games that have an ugly 'early 3D' look

[Dodo1610]

King Field

 

[toughasnails]

Damn man, seconds after I wrote this in my prior post:

One can post pics of early King's Field games with The Simpsons ha-ha but remember, those were fully 3D first person games with real time combat, in early 90s, on a console. Ground breaking stuff.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

anything pre-crysis. and a lot of stuff post too.

 

[lycanwarrior]

Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines

 

[hayst]

Those puppies could cut glass

 

[Twiglard]

Those puppies could cut glass

It wasn't that bad in practice. Normally you were running somewhere so you were staring at her ass. You were busy finding routes and kiting enemies. The environments also aged better than her tits.

 

[BLOBERT]

Like Ash said:

What the fuck is the point of this thread? Haha point and laugh at the old game, cause it's old!?

I'm not sure what the point of this thread is. "These 20 years old graphics are dated now" is both an obvious and pointless statement. More interesting thread subjects would have been "Games that looked awful even when they were released" or "Games that held up graphically long after they were released".

And those KotOR 2 environments aren't even ugly. The big problem from a modern standpoint is how empty they are. But if you had propped them and added details to the extent of a modern game, the consoles and even computers at the time would have struggled to render any frames at all.

Something that does bother me though, is the awful texture alignment of the landing platform walkway in the second screenshot. Compare the left side to the right. Would that particular UV map have been fixed if the game hadn't been as rushed, or would we have to slog through a droid planet instead? A question for the philosophers...

BRO THE POINT IS THAT PEOPLE MADE UGLY 3D GAMES INSTEAD OF DECENT LOOKING 2D GAMES

MORE IMPORTANTLY 3D GRAPHICS WERE SO IMPORTANT AND TRENDY THAT HOLLOW SHELLS OF UGLY PEACES OF SHIT WERE MADE TO HAVE A 3D GAME

ULTIMA NINE WAS A JANK ASS PEACE OF SHIT AND THAT WHY SOME US HATE EARLY 90S UGLY ASS THREE DEE.

AND THAT IS RIGHT WHERE RICHARD GARRIOT TOUCHED MY PENIS

 

[hayst]

Those puppies could cut glass

It wasn't that bad in practice. Normally you were running somewhere so you were staring at her ass. You were busy finding routes and kiting enemies. The environments also aged better than her tits.

I agree, choose this screenshot in particular because it showed some of the low poly modeling of the day but even here the texture work is pretty good and the game has graphical aged well in many ways.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I'm not sure what the point of this thread is. "These 20 years old graphics are dated now" is both an obvious and pointless statement. More interesting thread subjects would have been "Games that looked awful even when they were released" or "Games that held up graphically long after they were released".

Honestly I think it a better idea talk about early 3D games that can still look appealing. One can post pics of early King's Field games with The Simpsons ha-ha but remember, those were fully 3D first person games with real time combat, in early 90s, on a console. Ground breaking stuff. Many of these games were breaking new grounds, introducing innovative new engines, doing unexpected things with existing ones. Feels p much cringe Zoomery laughing at le funneh polygons and Teh Jank here.

This thread is merely a periodic reminder that 3D graphics age terribly in general, due to technical advances that prompt the player to compare the older graphics with those of recent games. Even if a game had decent 3D graphics at the time, they will inevitably become too polygonal (the number of polygons available for the meshes of 3D objects increased vastly over time), too low-resolution (technical advances allowed for higher-resolution textures for the surfaces of objects), and lacking in various other aspects (shading, shadows, anti-aliasing, etc.) that were added or improved later. Even within 3D graphics, the 2.5D type that relied heavily on 2D sprites within the 3D environments has aged better than the fully-3D type, which is why Ultima Underworld's graphics are bearable and Daggerfall's graphics still look fairly good, whereas most fully-3D RPGs from the 1990s and first half of the 2000s look horrible.

For fully-3D graphics, a strong aesthetic sense, as with Morrowind in 2002, retards the aging process, but it's only a delay. Stylization can probably help as well relative to attempts at naturalistic 3D images.

 

[Morgoth]

All those games look nice and distinct and OP is a fag.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS OK HERE IS MY BEST EXAMPLE

BUSHIDO BLADE COULD HAVE HAD SOME NICE GRAPHICS AS A 2D FIGHTER INSTEAD YOU GET EYE CANCER

 

[Dexter]

Graphics and eyecandy aren't that important in games.

I disagree. Games are a Visual medium and "graphics" is the most important thing about them. I'd argue this point again and again.
Innovation in the "graphics" department has launched games from curiosities in laboratories to an actual entertainment medium found in many children's homes. Many genres of games like 2D Pixel Adventures and RPGs were in large parts successful due to their graphics and art style prowess at the time they came out. Almost every event that expanded the gaming market massively (for better or worse) from the immense popularity of Myst, to the growth of the Shooter genre and 3D accelerators to the growth between console generations is usually down to the improvements in technology and "graphics".

As for the purpose of your thread, I think it bears looking as to why "Adventure" games actually died in the late 90s/early 00s (instead of playing to their strengths they all went 3D and tried to compete with the growing trend of 3D console action games and developers that did it much better and completely shit the bed killing various Adventure gaming franchises in the process) instead of this revisionist nonsense, since it fits rather well with the topic of the thread:

 

[Star Citizen]

Tho it looks kicks ass at the same time lol, awesome game.

 

[Konjad]

All games you've posted look from acceptable to great

Also, Deus Ex? Really? I thought it still looks great.

 

[Dexter]

And while RPGs generally did much better than Adventure games, there were various casualties or blunders there too chasing that early 3D action Adventure console trend while titles like Baldur's Gate, Diablo II, Icewind Dale, Fallout etc. were still near the peak of their popularity, even if some managed to pull it off commercially or learned lessons that would lead to success later down the road:






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCyLD_OHcQk

 

[Alienman]

Not PC, but almost all PS1 games, hehe.

Otherwise, Aliens vs. Predator for Jaguar 64 stands out to me. The world is 3D, but everything else seems to be sprites. I remember I was blown away playing it but looking at it now...



I give that the game has atmosphere, though.

 

[Dexter]

ULTIMA NINE WAS A JANK ASS PEACE OF SHIT AND THAT WHY SOME US HATE EARLY 90S UGLY ASS THREE DEE.

Anyone still remember these?


Found this comment from a 2013 thread lol

Still uglier than original Ultima on-line done in 2D, 3D fags will never learn.

 

[Aemar]

Virtua Fighter, the first 3D fighting game, released all the way back in October 1993. At least the animations are still quite good.

 

[Lady Error]

Betrayal at Kondor
Wizardry 8, to a lesser degree
Might & Magic 6-9 (there was a reason X went non-3D again)

 

[Star Citizen]

The only thing better than a good game is a bad game

 

[d1r]

Almost three threads in and no one mentioned Neverwinter Nights. Jesus christ guys.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I still prefer the PS1 graphics to the PS3. It is more fresh and unique.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

PS2 era stuff was gud too

 

[ds]

This thread is merely a periodic reminder that 3D graphics age terribly in general, due to technical advances that prompt the player to compare the older graphics with those of recent games. Even if a game had decent 3D graphics at the time, they will inevitably become too polygonal (the number of polygons available for the meshes of 3D objects increased vastly over time), too low-resolution (technical advances allowed for higher-resolution textures for the surfaces of objects), and lacking in various other aspects (shading, shadows, anti-aliasing, etc.) that were added or improved later. Even within 3D graphics, the 2.5D type that relied heavily on 2D sprites within the 3D environments has aged better than the fully-3D type, which is why Ultima Underworld's graphics are bearable and Daggerfall's graphics still look fairly good, whereas most fully-3D RPGs from the 1990s and first half of the 2000s look horrible.

For fully-3D graphics, a strong aesthetic sense, as with Morrowind in 2002, retards the aging process, but it's only a delay. Stylization can probably help as well relative to attempts at naturalistic 3D images.

That 3D graphics somehow age worse than others gets parroted a lot but that doesn't make it anything more than a meme. 3D graphics with good art style still hold up today no matter how giant the polygons and low resolution the textures are. Perhaps it's not an art style you like but that doesn't make the graphics bad or the games worse off for it. Personally I prefer early 3D graphics to really low bit 2D graphics but I am not going to claim that the latter are shit or somehow have aged badly because of this - it's nothing more than a preference mainly influenced by what I grew up with.

The whole notion of games and other digital media aging is pretty overblown. Sure, there is some usability polish that has become the norm which is missing from earlier titles but that is really only a minor issue. It's absolutely ridiculous when people pretend that "dated" graphics somehow make games unplayable.

That said, I don't dispute that there were games that jumped to 3D before the technology was capable of what they wanted it to do and which would have been better off sticking to 2D. What actually does suffer a bit from "aging" is mixed 2D+3D because polygons and 2D backgrounds adapt differently to higher resolutions and so the different parts don't blend as well as they used to on period hardware. The solution is of course to emulate the intended rendering as many have pointed out for other games in this thread.

To add an example to the thread, The Longest Journey uses 3D characters on top of 2D (mostly? pre-rendered) background:

The 3D parts look like shit not because they have aged badly but because they were already the wrong choice when the game was made. The worst parts however are not actually the 3D rendered elements but the pre-rendered cutscenes which were not limited by the target hardware at all:

Of course all of this does not make the game unplayable or even significantly less enjoyable (if you are into storyfag games in the first place).

I disagree. Games are a Visual medium and "graphics" is the most important thing about them. I'd argue this point again and again.
Innovation in the "graphics" department has launched games from curiosities in laboratories to an actual entertainment medium found in many children's homes. Many genres of games like 2D Pixel Adventures and RPGs were in large parts successful due to their graphics and art style prowess at the time they came out. Almost every event that expanded the gaming market massively (for better or worse) from the immense popularity of Myst, to the growth of the Shooter genre and 3D accelerators to the growth between console generations is usually down to the improvements in technology and "graphics".

Games are first and foremost an interactive medium. The graphics are there to serve as feedback for that interaction but they are far from the most important part. As long as the graphics fulfill that job there is nothing wrong with them. 3D graphics can actually improve things here by providing another dimension for those interactions to take place in. That's not to say that they automatically make things better or that sometimes the abstraction of 2D graphics can't work better but the point is that 3D is not just about graphics but about the gameplay too which is what actually matters for games.

The reason that more detailed graphics are associated with success and why we have games focusing on them to the detriment of frame-rates and other parts of the game is because graphics translate well to marketing material - trailers and screenshots - which are a primarily visual medium. That doesn't mean those games are better than those which don't focus on graphics unless you are a retard that conflates "successful" with "good".

Almost three threads in and no one mentioned Neverwinter Nights. Jesus christ guys.

The issues with NwN's graphics are primarily with the design and not wit the technical aspects of the 3D rendering. Graphics are also far from NwN's main issue. This is partly due to the focus on being an adventure toolkit rather than a game which demanded easily editable environments and therefore tile-sets - but even there the tile-sets shipped with the game could have been a lot less blocky and more interesting with a better art style. Even the low detail faces only become distracting if you zoom in like you're playing a first-person game rather than use a more distant top down viewpoint that is also used in the isometric 2D games that preceded it.

 

[Cross]

KOTOR 2

The Kotor games aren't early 3D. They came out in the mid-2000's after all. Bioware and Obsidian have never been good at making 3D games. The Dragon Age and Mass Effect games also had environments that looked blocky and sterile. And the less said about The Outer Worlds, the better.

Unlike Kotor 1, Kotor 2 does have one graphics aspect that isn't terrible, which are the character designs. They're just the right mix of fantasy and sci-fi and have some originality to them, avoiding the generic aesthetic that a lot of Star Wars products made after the OT suffer from, like Kotor 1 and the Disney movies and shows.

 

[Dexter]

What actually does suffer a bit from "aging" is mixed 2D+3D because polygons and 2D backgrounds adapt differently to higher resolutions and so the different parts don't blend as well as they used to on period hardware. The solution is of course to emulate the intended rendering as many have pointed out for other games in this thread.

Syberia I+II (which I'm playing through right now) work exactly the same way. I had the choice of playing at like 800x600 with blurry/smudged characters and 3D objects and display upscaling or using a DirectX wrapper to render the game at 4K, guess which solution I went for and which I think looks infinitely better in that case?

The graphics are there to serve as feedback for that interaction but they are far from the most important part. As long as the graphics fulfill that job there is nothing wrong with them. 3D graphics can actually improve things here by providing another dimension for those interactions to take place in. That's not to say that they automatically make things better or that sometimes the abstraction of 2D graphics can't work better but the point is that 3D is not just about graphics but about the gameplay too which is what actually matters for games.

You said it yourself, technological innovation and improved graphics (like 3D) also leads to new gameplay possibilities (for better or worse). If computer entertainment technology was stuck in the C64 or even Pre-C64 era chances are that a lot of the developments of the following years from graphic Adventures, FMV games to 2D and 3D RPGs, Shooters etc. would not have happened. This makes technological innovation and "graphics" the most important thing for games, since as I said they are a visual medium and they are a prerequisite to them being possible and existing.

For the record, drawing text on a display is "graphics", drawing a line from point A to B is "graphics", displaying basic pixel figures and animations are "graphics", displaying 16, 256 or 16+ million colors is "graphics", side-scrolling is "graphics" (and was an issue that had to be solved on PC for Commander Keen), making and displaying 2D rendered backgrounds is "graphics", 3D rendered characters, objects and animations are "graphics". As is 3D acceleration, shaders, raytracing and the likes. As demonstrated here, many of these technological developments allowed for the gradual evolution of the Adventure game genre in various ways over the years, including better visuals and new gameplay possibilities. If you're not ready to argue that these things are only incidental to a game's quality and they could be just as good without, then just concede the point.

The issues with NwN's graphics are primarily with the design and not wit the technical aspects of the 3D rendering.

Neverwinter Nights looks like absolute dogshit, and it did look that even back when it was released. The block-like level design, horrid 3D characters and simplistic structures and (once perspective had been hacked) the missing roof and sky were a Meme even at the point of release. It also came with a dogshit campaign that didn't anywhere near compare with previous works. If not for the Online component it would have likely been relegated to an entry in the dustbin of history and I doubt even commercially successful. This was especially egregious since it was preceded by Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2, which looked brilliant at the time due to Pre-Rendered backgrounds and if not for issues with resolution would be a lot more timeless than various subsequent 3D games. For some reason people really grabbed on to the Online Multiplayer component of the game to the point that it's still being played today.