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Chimera-gui posted:It didn't help that the first experiments with bringing fifth-gen mascots into the sixth gen systems, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly and Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex, were pretty abysmal failures by all accounts and not a promising omen. Enter the Dragonfly was horrific. It makes this game look like a respectful grand finale for the franchise with champagne and caviar.
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Dec 25, 2014 21:28
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Neruz posted:the obsession with 'realistic' graphics makes platformer level design even harder because realistic graphics and navigating complex platform environments do not work well together at all.
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Dec 27, 2014 16:09
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Y-Hat posted:I don't understand the obsession these days with realism in video games in general. IMO the entire point of video games is escapism. Pretty graphics wow people instantly and work on anyone who sees even a short segment, good gameplay only wows the people who actually play it.
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Dec 27, 2014 16:21
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That and going from 4 to 8 to 16 bit more realistic WAS a selling point because you could have a knight with a sword instead of a stick figure with a longer arm. One of the issues is that it got ingrained that this was the only real way to improve a game by making it less abstract. On the flip side, can you imagine Banjo-Kazooie on the Atari 2600? Kazooie would be a single pixel.
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Dec 27, 2014 16:32
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Yeah, for awhile better graphics really did mean a better game but we passed the point where that stopped being the case some time during the 2000s, I'd peg it at somewhere around 2007ish, unfortunately very few developers seem to have realized this.
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Dec 27, 2014 16:35
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wait where is the Ty Let's Play? It was one of those games I was curious about but never got to play.
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Dec 27, 2014 16:41
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2004-7 sounds about right. I think the professional critics also had a hand in it. The graphics didn't match what other people were doing so it gets a lower score and then a CEO somewhere sees the lower score and then throws more money at the art side and you can see how this cycle goes.
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Dec 27, 2014 16:46
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Stallion Cabana posted:wait where is the Ty Let's Play? It was one of those games I was curious about but never got to play. Here's the thread: link
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Dec 27, 2014 16:54
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Major_JF posted:On the flip side, can you imagine Banjo-Kazooie on the Atari 2600? Kazooie would be a single pixel.
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Dec 27, 2014 21:29
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Neruz posted:Yeah, for awhile better graphics really did mean a better game but we passed the point where that stopped being the case some time during the 2000s, I'd peg it at somewhere around 2007ish, unfortunately very few developers seem to have realized this. Yup. Arguably it's reached a point where, yes, the graphics in any given game could be amazing, but we're getting way too ahead of ourselves. There's more work put into making it look nice than making sure it's a balanced game or the AI doesn't suck. But those aren't as immediately noticeable.
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Dec 28, 2014 17:58
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Well, no, the thing is, there wasn't ever a period where "better graphics" made for a better game in and of themselves. It's just that for a long time (in video game years anyway) the technological advancements that allowed people to make better games with more complex programming also enabled those games to have better graphics. People who don't understand properly what actually makes a game good latched onto that correlation and decided that better graphics=better games, but really, somewhere around the PS2 we hit a point where raw graphical rendering power couldn't improve in a meaningful way; no amount of making the numbers on the microchips go higher was going to make the game look better or play better. It's all about what you do with the rendering power you've got. This is why everyone still loves Okami and Wind Waker, and everyone vomits in disgust at whatever was the latest Call of Duty in 2005.
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Dec 28, 2014 23:32
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Dr. Buttass posted:Well, no, the thing is, there wasn't ever a period where "better graphics" made for a better game in and of themselves. It's just that for a long time (in video game years anyway) the technological advancements that allowed people to make better games with more complex programming also enabled those games to have better graphics. People who don't understand properly what actually makes a game good latched onto that correlation and decided that better graphics=better games, but really, somewhere around the PS2 we hit a point where raw graphical rendering power couldn't improve in a meaningful way; no amount of making the numbers on the microchips go higher was going to make the game look better or play better. It's all about what you do with the rendering power you've got. This is why everyone still loves Okami and Wind Waker, and everyone vomits in disgust at whatever was the latest Call of Duty in 2005. 
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Dec 28, 2014 23:38
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Dr. Buttass has it right: It wasn't so much the graphics rather the technology that allowed for the graphics, that's why games that made use of their limits like Wind Waker Okami did were so well received. Hell, Kalon even made a comment to this extent during the Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction LP since cartoony games like R&C tend to age better than games that go for realism.
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Dec 29, 2014 00:11
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Will you guys go back and listen to/read all those infoposts in the levels? I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of important lore and context to understand the game's narrative arc and overarching themes.
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Dec 29, 2014 01:28
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Discendo Vox posted:Will you guys go back and listen to/read all those infoposts in the levels? I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of important lore and context to understand the game's narrative arc and overarching themes. Have no fear, friend. This will be a 100% sign-reading run. 
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Dec 29, 2014 01:32
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Dr. Buttass posted:Well, no, the thing is, there wasn't ever a period where "better graphics" made for a better game in and of themselves. It's just that for a long time (in video game years anyway) the technological advancements that allowed people to make better games with more complex programming also enabled those games to have better graphics. People who don't understand properly what actually makes a game good latched onto that correlation and decided that better graphics=better games, but really, somewhere around the PS2 we hit a point where raw graphical rendering power couldn't improve in a meaningful way; no amount of making the numbers on the microchips go higher was going to make the game look better or play better. It's all about what you do with the rendering power you've got. This is why everyone still loves Okami and Wind Waker, and everyone vomits in disgust at whatever was the latest Call of Duty in 2005. I have no idea if you're being sarcastic or not here. Better computer specs have absolutely allowed developers to do things that would be completely unheard of a few years ago. Yes, quite a few games have prioritized super-pretty graphics over tightening up gameplay, but that doesn't mean that having more powerful underlying hardware hasn't allowed for significantly more complex systems in games. Shadows of Mordor is a great example of this, since the game has something like 40 gigabytes of audio data, and that vast quantity of audio data would not only have been unattainable on a PS2 era console, but not having it would detract significantly from the game itself. That doesn't even begin to mention how the game can handle large numbers of complicated enemies, support a large open world populated with said large number of enemies (you can be fighting a group of orcs while other groups of orcs are fighting each other and/or the local wildlife), and do all of this while looking very pretty. Edit: VV Unless I'm horribly misunderstanding something, it seems to me that he's saying that increasing computing power stopped making games better sometime prior to the PS3 being released. I'm taking issue with that statement and saying that the increased computing power we have now is still making games more interesting, allowing for new mechanics, and doing some cool stuff in general. Dirk the Average fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2014 17:55
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Maybe I just had a brain fart, but did you just say more or less the same thing as the guy you quoted? Better technology = more complex (better) games AND better graphics but better graphics != better games. insanityv2 fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2014 17:59
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Y'know, a lot of people have said "ugh, this vehicle-building concept is dogshit" in this thread, but I think it's a pretty goddamn interesting one. It's just this particular realization of said concept that's dogshit.
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Dec 30, 2014 18:25
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insanityv2 posted:Maybe I just had a brain fart, but did you just say more or less the same thing as the guy you quoted? He's referring to this part, which is kinda silly and just implies that was the time period he personally liked best (out of nostalgia?). I mean, have you played/seen a ps2 game recently? quote:somewhere around the PS2 we hit a point where raw graphical rendering power couldn't improve in a meaningful way; no amount of making the numbers on the microchips go higher was going to make the game look better or play better. mycot fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2014 18:26
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mycot posted:He's referring to this part, which is kinda silly and just implies that was the time period he personally liked best (out of nostalgia?). I mean, have you played/seen a ps2 game recently?  Obviously not a direct comparison but it sprang to mind. I can say that I personally don't really give a poo poo about graphics so long as they aren't a sordid loving mess or awful, as I've never been wowed by them either. Some folks play games for the gameplay, though obviously most folks need at least a certain level of graphics unless they're hardcore grog.
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Dec 30, 2014 19:06
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Eh. Great Joe fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2014 19:29
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Eh. Both pictures are SquareEnix prerendered cutscenes, come on. Don't be like the back of a PSX game box that has pictures of the FMVs when the actual game looks like...a PSX game. 
mycot fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2014 19:51
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mycot posted:Both pictures are SquareEnix prerendered cutscenes, come on. Don't be like the back of a PSX game box that has pictures of the FMVs when the actual game looks like...a PSX game. The top one is a prerendered cutscene. IIRC the bottom one is actually what the in-game graphics themselves look like.
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Dec 30, 2014 20:11
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Hammurabi posted:The top one is a prerendered cutscene. IIRC the bottom one is actually what the in-game graphics themselves look like. Top one is original FFX on PS2, bottom is FFX HD rerelease on PS3/PS4. Both scenes are rendered in-engine.
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Dec 30, 2014 20:21
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Hammurabi posted:The top one is a prerendered cutscene. IIRC the bottom one is actually what the in-game graphics themselves look like. The top one is a prerendered cutscene from the PS2 game, the bottom is from the PS3 HD release. Edit: FFX is a bad example anyway since it's just a rerelease not a new game, so yes quite literally the only change is graphics. The point is that it's silly to act like no new game has benefited from technological advancement since the GC/PS2. mycot fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2014 20:22
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mycot posted:The top one is a prerendered cutscene from the PS2 game
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Dec 30, 2014 20:25
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Pre-rendered Tidus face looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhS4tmbJmPI&t=127s
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Dec 30, 2014 20:28
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Great Joe posted:nice av mycot posted:Both pictures are SquareEnix prerendered cutscenes, come on. Don't be like the back of a PSX game box that has pictures of the FMVs when the actual game looks like...a PSX game. Show me a person that picked AC Unity over Rogue because Unity is ´"much better looking" and I'll be showing you a class A mental midget is what I'm getting at here.
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Dec 30, 2014 22:09
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LOL if you actually believe that. Seriously, the vast majority of game size right now is going into raw uncompressed PCM audio (Titanfall, Mordor), repeated assets (Every Rockstar game that isn't L.A. Noire) and pre-rendered cutscenes (Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance). Textures aren't getting larger in resolution, models aren't getting more detailed, the big changes going on in graphics right now are all happening in lighting and shading. Shader scripts usually aren't large, but a few require a good deal of processing power to do in real-time. At the same time, what developers seem to be doing with the extra power of the new consoles is adding detail to the worlds they already have. Batman can now crash through the window of a tall tower at will, and walk around inside whatever office complex is inside. Mordor keeps tabs on orc hierarchies and specific orc traits. Assassin's Creed now has three more assassins just gallivanting around doing whatever it is assassins do right now. None of this requires extra storage, but the fact of the matter is that both current-gen consoles have blu-ray drives and developers see no reason not to fill them up, because they can, and because doing so with dual layer DVDs, CDs and cartridges went alright in the decades before.
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Dec 30, 2014 23:27
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Dirk the Average posted:Edit: VV Unless I'm horribly misunderstanding something, it seems to me that he's saying that increasing computing power stopped making games better sometime prior to the PS3 being released. I'm taking issue with that statement and saying that the increased computing power we have now is still making games more interesting, allowing for new mechanics, and doing some cool stuff in general. I...can't really correct you without literally reiterating what I already said so I guess you need to just kind of take it as read that you misinterpreted me.
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Dec 31, 2014 05:13
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Dr. Buttass posted:I...can't really correct you without literally reiterating what I already said so I guess you need to just kind of take it as read that you misinterpreted me. It's mostly just the "still" part that changes everything.
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Dec 31, 2014 06:17
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It's also worth pointing out that the glut of processing power; especially graphics processing power has allowed devs to get very lazy about certain parts of games. While that particular trend does seem to be finally dying down there are still a lot of common practices that basically amount to 'do it the stupid way because a modern system can just brute force it.' Typically it doesn't matter much to most of the end users but occasionally that attitude creates problems and it definitely creates a poor work ethic.
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Dec 31, 2014 06:23
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mycot posted:It's mostly just the "still" part that changes everything. No, okay, look. I didn't say anything about overall computational power. I'm just talking about graphical computational power. Graphics is literally just a computer's ability to process and render visuals, that's it. It has nothing to do with what anything looks like, it's just the computer's ability to take the data that says what it looks like and display it on screen. For a long time, video-games-wise, improvements in overall computational power and improvements in graphical power were the same thing, and a lot of people got the idea that better graphics is what made better video games. Somewhere in the general vicinity of the PS2-XBox-Gamecube era, improvements in graphics hit the point of diminishing returns. You can't give the art department a significant and meaningful ability to make the game look better just by making the numbers on the graphics chip go higher anymore. Unless your preferred aesthetic is absolute, 100% balls-to-the-wall no-holds-barred I-can-literally-count-your-pores photorealism, the technology is not an obstacle, the computer will render whatever the gently caress you throw at it and come back for more. Like, those shots of Tidus, literally the only improvement I can see is the number of pixels in the image. I don't feel more empathy for the HD Tidus just because he's better rendered. The aesthetic of Final Fantasy X is not significantly improved just by having more powerful graphical capabilities on hand. Good graphics do not make it a better game.
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Dec 31, 2014 07:01
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Clearly the lesson we can take from Nuts & Bolts is that video game consoles need to be like pinball machines and have a tilt sensor that trips out the graphics when you hit the console.
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Dec 31, 2014 08:35
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Dr. Buttass posted:No, okay, look. I didn't say anything about overall computational power. I'm just talking about graphical computational power. Graphics is literally just a computer's ability to process and render visuals, that's it. It has nothing to do with what anything looks like, it's just the computer's ability to take the data that says what it looks like and display it on screen. For a long time, video-games-wise, improvements in overall computational power and improvements in graphical power were the same thing, and a lot of people got the idea that better graphics is what made better video games. Somewhere in the general vicinity of the PS2-XBox-Gamecube era, improvements in graphics hit the point of diminishing returns. You can't give the art department a significant and meaningful ability to make the game look better just by making the numbers on the graphics chip go higher anymore. Unless your preferred aesthetic is absolute, 100% balls-to-the-wall no-holds-barred I-can-literally-count-your-pores photorealism, the technology is not an obstacle, the computer will render whatever the gently caress you throw at it and come back for more. Like, those shots of Tidus, literally the only improvement I can see is the number of pixels in the image. I don't feel more empathy for the HD Tidus just because he's better rendered. The aesthetic of Final Fantasy X is not significantly improved just by having more powerful graphical capabilities on hand. Good graphics do not make it a better game. I would personally say that good graphics make a good game better, but they cannot make a bad game good. They enhance the gameplay experience the same way that anything that doesn't contribute to a core mechanic does. Shadows of Mordor honestly benefits quite a bit from its pretty graphics. They enhance an already good gameplay experience by allowing the orcs to be more varied and individualized, allowing the player to have that sinking feeling of dread when the see that same damned captain showing up to a fight. However, if the game had terrible combat and didn't use its graphics to deliver more varied orcs, then prettier graphics wouldn't have made the game good.
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Dec 31, 2014 10:48
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Update We take on Grunty for the 2nd time, Find some Floaters, and take a drive around where they've apparently been keeping all the cool stuff from the past 2 Banjo games locked up Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts Part 5: Logbox 720 Act 3 & Banjoland Act 1 [YouTube]/[Polsy]
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Dec 31, 2014 21:38
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This level is more dense and interesting to look at than the previous ones but holy cow George and Mildred's models look really bad for some reason. They look like they were slapped together in LittleBigPlanet. 
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Dec 31, 2014 22:27
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I did not expect a Diddy Kong Racing reference in the Grunty mission dialogue. Kinda should've expected it sooner or later though, really.
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Dec 31, 2014 22:39
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dijon du jour posted:holy cow George and Mildred's models look really bad for some reason. They look like they were slapped together in LittleBigPlanet.
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Dec 31, 2014 22:51
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I think the eggs are Terry's. If you go around and ask the help icons around the block they can point out whatever things you glossed over. Like Cheato
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