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A vast majority of the games we play are purchased under the influence of its graphical features. Quite often, a review will be shown on the telly, and your brother will say, "Whoa! Look at those beautiful graphics. We'll have to get that when it's released!"
Developers know that if a game is to be successful, then graphics are one of the highest priorities. But why is this? Isn't it the gameplay that is most important? I mean, in my view, what's a game with good graphics if it's just pushing a ball down a long corridor? Other people will obviously think differently. We're all entitled to our own opinions, aren't we? Other people will say, "Without graphics, there isn't anything to see, and so you don't have a game." And others will think, "That looks crap. All the textures look all messy." People who would go along the lines of that last comment might be missing out on one of the best, most popular games around at the time.
Yes, it is true that games are becoming more realistic in the graphical sense, as consoles have been evolving to the standard of being able to generate shapes, worlds and environments where objects have taken the shape of the thing they are supposed to be. 8-ball in GTA3 actually looks like a bald man, rather than one of the coneheads! And, before you say anything, I already know that I always make this comment about polygons, but it covers such a wide range of things in the gaming world, where Jo Dark looks real in the GC version of Perfect Dark, but on the N64, Bond looks like a blockhead, and cars have wheels which could poke an eye out.
Frame rates also play a vital part in the graphics department. Have you ever played a game with a painfully slow frame rate? The game keeps track of where you should be even before you appear there, because the frames have knocked your view back?I think Hybrid Heaven is the best example of this, on the N64, in Hi-Res mode. If an object moves quickly, but the frame rate stops the picture from updating wquickly enough, you find yourself shooting at the wall where your enemy once stood, and still appears to be stood there, if you know what I mean. It usually occurs when you have loads of action being generated t one time, like when your fighting two Red Jacks in GTA3, when they've chased you all the way to the drawbridge. If you get into the centre of the bridge when it goes up, you find the frame rate slows a hell of a lot, and the next thing you know, you see yourself in the centre, away from the edge, but then you suddenly appear below the bridge, where you've driven off, but the picture didn't update fast enough. That usually happens there because it's a place where you'd normally be able to see the whole city, and so the PS2 has to generate everything that the game throws at it, everything visible from that point, plus the action with you and the Red JAck, AND the movement of the bridge, AND the movement and extra polygons needed for any pedestrians or cars which you might be able to see at the time. Quite often, this happens with DVD movies on a slow PC, like mine, but I won't go into that. What's it got to do with the graphics in games?
If you have been tendancy to buy games by a particular developer, it is easy to notice the graphical style which they use. If you've ever played Duke Nukem: Zero Hour and TWINE after the other, you'll notice, they have a particular Eurocom-ish feel to them, all because of the way they look. I noticed the same with Silent Scope on the PS2 and Probotector on the SNES. Both made by Konami. If I hadn't seen the logos at the start of both of the games, I would still know that they were developed by Konami, because of the feeling they give you. I mean like atmosphere. You will notice, if you've played them both, that minor effefcts which you don't take much notice of, like wall textures, explosion animations, bullet-flying-through-the-air effects and the way cracks are drawn, they are all distnctive styles which would give away the identity of the developer.
Try it. The next time you buy a game, don't look at the developers logo or name. Cover it up if you must, and play it when you get home, without looking at the logo sequences at the start. See if you can guess who made it.
Happy Days
Twain
Developers know that if a game is to be successful, then graphics are one of the highest priorities. But why is this? Isn't it the gameplay that is most important? I mean, in my view, what's a game with good graphics if it's just pushing a ball down a long corridor? Other people will obviously think differently. We're all entitled to our own opinions, aren't we? Other people will say, "Without graphics, there isn't anything to see, and so you don't have a game." And others will think, "That looks crap. All the textures look all messy." People who would go along the lines of that last comment might be missing out on one of the best, most popular games around at the time.
Yes, it is true that games are becoming more realistic in the graphical sense, as consoles have been evolving to the standard of being able to generate shapes, worlds and environments where objects have taken the shape of the thing they are supposed to be. 8-ball in GTA3 actually looks like a bald man, rather than one of the coneheads! And, before you say anything, I already know that I always make this comment about polygons, but it covers such a wide range of things in the gaming world, where Jo Dark looks real in the GC version of Perfect Dark, but on the N64, Bond looks like a blockhead, and cars have wheels which could poke an eye out.
Frame rates also play a vital part in the graphics department. Have you ever played a game with a painfully slow frame rate? The game keeps track of where you should be even before you appear there, because the frames have knocked your view back?I think Hybrid Heaven is the best example of this, on the N64, in Hi-Res mode. If an object moves quickly, but the frame rate stops the picture from updating wquickly enough, you find yourself shooting at the wall where your enemy once stood, and still appears to be stood there, if you know what I mean. It usually occurs when you have loads of action being generated t one time, like when your fighting two Red Jacks in GTA3, when they've chased you all the way to the drawbridge. If you get into the centre of the bridge when it goes up, you find the frame rate slows a hell of a lot, and the next thing you know, you see yourself in the centre, away from the edge, but then you suddenly appear below the bridge, where you've driven off, but the picture didn't update fast enough. That usually happens there because it's a place where you'd normally be able to see the whole city, and so the PS2 has to generate everything that the game throws at it, everything visible from that point, plus the action with you and the Red JAck, AND the movement of the bridge, AND the movement and extra polygons needed for any pedestrians or cars which you might be able to see at the time. Quite often, this happens with DVD movies on a slow PC, like mine, but I won't go into that. What's it got to do with the graphics in games?
If you have been tendancy to buy games by a particular developer, it is easy to notice the graphical style which they use. If you've ever played Duke Nukem: Zero Hour and TWINE after the other, you'll notice, they have a particular Eurocom-ish feel to them, all because of the way they look. I noticed the same with Silent Scope on the PS2 and Probotector on the SNES. Both made by Konami. If I hadn't seen the logos at the start of both of the games, I would still know that they were developed by Konami, because of the feeling they give you. I mean like atmosphere. You will notice, if you've played them both, that minor effefcts which you don't take much notice of, like wall textures, explosion animations, bullet-flying-through-the-air effects and the way cracks are drawn, they are all distnctive styles which would give away the identity of the developer.
Try it. The next time you buy a game, don't look at the developers logo or name. Cover it up if you must, and play it when you get home, without looking at the logo sequences at the start. See if you can guess who made it.
Happy Days
Twain
Page:
Bonus wrote:
> Very good post, and definately one of the first things I feel the urge
> to reply to for a long time.
>
> Basically, you can sit down and guess which company made a game, if
> that company makes it's own game engines. There is a ver good reason
> for this, and it's to do with programming techniques.
>
> Every 3D game needs a game engine, which basically controls the way
> thing appear on the screen. If your into PC gaming, you'll know how
> many games follow that same old Quake 3 engine routine, and it easily
> shows in the look and feels of the game. So if a developer doesn't
> pinch its engine from another company, then yes it would be relatively
> easy. Look at thee likes of EA, it's very easy to see the links
> between all the FIFA games, or the NHL games, and the reason most
> people will complain about relatively little change in the look of
> these games from one generation to the next is mainly due to
> programming technique.
>
> A company who have made a game and are planning on a sequel don't turn
> around and code the sequel from scratch. It makes much more sense to
> use the libraries of already existing code and making alterations and
> optimisations to that code to better suit another platform, or
> advances in the platform you are already working on. This is where
> most developers got a bit miffed at Sony for releasing the PS2,
> because the architecture was revolutionaryily different from anthing
> else, developers had to sit down a rewrite many of their existing
> libraries, and in the most extremem cases write games from scratch.
> This works out to be very time consuming, very difficult and very
> expensive for little developers to handle.
>
> Many people like to comment on the relative success and failures in
> GTA3 as it was develoed and designed for the PS2 by a relatively tiny
> company, but they didn't design their own game engine. GTA3 was
> developed using a game engine produced by a company called Lithtech.
> This redused the developemt constraints of the progect dramatically,
> but the game was limited to the abilities of this external engine,
> rather than the abilities of the team behind the game.
>
> Basically, larger companies are going to have a much stronger style in
> their games than little developers, because they have the resources to
> create their own game engines, or simply modify engines they already
> have in operation.
Yes, I see where you're coming from about the developers quickly pinching their graphical style, and, although I'm not into PC Games much (because this damn PC is crap at running games) it is easy to notice the way developers tried to get a good result out of the Quake 3 engine. You might notice that most new PC games nowadays all look fairly similar. A lot of them involve walking around 3D maps and picking items up, and the ways in which games display active items, like the things you can pick up or press, are all very similar, with the square-bracket type things.
Originality is disappearing, though, as more and more ideas get used each time. You'll notice that every game is different from all the others, but there are always places in the newer games where you can see the obvious attempt at bettering an old game, just by putting in the same old stuff. Usually, the only difference is the developers style, the way things are graphically displayed. Like Goldeneye and PD, I know these aren't the best example, because they were sequels and prequels in their own right, but you can easily see the way Rare have copied the maps from Goldeneye into PD, but just changed the texturing a little bit.
I personally prefer it when games take longer to be released. I know it gets me more anxious to get it, but I also know that the extra time is usually being well used to create a fabulous game. PD and Goldeneye are perfect examples of this.
> Very good post, and definately one of the first things I feel the urge
> to reply to for a long time.
>
> Basically, you can sit down and guess which company made a game, if
> that company makes it's own game engines. There is a ver good reason
> for this, and it's to do with programming techniques.
>
> Every 3D game needs a game engine, which basically controls the way
> thing appear on the screen. If your into PC gaming, you'll know how
> many games follow that same old Quake 3 engine routine, and it easily
> shows in the look and feels of the game. So if a developer doesn't
> pinch its engine from another company, then yes it would be relatively
> easy. Look at thee likes of EA, it's very easy to see the links
> between all the FIFA games, or the NHL games, and the reason most
> people will complain about relatively little change in the look of
> these games from one generation to the next is mainly due to
> programming technique.
>
> A company who have made a game and are planning on a sequel don't turn
> around and code the sequel from scratch. It makes much more sense to
> use the libraries of already existing code and making alterations and
> optimisations to that code to better suit another platform, or
> advances in the platform you are already working on. This is where
> most developers got a bit miffed at Sony for releasing the PS2,
> because the architecture was revolutionaryily different from anthing
> else, developers had to sit down a rewrite many of their existing
> libraries, and in the most extremem cases write games from scratch.
> This works out to be very time consuming, very difficult and very
> expensive for little developers to handle.
>
> Many people like to comment on the relative success and failures in
> GTA3 as it was develoed and designed for the PS2 by a relatively tiny
> company, but they didn't design their own game engine. GTA3 was
> developed using a game engine produced by a company called Lithtech.
> This redused the developemt constraints of the progect dramatically,
> but the game was limited to the abilities of this external engine,
> rather than the abilities of the team behind the game.
>
> Basically, larger companies are going to have a much stronger style in
> their games than little developers, because they have the resources to
> create their own game engines, or simply modify engines they already
> have in operation.
Yes, I see where you're coming from about the developers quickly pinching their graphical style, and, although I'm not into PC Games much (because this damn PC is crap at running games) it is easy to notice the way developers tried to get a good result out of the Quake 3 engine. You might notice that most new PC games nowadays all look fairly similar. A lot of them involve walking around 3D maps and picking items up, and the ways in which games display active items, like the things you can pick up or press, are all very similar, with the square-bracket type things.
Originality is disappearing, though, as more and more ideas get used each time. You'll notice that every game is different from all the others, but there are always places in the newer games where you can see the obvious attempt at bettering an old game, just by putting in the same old stuff. Usually, the only difference is the developers style, the way things are graphically displayed. Like Goldeneye and PD, I know these aren't the best example, because they were sequels and prequels in their own right, but you can easily see the way Rare have copied the maps from Goldeneye into PD, but just changed the texturing a little bit.
I personally prefer it when games take longer to be released. I know it gets me more anxious to get it, but I also know that the extra time is usually being well used to create a fabulous game. PD and Goldeneye are perfect examples of this.
Jonman wrote:
> Money, money, money,
> Must be funny,
> in a rich man's world.
>
> Much as I'm against quoting Abba on principle, you're failing to see
> the big picture. Graphics are an essential marketing tool for the
> publishers of games to reach out to the game-buying public and assure
> them that their game is worth 40 quid.
>
> Even us snobby 'gamers' get caught by the prettiness of a game.
> Honestly, when was the last time you saw a game that looked ropy and
> thought - ooo, I'll get that.
Yes, you have a point there.
Usually, before I buy a game, I look at the screenshots on the back of the package to see what it is like, but very often those pictures are misleading. Like the adverts you see on telly about newly-released films, they only show the best parts of that game/film, and therefore, you see those pictures and think "Woah! That looks wicked!" and then you play/watch it up to the good bit shown on the package. After that, everything falls apart and turns all crappy, unless it's GTA3, Perfect Dark, Conkers Bad Fur Day or MGS2!!
> Money, money, money,
> Must be funny,
> in a rich man's world.
>
> Much as I'm against quoting Abba on principle, you're failing to see
> the big picture. Graphics are an essential marketing tool for the
> publishers of games to reach out to the game-buying public and assure
> them that their game is worth 40 quid.
>
> Even us snobby 'gamers' get caught by the prettiness of a game.
> Honestly, when was the last time you saw a game that looked ropy and
> thought - ooo, I'll get that.
Yes, you have a point there.
Usually, before I buy a game, I look at the screenshots on the back of the package to see what it is like, but very often those pictures are misleading. Like the adverts you see on telly about newly-released films, they only show the best parts of that game/film, and therefore, you see those pictures and think "Woah! That looks wicked!" and then you play/watch it up to the good bit shown on the package. After that, everything falls apart and turns all crappy, unless it's GTA3, Perfect Dark, Conkers Bad Fur Day or MGS2!!
49er wrote:
> I must admit Graphics are very important to me.
> If I buy a game and I spot graphical flaws like say, pop-up or a dodgy
> frame-rate or flickering polygons or whatever, it does concern me.
> If the gameplay is good enough I can overlook it. But if it's not, it
> eats away at my soul.
That's the same with me actually. In AUF on PS2, I don't really notice any glitchy flickering polygons, except for in the movie sequences. You get a flickering line between the edges of each polygon, which really bugs me. It's little things like that in a game, which noi-one else would take any notice of, which really get to me. A lot of people at school shout things at me like "Mr. Perfect" because I always try to be "perfect". I hate it when one tiny detail is out of place.
> I must admit Graphics are very important to me.
> If I buy a game and I spot graphical flaws like say, pop-up or a dodgy
> frame-rate or flickering polygons or whatever, it does concern me.
> If the gameplay is good enough I can overlook it. But if it's not, it
> eats away at my soul.
That's the same with me actually. In AUF on PS2, I don't really notice any glitchy flickering polygons, except for in the movie sequences. You get a flickering line between the edges of each polygon, which really bugs me. It's little things like that in a game, which noi-one else would take any notice of, which really get to me. A lot of people at school shout things at me like "Mr. Perfect" because I always try to be "perfect". I hate it when one tiny detail is out of place.
Game graphics, graphics game?
Ooh cryptic eh? Anyway I really don't know where this idea of graphics appeared from. People used to just happily sit and play their games until one day someone decided to say "hey this game is rubbish, you just like it for the graphics". Maybe they were right, and it's certainly possible because I've got an example coming up.
A man stands in a room, a baretta in each hand. He moves up to the door, knowing that behind it four men with Ingrams stand. Suddenly the world slows around the man and he dives through the door, firing shot after shot until he lands, rolls and stands with time returning to normal. All four of his enemies are down and barely a scratch on the man. That man is Max Payne. Yes, you saw it coming, Max Payne is a prime example of brilliant graphics in a game. The problem with Max Payne was that much of the gameplay came from the graphical splendour of it all. Really the whole game was spent jumping in slow motion firing shots into enemies and seeing the bullets whizzing past your ears. It never really changed the whole way through and some people got bored quickly seeing the whole thing as repetitive. Admittedly though, many people just kept playing despite the limited amount of variation included (I find myself a member of this group). So you've got to ask why? Well obviously it wasn't the great variety of gameplay. So perhaps it was the fact that it looked great every time you dived through that door, fired those shots and dodged those bullets all in slow motion. The gameplay was made up of a combination of the slow motion feature, the AI and the graphics (particularly every individually modelled bullet). Imagine now if you had the graphics with every person being michelin men like blobs on the screen and bullets being mere dots. Would the game have been as good, let alone as popular? So rather than being a seperate part of a game, graphics is infact a feature of gameplay.
Some people have said that the best way to sell a game is to make sure it has attractive graphics. This isn't necessarily true but it is a good point. When a person reads about a game in a magazine or on a website they are often shown screenshots which show how great the game looks. Other than how the game looks in these still frames, the only thing to judge on is how the reviewer describes the game as playing and how much they personally enjoyed it. This means that the graphics are going to be important in selling a game, particularly since they are usually the first thing the reader sees and can often affect whether or not the reader is actually going to read the review. Of course reviews aren't the only thing available, some developers are clever enough to release demos of their game. This isn't always possible but it can certainly help when gamers have the opportunity to see the game in action or play part of it because they can then judge themselves whether this game appeals or not. There are problems with demo, for example they usually don't come out till some time after the game (developers don't always have time to make a demo while they are hurrying to make the game itself). Another problem with them is that they can give a false impression. What the gamer is playing is unlikely to have all features and may make the game seem worse than it is. Thief was an offender in the misleading stakes. I played the demo and had great fun sneaking around, stealing, bashing people on the back of the head and decided to buy the game. When I passed level 1 (the demo level) I soon came across zombies and giant spiders who you couldn't really sneak around and basically had to run away from or fight. The rest of the game just got worse and soon I was running around the place, not using stealth or stealing anything while avoiding demons and undead in order to kill some master demon with all sorts of mystic items. It was more like I was a tomb raider than a thief and I got fed up, it wasn't what I paid for. Anyway, the point is that demos aren't always reliable because games can change so much. This means that graphics are still a large part of games both selling and playing, which brings me to rolling demos of games. The non-playable type of demo can actually be a good way of enticing people to your games. It allows developers to show off many of the features of their game without having to let the gamer play a small part of the game which doesn't allow as much insight as it could. Of course one thing that makes a rolling demo is the graphics. If a game is full of great explosions and beautiful scenery then a rolling demo will be far more appreciated than it would if the game looks like Pac-man. I recently saw an engine demo, which showed off all the features it was capable of but revealed nothing of the game which would be using it. I watched the whole thing and was incredibly impressed and even oohed and ahhed at the loveliness of it all. While watching it I was thinking "any game that uses graphics as good as this must be good" even though I hadn't seen anything of the game itself. So it just goes to show that graphics on their own can be a very important part of gameplay.
Of course, graphics aren't everything. It's a well known fact to anyone who has played Hitman: Codename 47 that graphics alone do not a game make. Hitman has great graphics and the physics system is also good with flags flying in the wind and people being able to lie realistically across stairs rather than just floating in the air barely touching the stairs. The game itself, however, is another matter. The Hitman of the title (that's you) is a genetically modified killing machine and yet he can't fire a pistol remotely straight even at almost point blank range. The level design often requires that you investigate the movement patterns of your target and then restart the level so that you can head them off. The only thing that was any good at all about Hitman was it's graphics and they in no way made the game. Then there is the often used, opposite example of Grand Theft Auto. The idea of the game was terrifying to some parents and people of moral fibre, so they promptly complained all over the papers and anywhere they could until the game had so much hype and recognition that every gamer wanted it. Some gamers had already heard of it and wanted it anyway from previews and the reviews too just made it more popular. Then there was the game itself, which was great. Arcade fun that didn't even need a storyline or realistic graphics to carry it, just the great fun of the freedom and things to do. One of the best things the graphics did was being unrealistic and almost cartoon-like, though there were graphics and they were good enough to make it fun to drive around doing whatever you wanted (it's often said that graphics that aren't high tech aren't graphics at all, which isn't true). It all totalled up to great fun that couldn't be called too offensive because it wasn't nearly realistic enough to make people believe that they could really commit terrible crimes and get away without consequences. Unfortunately the second and third installments never really added anything new and the third one decided that realistic graphics would add something (maybe they did for some, but neither GTA2 or GTA3 were exactly ground breaking).
When it comes down it, graphics are really just a feature of gameplay that I'm happy to say are progressing well. The better they get the better scope of games can be, whole cities in a single level are possible with todays graphics technology. So graphics or gameplay, which is better? Neither they're both the same.
Ooh cryptic eh? Anyway I really don't know where this idea of graphics appeared from. People used to just happily sit and play their games until one day someone decided to say "hey this game is rubbish, you just like it for the graphics". Maybe they were right, and it's certainly possible because I've got an example coming up.
A man stands in a room, a baretta in each hand. He moves up to the door, knowing that behind it four men with Ingrams stand. Suddenly the world slows around the man and he dives through the door, firing shot after shot until he lands, rolls and stands with time returning to normal. All four of his enemies are down and barely a scratch on the man. That man is Max Payne. Yes, you saw it coming, Max Payne is a prime example of brilliant graphics in a game. The problem with Max Payne was that much of the gameplay came from the graphical splendour of it all. Really the whole game was spent jumping in slow motion firing shots into enemies and seeing the bullets whizzing past your ears. It never really changed the whole way through and some people got bored quickly seeing the whole thing as repetitive. Admittedly though, many people just kept playing despite the limited amount of variation included (I find myself a member of this group). So you've got to ask why? Well obviously it wasn't the great variety of gameplay. So perhaps it was the fact that it looked great every time you dived through that door, fired those shots and dodged those bullets all in slow motion. The gameplay was made up of a combination of the slow motion feature, the AI and the graphics (particularly every individually modelled bullet). Imagine now if you had the graphics with every person being michelin men like blobs on the screen and bullets being mere dots. Would the game have been as good, let alone as popular? So rather than being a seperate part of a game, graphics is infact a feature of gameplay.
Some people have said that the best way to sell a game is to make sure it has attractive graphics. This isn't necessarily true but it is a good point. When a person reads about a game in a magazine or on a website they are often shown screenshots which show how great the game looks. Other than how the game looks in these still frames, the only thing to judge on is how the reviewer describes the game as playing and how much they personally enjoyed it. This means that the graphics are going to be important in selling a game, particularly since they are usually the first thing the reader sees and can often affect whether or not the reader is actually going to read the review. Of course reviews aren't the only thing available, some developers are clever enough to release demos of their game. This isn't always possible but it can certainly help when gamers have the opportunity to see the game in action or play part of it because they can then judge themselves whether this game appeals or not. There are problems with demo, for example they usually don't come out till some time after the game (developers don't always have time to make a demo while they are hurrying to make the game itself). Another problem with them is that they can give a false impression. What the gamer is playing is unlikely to have all features and may make the game seem worse than it is. Thief was an offender in the misleading stakes. I played the demo and had great fun sneaking around, stealing, bashing people on the back of the head and decided to buy the game. When I passed level 1 (the demo level) I soon came across zombies and giant spiders who you couldn't really sneak around and basically had to run away from or fight. The rest of the game just got worse and soon I was running around the place, not using stealth or stealing anything while avoiding demons and undead in order to kill some master demon with all sorts of mystic items. It was more like I was a tomb raider than a thief and I got fed up, it wasn't what I paid for. Anyway, the point is that demos aren't always reliable because games can change so much. This means that graphics are still a large part of games both selling and playing, which brings me to rolling demos of games. The non-playable type of demo can actually be a good way of enticing people to your games. It allows developers to show off many of the features of their game without having to let the gamer play a small part of the game which doesn't allow as much insight as it could. Of course one thing that makes a rolling demo is the graphics. If a game is full of great explosions and beautiful scenery then a rolling demo will be far more appreciated than it would if the game looks like Pac-man. I recently saw an engine demo, which showed off all the features it was capable of but revealed nothing of the game which would be using it. I watched the whole thing and was incredibly impressed and even oohed and ahhed at the loveliness of it all. While watching it I was thinking "any game that uses graphics as good as this must be good" even though I hadn't seen anything of the game itself. So it just goes to show that graphics on their own can be a very important part of gameplay.
Of course, graphics aren't everything. It's a well known fact to anyone who has played Hitman: Codename 47 that graphics alone do not a game make. Hitman has great graphics and the physics system is also good with flags flying in the wind and people being able to lie realistically across stairs rather than just floating in the air barely touching the stairs. The game itself, however, is another matter. The Hitman of the title (that's you) is a genetically modified killing machine and yet he can't fire a pistol remotely straight even at almost point blank range. The level design often requires that you investigate the movement patterns of your target and then restart the level so that you can head them off. The only thing that was any good at all about Hitman was it's graphics and they in no way made the game. Then there is the often used, opposite example of Grand Theft Auto. The idea of the game was terrifying to some parents and people of moral fibre, so they promptly complained all over the papers and anywhere they could until the game had so much hype and recognition that every gamer wanted it. Some gamers had already heard of it and wanted it anyway from previews and the reviews too just made it more popular. Then there was the game itself, which was great. Arcade fun that didn't even need a storyline or realistic graphics to carry it, just the great fun of the freedom and things to do. One of the best things the graphics did was being unrealistic and almost cartoon-like, though there were graphics and they were good enough to make it fun to drive around doing whatever you wanted (it's often said that graphics that aren't high tech aren't graphics at all, which isn't true). It all totalled up to great fun that couldn't be called too offensive because it wasn't nearly realistic enough to make people believe that they could really commit terrible crimes and get away without consequences. Unfortunately the second and third installments never really added anything new and the third one decided that realistic graphics would add something (maybe they did for some, but neither GTA2 or GTA3 were exactly ground breaking).
When it comes down it, graphics are really just a feature of gameplay that I'm happy to say are progressing well. The better they get the better scope of games can be, whole cities in a single level are possible with todays graphics technology. So graphics or gameplay, which is better? Neither they're both the same.
Game graphics, graphics game?
Ooh cryptic eh? Anyway I really don't know where this idea of graphics appeared from. People used to just happily sit and play their games until one day someone decided to say "hey this game is rubbish, you just like it for the graphics". Maybe they were right, and it's certainly possible because I've got an example coming up.
A man stands in a room, a baretta in each hand. He moves up to the door, knowing that behind it four men with Ingrams stand. Suddenly the world slows around the man and he dives through the door, firing shot after shot until he lands, rolls and stands with time returning to normal. All four of his enemies are down and barely a scratch on the man. That man is Max Payne. Yes, you saw it coming, Max Payne is a prime example of brilliant graphics in a game. The problem with Max Payne was that much of the gameplay came from the graphical splendour of it all. Really the whole game was spent jumping in slow motion firing shots into enemies and seeing the bullets whizzing past your ears. It never really changed the whole way through and some people got bored quickly seeing the whole thing as repetitive. Admittedly though, many people just kept playing despite the limited amount of variation included (I find myself a member of this group). So you've got to ask why? Well obviously it wasn't the great variety of gameplay. So perhaps it was the fact that it looked great every time you dived through that door, fired those shots and dodged those bullets all in slow motion. The gameplay was made up of a combination of the slow motion feature, the AI and the graphics (particularly every individually modelled bullet). Imagine now if you had the graphics with every person being michelin men like blobs on the screen and bullets being mere dots. Would the game have been as good, let alone as popular? So rather than being a seperate part of a game, graphics is infact a feature of gameplay.
Some people have said that the best way to sell a game is to make sure it has attractive graphics. This isn't necessarily true but it is a good point. When a person reads about a game in a magazine or on a website they are often shown screenshots which show how great the game looks. Other than how the game looks in these still frames, the only thing to judge on is how the reviewer describes the game as playing and how much they personally enjoyed it. This means that the graphics are going to be important in selling a game, particularly since they are usually the first thing the reader sees and can often affect whether or not the reader is actually going to read the review. Of course reviews aren't the only thing available, some developers are clever enough to release demos of their game. This isn't always possible but it can certainly help when gamers have the opportunity to see the game in action or play part of it because they can then judge themselves whether this game appeals or not. There are problems with demo, for example they usually don't come out till some time after the game (developers don't always have time to make a demo while they are hurrying to make the game itself). Another problem with them is that they can give a false impression. What the gamer is playing is unlikely to have all features and may make the game seem worse than it is. Thief was an offender in the misleading stakes. I played the demo and had great fun sneaking around, stealing, bashing people on the back of the head and decided to buy the game. When I passed level 1 (the demo level) I soon came across zombies and giant spiders who you couldn't really sneak around and basically had to run away from or fight. The rest of the game just got worse and soon I was running around the place, not using stealth or stealing anything while avoiding demons and undead in order to kill some master demon with all sorts of mystic items. It was more like I was a tomb raider than a thief and I got fed up, it wasn't what I paid for. Anyway, the point is that demos aren't always reliable because games can change so much. This means that graphics are still a large part of games both selling and playing, which brings me to rolling demos of games. The non-playable type of demo can actually be a good way of enticing people to your games. It allows developers to show off many of the features of their game without having to let the gamer play a small part of the game which doesn't allow as much insight as it could. Of course one thing that makes a rolling demo is the graphics. If a game is full of great explosions and beautiful scenery then a rolling demo will be far more appreciated than it would if the game looks like Pac-man. I recently saw an engine demo, which showed off all the features it was capable of but revealed nothing of the game which would be using it. I watched the whole thing and was incredibly impressed and even oohed and ahhed at the loveliness of it all. While watching it I was thinking "any game that uses graphics as good as this must be good" even though I hadn't seen anything of the game itself. So it just goes to show that graphics on their own can be a very important part of gameplay.
Of course, graphics aren't everything. It's a well known fact to anyone who has played Hitman: Codename 47 that graphics alone do not a game make. Hitman has great graphics and the physics system is also good with flags flying in the wind and people being able to lie realistically across stairs rather than just floating in the air barely touching the stairs. The game itself, however, is another matter. The Hitman of the title (that's you) is a genetically modified killing machine and yet he can't fire a pistol remotely straight even at almost point blank range. The level design often requires that you investigate the movement patterns of your target and then restart the level so that you can head them off. The only thing that was any good at all about Hitman was it's graphics and they in no way made the game. Then there is the often used, opposite example of Grand Theft Auto. The idea of the game was terrifying to some parents and people of moral fibre, so they promptly complained all over the papers and anywhere they could until the game had so much hype and recognition that every gamer wanted it. Some gamers had already heard of it and wanted it anyway from previews and the reviews too just made it more popular. Then there was the game itself, which was great. Arcade fun that didn't even need a storyline or realistic graphics to carry it, just the great fun of the freedom and things to do. One of the best things the graphics did was being unrealistic and almost cartoon-like, though there were graphics and they were good enough to make it fun to drive around doing whatever you wanted (it's often said that graphics that aren't high tech aren't graphics at all, which isn't true). It all totalled up to great fun that couldn't be called too offensive because it wasn't nearly realistic enough to make people believe that they could really commit terrible crimes and get away without consequences. Unfortunately the second and third installments never really added anything new and the third one decided that realistic graphics would add something (maybe they did for some, but neither GTA2 or GTA3 were exactly ground breaking).
When it comes down it, graphics are really just a feature of gameplay that I'm happy to say are progressing well. The better they get the better scope of games can be, whole cities in a single level are possible with todays graphics technology. So graphics or gameplay, which is better? Neither they're both the same.
Ooh cryptic eh? Anyway I really don't know where this idea of graphics appeared from. People used to just happily sit and play their games until one day someone decided to say "hey this game is rubbish, you just like it for the graphics". Maybe they were right, and it's certainly possible because I've got an example coming up.
A man stands in a room, a baretta in each hand. He moves up to the door, knowing that behind it four men with Ingrams stand. Suddenly the world slows around the man and he dives through the door, firing shot after shot until he lands, rolls and stands with time returning to normal. All four of his enemies are down and barely a scratch on the man. That man is Max Payne. Yes, you saw it coming, Max Payne is a prime example of brilliant graphics in a game. The problem with Max Payne was that much of the gameplay came from the graphical splendour of it all. Really the whole game was spent jumping in slow motion firing shots into enemies and seeing the bullets whizzing past your ears. It never really changed the whole way through and some people got bored quickly seeing the whole thing as repetitive. Admittedly though, many people just kept playing despite the limited amount of variation included (I find myself a member of this group). So you've got to ask why? Well obviously it wasn't the great variety of gameplay. So perhaps it was the fact that it looked great every time you dived through that door, fired those shots and dodged those bullets all in slow motion. The gameplay was made up of a combination of the slow motion feature, the AI and the graphics (particularly every individually modelled bullet). Imagine now if you had the graphics with every person being michelin men like blobs on the screen and bullets being mere dots. Would the game have been as good, let alone as popular? So rather than being a seperate part of a game, graphics is infact a feature of gameplay.
Some people have said that the best way to sell a game is to make sure it has attractive graphics. This isn't necessarily true but it is a good point. When a person reads about a game in a magazine or on a website they are often shown screenshots which show how great the game looks. Other than how the game looks in these still frames, the only thing to judge on is how the reviewer describes the game as playing and how much they personally enjoyed it. This means that the graphics are going to be important in selling a game, particularly since they are usually the first thing the reader sees and can often affect whether or not the reader is actually going to read the review. Of course reviews aren't the only thing available, some developers are clever enough to release demos of their game. This isn't always possible but it can certainly help when gamers have the opportunity to see the game in action or play part of it because they can then judge themselves whether this game appeals or not. There are problems with demo, for example they usually don't come out till some time after the game (developers don't always have time to make a demo while they are hurrying to make the game itself). Another problem with them is that they can give a false impression. What the gamer is playing is unlikely to have all features and may make the game seem worse than it is. Thief was an offender in the misleading stakes. I played the demo and had great fun sneaking around, stealing, bashing people on the back of the head and decided to buy the game. When I passed level 1 (the demo level) I soon came across zombies and giant spiders who you couldn't really sneak around and basically had to run away from or fight. The rest of the game just got worse and soon I was running around the place, not using stealth or stealing anything while avoiding demons and undead in order to kill some master demon with all sorts of mystic items. It was more like I was a tomb raider than a thief and I got fed up, it wasn't what I paid for. Anyway, the point is that demos aren't always reliable because games can change so much. This means that graphics are still a large part of games both selling and playing, which brings me to rolling demos of games. The non-playable type of demo can actually be a good way of enticing people to your games. It allows developers to show off many of the features of their game without having to let the gamer play a small part of the game which doesn't allow as much insight as it could. Of course one thing that makes a rolling demo is the graphics. If a game is full of great explosions and beautiful scenery then a rolling demo will be far more appreciated than it would if the game looks like Pac-man. I recently saw an engine demo, which showed off all the features it was capable of but revealed nothing of the game which would be using it. I watched the whole thing and was incredibly impressed and even oohed and ahhed at the loveliness of it all. While watching it I was thinking "any game that uses graphics as good as this must be good" even though I hadn't seen anything of the game itself. So it just goes to show that graphics on their own can be a very important part of gameplay.
Of course, graphics aren't everything. It's a well known fact to anyone who has played Hitman: Codename 47 that graphics alone do not a game make. Hitman has great graphics and the physics system is also good with flags flying in the wind and people being able to lie realistically across stairs rather than just floating in the air barely touching the stairs. The game itself, however, is another matter. The Hitman of the title (that's you) is a genetically modified killing machine and yet he can't fire a pistol remotely straight even at almost point blank range. The level design often requires that you investigate the movement patterns of your target and then restart the level so that you can head them off. The only thing that was any good at all about Hitman was it's graphics and they in no way made the game. Then there is the often used, opposite example of Grand Theft Auto. The idea of the game was terrifying to some parents and people of moral fibre, so they promptly complained all over the papers and anywhere they could until the game had so much hype and recognition that every gamer wanted it. Some gamers had already heard of it and wanted it anyway from previews and the reviews too just made it more popular. Then there was the game itself, which was great. Arcade fun that didn't even need a storyline or realistic graphics to carry it, just the great fun of the freedom and things to do. One of the best things the graphics did was being unrealistic and almost cartoon-like, though there were graphics and they were good enough to make it fun to drive around doing whatever you wanted (it's often said that graphics that aren't high tech aren't graphics at all, which isn't true). It all totalled up to great fun that couldn't be called too offensive because it wasn't nearly realistic enough to make people believe that they could really commit terrible crimes and get away without consequences. Unfortunately the second and third installments never really added anything new and the third one decided that realistic graphics would add something (maybe they did for some, but neither GTA2 or GTA3 were exactly ground breaking).
When it comes down it, graphics are really just a feature of gameplay that I'm happy to say are progressing well. The better they get the better scope of games can be, whole cities in a single level are possible with todays graphics technology. So graphics or gameplay, which is better? Neither they're both the same.
Its all very true though a very common argument. Games these days just can't be looked upon for their gameplay but their graphicxs have to be up to scratch to aswell as their storyline etc. The developers really need to get EVERYTHING right.
Thats what seems to make the classics, the games that get nearly everything right, every single pixel. And if they do, well done to them for getting it all so good but their are infact games from the past and the present even that beat that game on the lines of gameplay.
If we look back at the days when nearly all the games looked quite the same as high graphical realism could not be made then this is where the classic come from. Why is this? It's because we're not all going around moaning that "these games are for kids" or "its not realistic enough" we knew then the standard for gaming graphics and were happy. We found the graphics very good in a sense.
Just think back to one of your old console games and try and remeber how you felt when you first played that game...you were amazed weren't you. I go back and play some of my old games today and I am like "Woah, I can't believe this actually looked good back then", Graphics moves on with time very fast whilst gameplay moves very slowly.
I see what you say about the developers and their styles in using graphics and it is very true...but it would be wouldn't it. Say one development team made one game you WOULD see simularites in their next game and their next etc. It's because they use the same methods maybe in some places as a trademark but in many it is just the way they code and make their games. Everything from level design to character design to gameplay or even controls is included in this.
Congrats to those games that have every element to make the game a MUST play and to their development teams.
Thats what seems to make the classics, the games that get nearly everything right, every single pixel. And if they do, well done to them for getting it all so good but their are infact games from the past and the present even that beat that game on the lines of gameplay.
If we look back at the days when nearly all the games looked quite the same as high graphical realism could not be made then this is where the classic come from. Why is this? It's because we're not all going around moaning that "these games are for kids" or "its not realistic enough" we knew then the standard for gaming graphics and were happy. We found the graphics very good in a sense.
Just think back to one of your old console games and try and remeber how you felt when you first played that game...you were amazed weren't you. I go back and play some of my old games today and I am like "Woah, I can't believe this actually looked good back then", Graphics moves on with time very fast whilst gameplay moves very slowly.
I see what you say about the developers and their styles in using graphics and it is very true...but it would be wouldn't it. Say one development team made one game you WOULD see simularites in their next game and their next etc. It's because they use the same methods maybe in some places as a trademark but in many it is just the way they code and make their games. Everything from level design to character design to gameplay or even controls is included in this.
Congrats to those games that have every element to make the game a MUST play and to their development teams.
Very good post, and definately one of the first things I feel the urge to reply to for a long time.
Basically, you can sit down and guess which company made a game, if that company makes it's own game engines. There is a ver good reason for this, and it's to do with programming techniques.
Every 3D game needs a game engine, which basically controls the way thing appear on the screen. If your into PC gaming, you'll know how many games follow that same old Quake 3 engine routine, and it easily shows in the look and feels of the game. So if a developer doesn't pinch its engine from another company, then yes it would be relatively easy. Look at thee likes of EA, it's very easy to see the links between all the FIFA games, or the NHL games, and the reason most people will complain about relatively little change in the look of these games from one generation to the next is mainly due to programming technique.
A company who have made a game and are planning on a sequel don't turn around and code the sequel from scratch. It makes much more sense to use the libraries of already existing code and making alterations and optimisations to that code to better suit another platform, or advances in the platform you are already working on. This is where most developers got a bit miffed at Sony for releasing the PS2, because the architecture was revolutionaryily different from anthing else, developers had to sit down a rewrite many of their existing libraries, and in the most extremem cases write games from scratch. This works out to be very time consuming, very difficult and very expensive for little developers to handle.
Many people like to comment on the relative success and failures in GTA3 as it was develoed and designed for the PS2 by a relatively tiny company, but they didn't design their own game engine. GTA3 was developed using a game engine produced by a company called Lithtech. This redused the developemt constraints of the progect dramatically, but the game was limited to the abilities of this external engine, rather than the abilities of the team behind the game.
Basically, larger companies are going to have a much stronger style in their games than little developers, because they have the resources to create their own game engines, or simply modify engines they already have in operation.
Basically, you can sit down and guess which company made a game, if that company makes it's own game engines. There is a ver good reason for this, and it's to do with programming techniques.
Every 3D game needs a game engine, which basically controls the way thing appear on the screen. If your into PC gaming, you'll know how many games follow that same old Quake 3 engine routine, and it easily shows in the look and feels of the game. So if a developer doesn't pinch its engine from another company, then yes it would be relatively easy. Look at thee likes of EA, it's very easy to see the links between all the FIFA games, or the NHL games, and the reason most people will complain about relatively little change in the look of these games from one generation to the next is mainly due to programming technique.
A company who have made a game and are planning on a sequel don't turn around and code the sequel from scratch. It makes much more sense to use the libraries of already existing code and making alterations and optimisations to that code to better suit another platform, or advances in the platform you are already working on. This is where most developers got a bit miffed at Sony for releasing the PS2, because the architecture was revolutionaryily different from anthing else, developers had to sit down a rewrite many of their existing libraries, and in the most extremem cases write games from scratch. This works out to be very time consuming, very difficult and very expensive for little developers to handle.
Many people like to comment on the relative success and failures in GTA3 as it was develoed and designed for the PS2 by a relatively tiny company, but they didn't design their own game engine. GTA3 was developed using a game engine produced by a company called Lithtech. This redused the developemt constraints of the progect dramatically, but the game was limited to the abilities of this external engine, rather than the abilities of the team behind the game.
Basically, larger companies are going to have a much stronger style in their games than little developers, because they have the resources to create their own game engines, or simply modify engines they already have in operation.
Money, money, money,
Must be funny,
in a rich man's world.
Much as I'm against quoting Abba on principle, you're failing to see the big picture. Graphics are an essential marketing tool for the publishers of games to reach out to the game-buying public and assure them that their game is worth 40 quid.
Even us snobby 'gamers' get caught by the prettiness of a game. Honestly, when was the last time you saw a game that looked ropy and thought - ooo, I'll get that.
But, my point is that the publisher needs a game to look good to sell it. Darwin would be chuffed - it's natural selection at work. If developers make games without good graphics, they have trouble finding publishers, as the publishers know that they will have trouble making a sizable return on their investment. Those developers do not flourish.
But I agree with the gist of your post. God knows, I've lost the last week of my life to Harvest Moon, a 3D isometric PS1 pixel-fest. Metal Gear 2, and the rest of the PS2 spankiness has been firmly resigned to the cupboard for the time being. It's the gameplay that shines through.
Must be funny,
in a rich man's world.
Much as I'm against quoting Abba on principle, you're failing to see the big picture. Graphics are an essential marketing tool for the publishers of games to reach out to the game-buying public and assure them that their game is worth 40 quid.
Even us snobby 'gamers' get caught by the prettiness of a game. Honestly, when was the last time you saw a game that looked ropy and thought - ooo, I'll get that.
But, my point is that the publisher needs a game to look good to sell it. Darwin would be chuffed - it's natural selection at work. If developers make games without good graphics, they have trouble finding publishers, as the publishers know that they will have trouble making a sizable return on their investment. Those developers do not flourish.
But I agree with the gist of your post. God knows, I've lost the last week of my life to Harvest Moon, a 3D isometric PS1 pixel-fest. Metal Gear 2, and the rest of the PS2 spankiness has been firmly resigned to the cupboard for the time being. It's the gameplay that shines through.
I must admit Graphics are very important to me.
If I buy a game and I spot graphical flaws like say, pop-up or a dodgy frame-rate or flickering polygons or whatever, it does concern me.
If the gameplay is good enough I can overlook it. But if it's not, it eats away at my soul.
If I buy a game and I spot graphical flaws like say, pop-up or a dodgy frame-rate or flickering polygons or whatever, it does concern me.
If the gameplay is good enough I can overlook it. But if it's not, it eats away at my soul.
The point is the cars handles exactly like their real life counterparts. People who complain the cars don't crunch really doesn't understand the meaning of realistic, and should be executed.
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