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Graphics whore thread - serious decline in videogame graphics since 2007

TheGreatOne

Arcane
Joined
Feb 15, 2014
Messages
1,214
Yeah, this shit pisses me off the most. I would really like to see more mid-budget companies try the 2D approach. Daedalic has shown it can still work. Titles like Memoria look better than anything in recent memory.
Arc System Works pushed the boundaries of 2D graphics furtherst and even they opted out for 3D technology in Guilty Gear Xrd, so there's little hope that we'll see a widespread resurgence in professional quality 2D games aside a few rare cases like Rayman Origins. There's hope in kickstarter games, but frankly the new indy studios can't gather enough resoursces to pull of really impressive looking 2D games and seemingly the industry veterans (inXile etc) rather emulate 2004 than 1994 when it comes to visuals.

It'd be nice if we could atleast get some games with great pre-rendered backgrounds, but so far the most visually stunning kickstarter RPG is garbage otherwise thanks to a certain designer who dislikes fun.
1995 pixel art:
albidemo.png
As unique as Albion is visually, there are far better examples of pixel art from 95. Mainly shoot em ups, but also some point&click adventures and run n gun games had truly beautiful spritework even before Metal Slug.
 

A user named cat

Guest
Where's that from? A demo? A game? Looks too good for a 92 game, even for arcade&high end PC standards.
Opening splash screen to B.A.T. II. I've never played far into the game but most of what I've seen in it also looks pretty good.

 

TheGreatOne

Arcane
Joined
Feb 15, 2014
Messages
1,214
1994 pixel art:
transport.gif

gfs_29892_2_5.jpg


1996-1999 pixel/2D art
F8OGeV6.gif

Hermitcrab.gif
Train_Locomotive.gif

fviy2t.gif

vyf4HMz.gif

73137.jpg

16342-the-curse-of-monkey-island-windows-screenshot-the-windmills.jpg

ibb41e53ySVoOo.gif

bakraidairship.gif
gareggaairship.gif


HfCURPU.gif

Broken_Sword_-The_Shadow_of_the_Templars_screenshot.jpg
tumblr_mx63tkHXSy1sh3xeyo1_400.gif
RwG0QIj.gif

uM4SUXw.gif

NzKeyiF.gif

KaedeVsMoriya.gif

3N0WPfx.gif

gunb2b.jpg





2014 pixel art:
adventure.gif


I wish I could find more gifs of arcade game sprites. Many mid/late 90s shoot em ups have way more detailed and imaginative bosses.
It's also fugly

Ban TheGreatOne
Ban Astral Rag for not having played enough of Infinity Engine and late 90s/early 2000s isometric games to distinguish quality iso artwork from run of the mill uninspired rubbish
 

TheGreatOne

Arcane
Joined
Feb 15, 2014
Messages
1,214
Yeah those background scans are great, but I'd like to find individual character sprites from fighting games and bosses/ships from shoot em ups (like the first picture). Are there any archives for point&click game backgrounds? All the screenshots of Sierra/LucasArts games are way too tiny and blurred. It's hard to find pictures of this quality
superhighway.jpg

(Multiple screens from Space Quest 6)
www.sierrawallpaper.com/ maybe it's just my imagination but these screens seem to look more pixelated in high resolutions than they do when playing the game full screen
Though this isn't exactly game-related, it's still great to look through these occasionally too: http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/
Are those from a mid 90s screen saver compilation or some new stuff?
 

A user named cat

Guest
Are there any archives for point&click game backgrounds? All the screenshots of Sierra/LucasArts games are way too tiny and blurred.
http://neurotech.imgur.com/

They appear to be small but you could just open them in Photoshop or whatever image viewer you use, then enlarge them using 'nearest neighbor' since they're pixel-based art. That is how they would look when scaled to fullscreen in ScummVM or DOSBox unless you used some crappy filtering.

Edit: Here's a couple examples. Yes, this is normal and how pixelated they'll look when upscaled.

zrODWvT.jpg


cgo5ACV.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Joined
Apr 19, 2008
Messages
3,059
Location
Brazil
Divinity: Original Sin
Sam & Max in 3D doesn't differ a lot from 2D. In fact, telltale first adventure games were actually adventures with pouzzles in the vein of lucas arts, and not those shitty interactive movies they do now.
 

A horse of course

Guest
Sam & Max in 3D doesn't differ a lot from 2D. In fact, telltale first adventure games were actually adventures with pouzzles in the vein of lucas arts, and not those shitty interactive movies they do now.

I only played Back to the Future Ep1, it was clucking boring though
 
Joined
Apr 19, 2008
Messages
3,059
Location
Brazil
Divinity: Original Sin
Sam & Max in 3D doesn't differ a lot from 2D. In fact, telltale first adventure games were actually adventures with pouzzles in the vein of lucas arts, and not those shitty interactive movies they do now.

I only played Back to the Future Ep1, it was clucking boring though

I believe it was the start of declining. Tales of monkey island is good.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,404
Location
Djibouti
Tales was very hit and miss. IIRC half of it was boring as hell, while the other half was alright. I remember part 4 was particularly good, but can't remember shit about everything else.
 

made

Arcane
Joined
Dec 18, 2006
Messages
5,130
Location
Germany
As far as visuals are concerned, that's where the series hit rock bottom:

tales_monkey_island_1_35.jpg
 

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