I vividly remember me and my old college roommates being spectacularly underwhelmed by every aspect of NWN until we started getting into the toolset, and then it became our absolute favorite game at the time.
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games that have an ugly 'early 3D' look
- Thread starter Twiglard
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The Longest Journey attempted to replicate the longstanding 2D perspective of graphical adventure games except with 3D graphics, which worked well enough when relying on a pre-rendered background with the characters occupying a fairly small portion of the screen, as is the case in 3 of these 4 images you have posted. It fails, however, in the fourth image where the blocky, low-polygon nature of even the protagonist's graphics are exposed by appearing closer and therefore larger.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:
More typical of the 3D graphics for games released in 2000:
Tomb Raider: Chronicles
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Vagrant Story
Spider-Man
Soldier of Fortune
Hitman: Codename 47
Half-Life: Counter-Strike
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Vagrant Story
Spider-Man
Soldier of Fortune
Hitman: Codename 47
Half-Life: Counter-Strike
2D graphics of that time look far better, because they aren't subjected to the same aging effects as 3D graphics.
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Ludwig von Eisenthal
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God yeah, NWN1 looked utterly horrible compared to the beauty of the Infinity Engine games. I never got into this game exactly because its graphics almost disgusted me. Just recently I pondered if I should buy the game on GOG to at least play the two addons which seem to be relatively good - alas I couldn't bring it over me to give even four bucks for it - the graphics are still so off-putting to me. I mean it's an old game, yeah, but it really was already ugly back when it was released. An ugly game doesn't become prettier with the years.
The quality of 3D games from the early 90s to the mid 00s really varies a lot. 3D fighting games like DOA2 and Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast aged phenomenally well because most of the processing power was focused on rendering the characters. Games with open explorable environments naturally didn’t fare as well as they had to use lower poly character models. A lot of games from this era still hold up today IMO. I would’ve been fine if 3D graphics had never advanced beyond 1999.
1999 graphics vs. 2006
Zboj Lamignat
Arcane
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Lol at this thread, when someone called out Myth, I almost lost it.
The codex record I can recall from the top of my head is someone in the strategy board calling HoMM5 (2006) early 3d. KotOR2 (2004) is definitely a commendable effort, though, credit where it's due.
There are way (as in: waaaaaaaay) more examples of game series going 2d=>3d for neither gain nor reason than there are of "gameplay upgrades". Just look at pretty much any strategy game series where that happened, ever.
This goes beyond graphics, NWN was the first truly "big" game where I've noticed a very strong and common disparity between the actual quality of the game and the reviews and ratings.
How so?
Zboj Lamignat
Arcane
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Myth's engine is a technological marvel that's amazing to this day.
ITT ignoramuses calling 1996-2004 games "early 3D" lmao
You know what early 3D looks like? This:
Rough, primitive, devoid of even the simplest textures: merely flat-colored geometric shapes. And yet, they look intriguing. Fascinating. Enticing due to the mystery they exude.
I agree with the point that unnecessary 3D graphics look worse than hand-drawn 2D graphics, but the same is true today. If your game plays completely 2-dimensionally, there's no need to make the graphics 3D. The early 00s had the trend of making games 3D even if they didn't have to be, leading to really awkward-looking adventure games, RTS games, etc. Although I guess one benefit of 3D compared to 2D is how much cheaper the graphics are to create and animate, so that contributed to the trend.
Regardless, the real benefit of 3D is that it provides the player with three dimensions of movement. Three dimensions of exploration. Where in 2D games you can only explore in 4 directions - be it up, down, left, right or north, south, east, west - 3D games unlock the grid and give you a whole nother dimension to traverse. X axis, Y axis, and Z axis.
The screenshots above are from games in the Freescape engine, a very early true 3D engine developed in the late 80s and used into the early 90s. While its graphics are ridiculously simple - untextured blocks of geometric primitives - and its performance was plodding at best, it did something that didn't arrive in mainstream gaming until fucking Quake: real 3D with full freedom of movement in all directions. Early 90s FPS engines like the Doom engine and the Build engine famously couldn't place rooms above rooms without performing some magic tricks. They were essentially 2.5D engines, with one height level per map tile.
The Freescape engine had no such restrictions. You could have rooms above rooms, fully 3D objects free floating in the middle of a room, anything you wanted!
By the mid-90s computers were finally powerful enough to allow such an approach for bigger, faster-paced games. Thus, Quake, one of the most important games ever made.
Unlocking the full potential of 3D led to such great games as Quake, Thief, Deus Ex, Morrowind, Gothic, Tomb Raider, etc etc. Games that make full use of all three dimensions in their level design and are a pure joy to explore.
And they genuinely look good. There's an air of mystery to Golden Age 3D (1996-2004: starting with Quake and ending with Half-Life 2 and Doom 3, which propelled 3D into the next generation). The architecture is complex enough to create realistic spaces, but the visual fidelity is still pretty low, giving it all a strange surreal vibe. I recently showed some screenshots of Thief to a friend of mine who was born in 2000 and she remarked that it looked like a liminal space. I hadn't thought of it this way before, but she has a point: Golden Age 3D has the same surreal, dreamlike quality as these "liminal space" photographs, and that's what makes it such a strong aesthetic.
The peak of this aesthetic can be found in fan-made maps for games like Thief and Quake, with modern engine ports that allow for even more complex architecture, while still relying on the same old blockiness and low resolution textures. But the original games have some pretty great-looking levels, too. Let's have a look:
Thief:
Standing in a dark corner, eavesdropping on a bunch of thieves standing in front of a building. Notice how the light and shadow create a moody atmosphere.
This mission (Thieves' Guild) was reimagined by Nomadman in 2022, and he managed to make it look even more moody by making the scene more tight and cramped.
This fan mission, Intertheft, was made without any custom resources. It only uses stock Thief objects and textures. And it looks absolutely gorgeous:
Back to the original game. Let's descend into The Bonehoard!
A dark and moody crypt entrance, an eerie light shining from within while the sky above is dark and cloudy. Inviting, isn't it?
Highly vertical, the Bonehoard offers a staggering experience of ascending and descending the multi-layered levels of an ancient crypt.
The "tomb raid" genre has been picked up in fan missions too, leading to some truly impressive levels.
The Tomb of Saint Tennor by Vegetables is straight up inspired by the Bonehoard and looks gorgeous:
Or what about Lost Among the Forsaken by DrK, a crumbling city district teeming with the undead:
Let's look at some more. Augustine's Revenge by BBB is pure oldschool goodness:
And my own Shoes & Dresses, which uses some custom assets, was the one that made my friend think of "liminal space" aesthetics:
There's something to it, isn't it? A great game with great visuals that make you want to explore. The architecture implies real places, but the low res textures and low poly models make it look strange and surreal. A lovely look.
Since I showed off a lot of tomb raiding levels of Thief and its fan missions, let's look at Tomb Raider next. The original. The first game, whose graphics are the most primitive, but also the most atmospheric. No other game manages to convey a feeling of being alone in a forsaken place as effectively as Tomb Raider 1.
Ok, one more: Quake, the game that started it all.
And you know what?
All three games I presented here - Thief, Tomb Raider, Quake - have active communities creating new levels for them. Despite their old age and primitive visuals, these games still have massive fanbases that keep creating new content in those ancient engines.
This could never happen with a modern 3D game to the same extent, because toolsets have changed completely. You can't design levels in the same way anymore: Golden Age 3D was the perfect level of technology to allow for efficient content creation. In modern high poly 3D games, all the architecture is done in professional modeling software and then imported to the game to be placed as meshes. In these old engines, you could build the architecture straight in the editor, with simple terrain brushes made up of geometric shapes like cubes and wedges.
The blocky low poly look of Golden Age 3D is actually its greatest strength, as it allows any creative level designer to put his vision on the screen, without the need for complicated 3D modeling software.
1996-2004 is one of the greatest eras of gaming precisely because of how "ugly" the 3D graphics of the time were.
But, in truth, they aren't "ugly", they're extremely atmospheric. Just look at the screenshots above and tell me they don't invite you to explore these gorgeous 3D spaces. If you do, I'll consider you a retard.
You know what early 3D looks like? This:
Rough, primitive, devoid of even the simplest textures: merely flat-colored geometric shapes. And yet, they look intriguing. Fascinating. Enticing due to the mystery they exude.
I agree with the point that unnecessary 3D graphics look worse than hand-drawn 2D graphics, but the same is true today. If your game plays completely 2-dimensionally, there's no need to make the graphics 3D. The early 00s had the trend of making games 3D even if they didn't have to be, leading to really awkward-looking adventure games, RTS games, etc. Although I guess one benefit of 3D compared to 2D is how much cheaper the graphics are to create and animate, so that contributed to the trend.
Regardless, the real benefit of 3D is that it provides the player with three dimensions of movement. Three dimensions of exploration. Where in 2D games you can only explore in 4 directions - be it up, down, left, right or north, south, east, west - 3D games unlock the grid and give you a whole nother dimension to traverse. X axis, Y axis, and Z axis.
The screenshots above are from games in the Freescape engine, a very early true 3D engine developed in the late 80s and used into the early 90s. While its graphics are ridiculously simple - untextured blocks of geometric primitives - and its performance was plodding at best, it did something that didn't arrive in mainstream gaming until fucking Quake: real 3D with full freedom of movement in all directions. Early 90s FPS engines like the Doom engine and the Build engine famously couldn't place rooms above rooms without performing some magic tricks. They were essentially 2.5D engines, with one height level per map tile.
The Freescape engine had no such restrictions. You could have rooms above rooms, fully 3D objects free floating in the middle of a room, anything you wanted!
By the mid-90s computers were finally powerful enough to allow such an approach for bigger, faster-paced games. Thus, Quake, one of the most important games ever made.
Unlocking the full potential of 3D led to such great games as Quake, Thief, Deus Ex, Morrowind, Gothic, Tomb Raider, etc etc. Games that make full use of all three dimensions in their level design and are a pure joy to explore.
And they genuinely look good. There's an air of mystery to Golden Age 3D (1996-2004: starting with Quake and ending with Half-Life 2 and Doom 3, which propelled 3D into the next generation). The architecture is complex enough to create realistic spaces, but the visual fidelity is still pretty low, giving it all a strange surreal vibe. I recently showed some screenshots of Thief to a friend of mine who was born in 2000 and she remarked that it looked like a liminal space. I hadn't thought of it this way before, but she has a point: Golden Age 3D has the same surreal, dreamlike quality as these "liminal space" photographs, and that's what makes it such a strong aesthetic.
The peak of this aesthetic can be found in fan-made maps for games like Thief and Quake, with modern engine ports that allow for even more complex architecture, while still relying on the same old blockiness and low resolution textures. But the original games have some pretty great-looking levels, too. Let's have a look:
Thief:
Standing in a dark corner, eavesdropping on a bunch of thieves standing in front of a building. Notice how the light and shadow create a moody atmosphere.
This mission (Thieves' Guild) was reimagined by Nomadman in 2022, and he managed to make it look even more moody by making the scene more tight and cramped.
This fan mission, Intertheft, was made without any custom resources. It only uses stock Thief objects and textures. And it looks absolutely gorgeous:
Back to the original game. Let's descend into The Bonehoard!
A dark and moody crypt entrance, an eerie light shining from within while the sky above is dark and cloudy. Inviting, isn't it?
Highly vertical, the Bonehoard offers a staggering experience of ascending and descending the multi-layered levels of an ancient crypt.
The "tomb raid" genre has been picked up in fan missions too, leading to some truly impressive levels.
The Tomb of Saint Tennor by Vegetables is straight up inspired by the Bonehoard and looks gorgeous:
Or what about Lost Among the Forsaken by DrK, a crumbling city district teeming with the undead:
Let's look at some more. Augustine's Revenge by BBB is pure oldschool goodness:
And my own Shoes & Dresses, which uses some custom assets, was the one that made my friend think of "liminal space" aesthetics:
There's something to it, isn't it? A great game with great visuals that make you want to explore. The architecture implies real places, but the low res textures and low poly models make it look strange and surreal. A lovely look.
Since I showed off a lot of tomb raiding levels of Thief and its fan missions, let's look at Tomb Raider next. The original. The first game, whose graphics are the most primitive, but also the most atmospheric. No other game manages to convey a feeling of being alone in a forsaken place as effectively as Tomb Raider 1.
We start in Lara's home, a lavish manor. Primitive as the graphics are, they manage to look beautiful simply through good texturing and adding some vegetation. Beautiful room, would join Lara for a swim in her pool.
The use of vegetation, in particular, to add some life to the blocky visuals of the game is extremely effective. It's mostly used in the game's first chapter, where Lara explores ruins of the Inca empire.
Going deeper into the Incan ruins, the color scheme changes to more vibrant walls painted with red and orange plaster.
Similarly colorful are the palaces and temples of Egypt:
But my favorite levels are those set in Greece.
The central area of Saint Francis' Folly in particular, with its high verticality, is breathtaking. It is so tall that computers of the time couldn't render the bottom if you stood on the top. Modern fan patches increase the view distance, but honestly? It's better this way. Staring down into the darkness is mysterious and foreboding. Tomb Raider truly knows how to make you feel like you're exploring a strange place no man should set foot in. Its visuals do a perfect job at conveying the atmosphere it tries to go for.
The use of vegetation, in particular, to add some life to the blocky visuals of the game is extremely effective. It's mostly used in the game's first chapter, where Lara explores ruins of the Inca empire.
Going deeper into the Incan ruins, the color scheme changes to more vibrant walls painted with red and orange plaster.
Similarly colorful are the palaces and temples of Egypt:
But my favorite levels are those set in Greece.
The central area of Saint Francis' Folly in particular, with its high verticality, is breathtaking. It is so tall that computers of the time couldn't render the bottom if you stood on the top. Modern fan patches increase the view distance, but honestly? It's better this way. Staring down into the darkness is mysterious and foreboding. Tomb Raider truly knows how to make you feel like you're exploring a strange place no man should set foot in. Its visuals do a perfect job at conveying the atmosphere it tries to go for.
Ok, one more: Quake, the game that started it all.
From grimy tech bases to Lovecraftian dimensions, Quake has it all.
Often criticized for being "too brown", Quake still manages to look atmospheric and take you on a wild ride through strange dimensions where you battle various foes, all with unique behavior.
But the true peak of oldschool FPS level design can be found in modern fan-made Quake maps. They take the powerful 3D engine of Quake and create massive, wonderful spaces...
Often criticized for being "too brown", Quake still manages to look atmospheric and take you on a wild ride through strange dimensions where you battle various foes, all with unique behavior.
But the true peak of oldschool FPS level design can be found in modern fan-made Quake maps. They take the powerful 3D engine of Quake and create massive, wonderful spaces...
And you know what?
All three games I presented here - Thief, Tomb Raider, Quake - have active communities creating new levels for them. Despite their old age and primitive visuals, these games still have massive fanbases that keep creating new content in those ancient engines.
This could never happen with a modern 3D game to the same extent, because toolsets have changed completely. You can't design levels in the same way anymore: Golden Age 3D was the perfect level of technology to allow for efficient content creation. In modern high poly 3D games, all the architecture is done in professional modeling software and then imported to the game to be placed as meshes. In these old engines, you could build the architecture straight in the editor, with simple terrain brushes made up of geometric shapes like cubes and wedges.
The blocky low poly look of Golden Age 3D is actually its greatest strength, as it allows any creative level designer to put his vision on the screen, without the need for complicated 3D modeling software.
1996-2004 is one of the greatest eras of gaming precisely because of how "ugly" the 3D graphics of the time were.
But, in truth, they aren't "ugly", they're extremely atmospheric. Just look at the screenshots above and tell me they don't invite you to explore these gorgeous 3D spaces. If you do, I'll consider you a retard.
1994
1992
I spent a fuckton of hours on Logends of Valour as a kid on an Amiga 500
1992
I spent a fuckton of hours on Logends of Valour as a kid on an Amiga 500
Should also add Star Trek Resurgence to the list of "ugly early 3d look" 
GrafvonMoltke
Shoutbox Purity League
Nobody's posted cruelty squad yet
tritosine2k
Erudite
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2010
- Messages
- 1,791
it wouldnt work without lightmaps and Carmack even put it bluntly: "data always wins" . In fact you can even call early 3d, pre-lightmap, and now we have the peculiar situation of post-lightmap where they can't even keep up with lightmaps in realtime nevermind MT with MSAA.
Lyric Suite
Converting to Islam
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2006
- Messages
- 58,472
To be honest, this focus on single detail doesn't really capture the problem with early 3D. Like, i don't think games like Quake 2 actually count, or stuff like stretched out textures on low poly models in and of itself.
My biggest pet peeve when 3D games first started rolling out is how obviously limited the technology was in the way the enviorments were generally stripped and devoid of actual complexity, just some flat or curved terrain with a single texture stretched over it with sparse low poly assets haphazardly placed on top in a way that barely seemed natural. I rember the first time i was "shocked" by early 3D was Dark Reign 2, which is funny because Total Annihilation, despite also being very early 3D, didn't have this problem.
Just look at this shit:
Early 3D also stood out to me if it was visibly worse than whatever 2D antecedent it came to replace, which Dark Reign 2 also did as the first game just looked better to me than the texture filtered blob above. Example of this include stuff like Neverwinter Nights vis the Baldur's Gate games.
My biggest pet peeve when 3D games first started rolling out is how obviously limited the technology was in the way the enviorments were generally stripped and devoid of actual complexity, just some flat or curved terrain with a single texture stretched over it with sparse low poly assets haphazardly placed on top in a way that barely seemed natural. I rember the first time i was "shocked" by early 3D was Dark Reign 2, which is funny because Total Annihilation, despite also being very early 3D, didn't have this problem.
Just look at this shit:
Early 3D also stood out to me if it was visibly worse than whatever 2D antecedent it came to replace, which Dark Reign 2 also did as the first game just looked better to me than the texture filtered blob above. Example of this include stuff like Neverwinter Nights vis the Baldur's Gate games.
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Well... uhh, I hate to say this, but the main problem with Shogo's graphic is... anime.The mech sections in Shogo - and here I specifically mean the cityscape ones - actually looked p good. Great even.Shogo Mobile Armor Division
But yeah the on foot part could be p simplistic and ugly looking.
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.
So... you can't read?
Or you can read, but you stopped after the first sentence?
But no, silly me. What the fuck am I doing, mentioning a game from the 90's in a thread about early 3D look...
Zboj Lamignat
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2012
- Messages
- 5,805
Yeah, Myth TFL, one of the most impressive games of the golden era of late nineties, including engine, physics, graphics, sound and art direction. "Ugly as hell" and "early 3D look". Carry on and godspeed.
Clockwork Knight
Arcane
I remember playing NWN1 on release in a friend's PC (better than mine) and while we did notice the blocky look, the fact it could be done was impressive enough. Summoning a 3D familiar and have the light effects affect the environment, etc
Nifft Batuff
Prophet
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2018
- Messages
- 3,626
Early 3D games have bigger and more complex environments that more recent 3D games.
luj1
You're all shills
yeah I think it was better to say early 3D-like
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