Baldur's Gate 2 to Neverwinter Nights - beautifully drawn 2d backdrops changed to boring, bland 3d tilesets (though I guess this was necessary to make user created content easier).
Interestingly, the recent Sam & Max episodic games seem to have found a decent middle ground here. They balance 3d and 2 graphics in a way that works really quite well, and have finally pulled things back up to the "interactive cartoon" level (and a prettier cartoon that Monkey Island 3 was, though perhaps not by far).
Then occasionally you get one of my favorite experiences; something which uses really quite advanced graphical effects to produce a deliberately highly stylised effect. The best example I've seen of this recently is Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3, which uses some quite advanced 3d graphics and visual effects, but aims for a unique look, which is going neither for realism, nor for the typical anime look you see in a lot of Japanese games. I know cell-shading is nothing new (and has been much abused, particularly by Nintendo), but Valkyria Chronicles combines it with other techniques to pull off a unique and distinctive look that really fits the game well.
I hate photorealism in video games (Score:5, Insightful)
If I want reality, I turn off the computer. As for video games, they should:
1. Have graphics simple enough to quickly locate usable objects without having to strain through all the distractions. Myst series is a bad offender, especially since the objective is to solve puzzles.
2. Take you to an alternative world to take your mind away from real life
3. Be installable on a typical hard drive in dozens, without a need to hunt for - or worse swap - CDs or DVDs
4. Be playable in half an hour intervals, so that someone with kids can also participate.
I have the disposable income to buy pretty much all the titles I like and have time to play. Yet, chiefly because of #4, I am mostly downloading DOS games from abandon ware sites. I would gladly pay if someone was selling them for reasonable price and with instant download available. As a hobbyist, I think you would do well to write some adventure-style games and gain some audience without competition from most commercial developers.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:3, Insightful)
WHat the hell is immersion anyway? I never feel like I'm a character in any game- I'm me. I'm playing a game. I don't want to feel more like I'm a pretend character, I want the gameplay mechanics to be more fun to use and the strategy level/difficulty level to be correct. If that's there, I have fun. If its not, trying to make me think I am the character won't help.
Graphics Are Not the Key to a Great Game (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as it takes more than skillful special effects to make a great movie, it takes more than good graphics to make a great game. You'd think these points would be obvious but there are quite clearly game (and movie) makers out there who don't get them.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The department of obvious called (Score:5, Insightful)
In a way, it is a vicious cycle, but it's also innovation, you don't want games to become stagnant in terms of how they look.
Only focusing on realism is stagnation. There's very little innovation in realism. It takes very little artistic vision. It's the easy wasy, all you need is money.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:5, Insightful)
different ends (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't really compare the graphics between Pokemon and Crysis because the purpose of their graphics are completely different. Games that are trying to get as close to realistic as possible are doing so because there is more immersion than in a top-down RPG like Pokemon. Not immersion in the sense that "I could play this game for hours" but immersion in the "I'm actually there" variety. Pokemon is trying to be more cute and iconic as a way of making the characters more lovable. Pokemon with realistic graphics would be a completely different game for a different purpose. There's nothing wrong with either of them and both types can be beautiful, as you said.
When picking an art design, you have to know the audience and the type of feelings you want to evoke. Also, more often than not, your design is dictated by your budget. If you're a single developer working on a game in his/her spare time, then chances are something like Crysis will be way out of your budget, as opposed to a game with a few stylized icons or models. The reason why it seems more emphasis is placed on realistic graphics is that realism is a challenge that only the big budget guys can attempt to accomplish. It takes millions of dollars to have hours of mocap sessions, hire cleanup artists, high-res modelers, animators, texture painters, environment designers, etc to make a full city of locations and characters. Then it's also a lot more challenging to figure out how to make that world realistic and still function on modern day machines, with physics, animation interpolation, various gameplay mechanics and effects, etc.
While it seems that most games are going for the realistic look, I'd wager that the vast majority of games are going the more stylistic approach. Pretty much anything on the biggest gaming platforms right now (Web, iPhone, Nintendo DS, and Wii) take the stylized route, whereas only the $20 million AAA titles on the XBox 360 and PS3 are going the realistic route, of which there are only a few dozen a year.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:3, Insightful)
"is important in any game. Graphics can be cool and all, but they shouldn't be the primary reason for any game."
Actually graphics are a *primary reason* for any game, but not the only thing obviously. They are called VIDEO games for a reason.
Art sets the tone of the game, if you check out the extra's on the God of War 1 disc they show you models that never made it into the game, and the different versions of Krato's that never made the cut, looking at some of the models you can see that *art* the vision in someone's imagination *definitely* makes the game better when one can bring it out of one's mind and one has good artistic discernment.
This isn't to say that graphics are the only thing obviously, but when it all come's together it's about putting all the pieces together properly to make the experience.
God of War would not have the same visceral Impact using the other model heroes seen on the God of War 1 disc as Kratos.
Technically God of war is an action button mashing 3D beat em up, yet there are other games like that that never reach the level of fun or success God of War has.
The truth is every part of the game experience matters in the game ideally. The problem is game developers don't have the resources to focus on all the parts equally so they have to pick the "core" and focus on making the the core they've chosen as best they can with the resources they have.
Graphics matter only in so far is that they are done artistically well enough.
I doubt anyone would take Metroid 1 (NES) over Super metroid for instance.
Immersion, not realism (Score:1, Insightful)
I think your assumption is wrong, people don't want realism, they want immersion.
A lot of detail in graphics helps provide that immersion, that escape from reality. While games as Pokemon, Final Fantasy 6, etc. can provide that immersion as well, once the player is used to high quality graphics, the lower quality graphics just don't really cut it anymore. Sad, in a way.
If a game with lower end graphics wants to do 'immersion' well, they have to do better than average on the other aspects of the game (Gameplay, story, ...).
Just my opinion, discard whenever you see fit.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes - the original half life was a spectacular game and it still is. But you know what? It's not the graphics that did it - at least not by modern standards. And still I enjoy playing that game (both single and multiplayer) a hell of a lot more than pretty much any new game with shiny graphics.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:1, Insightful)
You are spot on - too bad I don't have modpoints.
This issue was thoroughly hashed out in the 1990s. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you must err on one side or the other, err on the side of gameplay. But you should make both as high-quality as you can.
Concerning graphics technology, that's down to audience. Hardware-oriented fanbois will drool over the latest gear and games that exploit it; adult women playing games on Yahoo during their coffee break will not. Decide who you are serving and what your game really needs first.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:5, Insightful)
I never feel like I'm a character in any game- I'm me. I'm playing a game. I don't want to feel more like I'm a pretend character, [...]
Serious question. Do you have any imagination? If I say imagine you're a trogladite in a territory war, what did you have for breakfast? Can you tell me the story or are you lost in a see of "why?" and "WTF are you on about?".
Playing a good game in part is escapism, make-believe. If a game doesn't somehow take me beyond my current reality in some way (even if that means intellectual immersion or a Skinner Box) then why play? Why not do something productive?
Wii, NDS... (Score:3, Insightful)
tells you that game does not have to be photo realistic to be fun, enjoyable.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, so your not a fan of casablanca, or more likely since this is a /. crowd 2001: a space odyssey?
I'm sorry, but just because something is old does not by default make it crap. Quality is quality, if something was ever truly good it should be able to stand up on it's own regardless of graphics.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it odd that a former nethack player/mudder would not see that towards the end of your argument you are essentially saying that if it isn't shiny, it is pointless.
Perhaps you need to remember that games are for having fun, maybe?
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this isn't true. Half-life is, of course, such an important milestone in gaming mainly because of stuff not directly related to the graphics. However, Half-life simply could not have existed if it had looked like Doom. A certain level of realism was required for Valve to reach their goals in terms of gameplay and story telling.
Graphics alone will rarely make a game better, but better graphics actually create the possibilities of certain types of improved gameplay. Could Star Wars have been created with 1950s movie tech? No, the advances in special effects had to be created first and then used in an exciting way.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:5, Insightful)
Playing a good game in part is escapism, make-believe. If a game doesn't somehow take me beyond my current reality in some way (even if that means intellectual immersion or a Skinner Box) then why play? Why not do something productive?
Because of the challenge. In what way would you say that chess, poker, or basketball takes you "beyond your current reality"? I don't think they do, they're fun because the game mechanics are good. You don't need make-believe to have a good game.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny that nethack and Diablo 1 and 2 are mentioned in the same sentence - Diablo 1 was originally intended to be a turn based, graphical rogue/hack clone, but when they experimented with realtime they found it extremely fun and addictive and thus the game evolved into what it ended up. Having worked for another game company, I can tell you we'd have never been given the chance to do experimental changes like that - if it didn't fit into the original design document, it didn't go into the game (and they tossed games entirely rather than changing them to make them fun).
To me, gameplay often makes or breaks a game, as well. I played Wing Commander on the PC and absolutely loved it, but Super Wing Commander on the mac was terrible, despite updated graphics. Why? the mouse controls were awful, and the joystick controls mediocre (a cheap joystick may have been better than the flightstick like I had). Really it was almost unplayable. Civilization was just the opposite - while civ 1 was good on the PC, the mac version was vastly better. Not only were the graphics vastly improved (256 colors vs 16), but it included numerous easy-access convenience features like civpedia.
As far as graphical realism goes, I don't think there is a wrong answer - Dali did cubism, surrealism, dada, sculpture and even realism and animation (Destino [imdb.com], with Disney), Picasso did cubism, drawings and ceramics, Disney did cel shading and animation. All created fantastic pieces of art in their own respect.
As far as the original post goes, effects like true radiosity are still a ways off, though they can be approximated. True radiosity rendered in realtime would be extremely expensive, even in simple scenes - when I used it with ray tracing, my ray tracing was about 100x slower - note that I was using a 100MHz MIPS processor at the time and it took about 7 hours to render my scene, and I believe the scene had about 200 objects (one of my teammates wrote the shape code and the scene, another wrote the ray tracer, and I wrote the radiosity code).
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:4, Insightful)
WHat the hell is immersion anyway? I never feel like I'm a character in any game- I'm me. I'm playing a game. I don't want to feel more like I'm a pretend character, I want the gameplay mechanics to be more fun to use and the strategy level/difficulty level to be correct. If that's there, I have fun. If its not, trying to make me think I am the character won't help.
Immersion doesn't mean "I have forgotten that this is a game and I now believe that I'm Bob the Dwarf."
Immersion means "Holy shit, it's 4 AM, when did that happen?"
Style is more important (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:4, Insightful)
Playing pinball isn't gaming and it's not a sport.
It's a religious experience.
Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it's not a mature approach to gaming. Being completely unable to appreciate graphics for what they make a game is more or less a slap in the face to the developers who put all that elbow grease into making the game pretty and immersible.
Now, granted, the opposite view, that graphics make a game, can be just as much a slap in the face, and is definitely an immature way to judge games, but that doesn't really raise it's counterpart into the realm of legitimate views, it just means that the ideal, mature way to judge games is somewhere in the middle.
Graphics are important for many games - they add a sense of realism. Far Cry 2, for instance, was a decent game. It had a barely average plot, absolutely painful voice acting on all characters, and the vehicle mechanics were awful. At the same time, though, I could spend hours just playing with the fire mechanics, something that wouldn't be possible with, say, 2004-level graphics.
That's not to say that graphics make a game - many games are, in fact, good without good graphical presentation, but just as good game play or a good story can save a game, so can good use of graphics and special effects.