HITMAN 3: World of Assassination - final chapter of the nu-Hitman trilogy

[DalekFlay]

For me it changes the prospect from playing a game that I might be slightly intrigued by or find mildly interesting to visiting and interacting with/in its world.

There's the immersion, interactivity, being able to see and interact with things in front of you to scale and in natural 3D and afaik even the brain perceives and saves you doing something in VR differently than playing a game on a screen. It's a feeling closer to you being somewhere, looking up or down and seeing something, being afraid of something etc. instead of artificial tension and you pressing a few buttons to accomplish something on a screen as an abstraction.

For instance with Hitman or the recent port of Operencia, it's been "been there, done that" with the first two to three titles or the Demo and similar respectively. I didn't particularly feel a desire to play any of the recent ones or return to them since it's "more of the same" similar to AssCreed or Far Cry, it simply gets old and repetitive after a while. But with VR and actually being able to explore and interact with the world more directly it's an entire different deal.

I'm really not trying to sound like a VR basher. It's not for me, but I get why many like it, and both VR and traditional gaming can coexist. However what you wrote here, to me, is rooted in fleeting novelty. It's the same game, and on a monitor you explore and interact with the world as well. Turning it into VR makes it feel new and fresh, sure, but how long will that last until you realize you're playing the same game, just with a modified visual and control experience? Also VR inherently limits which types of gameplay work best with it, therefore you'll actually have less genre and control choice the longer VR goes on, making games more repetitive. Obviously there are genres like flight sims where there's no real negative to VR, but in most cases it's a mix of benefits and drawbacks and at the end of the day you're still playing Hitman 3.

 

[Dexter]

It's the same game, and on a monitor you explore and interact with the world as well. Turning it into VR makes it feel new and fresh, sure, but how long will that last until you realize you're playing the same game, just with a modified visual and control experience?

Imagine that, technology being able to improve your enjoyment of something. It's almost like watching a movie on your tiny mobile phone while on a plane is a different experience than watching it at home on a shitty TN panel, is a different experience than watching it on a large OLED 4K TV or home projector, is a different experience than watching it at the cinema. Or like listening to an album on tinny $10 earphones is a different experience than listening to it on your expensive home audio system with a quality amplifier, is a different experience than going to a Live concert. What could people possibly discover next?

There are people that say that VR games should be "made for VR", including people in charge at Oculus and Valve who discouraged doing "VR ports" like this early on or discontinued official support for Half Life 2 VR and Team Fortress 2 VR after the commercial Launch of the Rift and Vive Headsets in 2016 in favor for exclusive VR games. I was never one of those people, some of the best experiences I've had early on before the release of the consumer versions or any major VR titles were Half Life 2 and DOOM 3. The Mods for DOOM 3 and Alien: Isolation still hold up very well today. As you can or can't imagine, it's an entirely different experience whether you play those in your room on a small 2D monitor with your desk and other environmental cues like lights and sounds all around you and having a full 3D representation over close to your entire field of vision while you enter a new room with flickering lights and bloodied walls, see something out of the corner of your eye, turn your head towards it and frantically try to illuminate the spot with the flashlight you're holding in your hand before some demon jumps at you and you try to put it down. Same game, entirely different way to experience it. Even though you obviously still know it's not real, seeing it in front of you is on another level of intensity.

Also VR inherently limits which types of gameplay work best with it, therefore you'll actually have less genre and control choice the longer VR goes on, making games more repetitive. Obviously there are genres like flight sims where there's no real negative to VR, but in most cases it's a mix of benefits and drawbacks and at the end of the day you're still playing Hitman 3.

VR mainly changes the way you perceive visual information, headphones are nothing new although there's some fancy 3D sound algorithms to properly place sound while you're moving your head and none of your other senses are being directly engaged. You can use every input method you normally do on your PC in VR. Sims are still best played with Wheel or Joystick and the respective Motion Controllers emerged as the best control method to directly interact with the world for most purposes, since humans happen to have two hands and they're being simulated with their respective functions of pointing at something, grabbing something, pressing a trigger/button, squeezing etc. which is also what people generally tend to try to do once they can move around and interact with a virtual world. Having to do an action with your actual hands tends to seem less repetitive than abstractly pressing a button for it. During the prototype phase the Oculus DK1/2 didn't have a preferred control method and most people either used Mouse+Keyboard or Controllers. For its first year the Oculus Rift also came with an Xbox One controller and the first games released for it like Chronos and Edge of Nowhere were designed with Controllers in mind. The main "limit" to it is that it shouldn't be a 2D game, and not because it can't display 2D planes or simulate looking at a yuge screen just fine, but because it beats the purpose and you're just playing what you'd see on your screen at much lower effective resolution. The best way to display a 2D image on a plane simply isn't a VR headset. Every control method has its limitations, although people who only think of VR because of the 2-3 major titles they likely heard about without having ever used it would be surprised at the vast array of games, genres and experiments released over the past decade of development, that as I said mostly resembled the 90s period in PC gaming and I'd argue was much less repetitive than the usual fare being released on consoles and by big publishers.

 

[DalekFlay]

A lot of that is just... okay, difference of perspective. It's not like I'm gonna convince you that you don't like a thing. I will say though that it's pretty common for people to say normal controller use... which I would never use a controller for first-person games anyway but let's ignore that... normal controller use along with VR kills you when it comes to motion sickness. That's why most VR games default to the teleportation shit. I guess you could say "anything can be done in VR!" but my point is more that most people aren't going to want to use VR for everything.

Again my only point here is they'll coexist, VR isn't taking over gaming. At least not until it advances a lot more.

 

[Dexter]

Well, talk about being an agent of decline, holy shit. You like went off a list or something. You checked everything.
...
Regarding the story, lore, characters, narrative aspects, they should be secondary. Gameplay and mechanical depth should be the focus of any videogame.

What can I say? I've always been an unrepentant graphics whore and am always up to a debate of how Graphics matter more than Gameplay and many people are in denial about it even on this very board. For instance I don't think Hitman would be anywhere near as popular or have gotten close to as many sequels and movie adaptations if instead of being a 3D Action/Shooter/Stealth game with AAA production values it was an Indie pixel game with similar mechanics or if it had gotten popular during the C64 gaming era. It's questionable if you'd even still be a fan of it in that case or had even ever heard about it.

To maybe make you even a bit more Butthurt, for instance while people were yelling about "Turn-based combat" during the Pillars of Eternity KickStarter, I was over there lobbying them to render their backgrounds out in at least 4K to future-proof the game(s) in the hope that we don't run into another Infinity Engine situation down the line in the case they become Classics, where your party of player characters looks like an ant colony or satellite image from low orbit if you play at native higher resolutions: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/6...ering-your-backgrounds-at-higher-resolutions/ so that situations like this do not arise: https://steamcommunity.com/app/317120/discussions/0/622954302084733803/ and by the point the game was released I already had a 4K display. Given how forgettable most of the new game(s) turned out overall though, I don't think it's really much of a concern anymore.

The main reason why I got into RPGs and Adventure games in the 90s wasn't really their amazing gameplay, but their intricate hand-drawn backgrounds and appealing pixel graphics. I dropped Adventures around the time they thought it was a great idea to jump onto shitty early 3D and only got into other genres like Shooters more later when they were more visually appealing.

The fact that some series are the same, and you exemplify with AC and FC, is no excuse to make changes for the sake of it. They could improve, add new mechanics, refine existing ones, add some more, you know, let their creativity shine. But no, you just want them to reinvent the wheel, quality be damned, because it's "boring".

Yes, having a game series run for over 10-15+ years across various console generations with respectively 23/7/8 titles without changing up too much of anything does tend to get boring.

I will say though that it's pretty common for people to say normal controller use... which I would never use a controller for first-person games anyway but let's ignore that...

I guess you could say "anything can be done in VR!" but my point is more that most people aren't going to want to use VR for everything.

Some of the Oculus Rift Launch titles that were designed around the use of the Xbox One controller and were released in March of 2016 or only slightly after were a 3rd-person Action RPG with room-based camera called Chronos that later spawned the Action RPG/Shooter Remnant: From the Ashes taking place in the same world, a 3rd-person Action Adventure called Edge of Nowhere, a 3rd-person 3D Jump&Run game called Lucky's Tale (that is inferior to Moss though), a Mountain-climbing Simulator from CryTek called The Climb, a fast-paced bird flight Simulator from UbiSoft called Eagle Flight, a Sci-Fi RTS game called AirMech Command, a Strategy Hacking Puzzle game called DarkNet, a Mystery/Horror Adventure with investigations called Dead Secret, a Tower Defense game with Defense Grid 2 VR, a Horror Dungeon Crawler called Dreadhalls with procedurally generated levels, a pinball game with Pinball FX 2 VR, a Swinging Parkour/Exploration game with Windlands, an Airhockey game with Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe, a Co-Op bomb defusal party game called Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes, a Multiplayer Card Battle game called Dragon Front, among many others. And again, we're only talking Rift Launch titles here, this by far doesn't cover the breadth of variety in the kind of games released since.

This is why I can't help but comment on how some people's view of what VR is or can do, or what it's apparently only good for, or what people would want to use it for (although there's obviously always favorites as with every platform) can be incredibly myopic, which can be a bit frustrating since they're talking about these things like they were knowledgeable expert witnesses on the subject, when it's obvious they know near to nothing about it. Often even without having ever even used a VR Headset, getting basic things wrong that someone who used one for even a few hours would not and talking about how it's "not for them" based more on stereotypes in their head than reality.

As for first-person games and controller use, that's why the Motion controllers are a lot more popular and the best choice for them, which is why I'd expect full support for them in something like a Hitman port, since getting your hands ready, tightening the wire and strangling some NPC with it would come a lot more natural than pushing a button. As does just aiming or reloading with your hands or bringing a gun to your face to look through the Iron sights, since they're all intuitive natural movements that you'd expect instead of abstractions based on Mouse or Controller movement and a permanent cross-hair often in the middle of your screen. Interacting with the environment, picking up objects to inspect them and find out more about a target, hiding evidence and the likes would also come naturally a lot more than "pressing E", although it's questionable how much of that would be available in a port. It's a strange choice that they went with PSVR first though since its tracking is generally considered a bit shit, I guess SONY paid them handsomely.

normal controller use along with VR kills you when it comes to motion sickness. That's why most VR games default to the teleportation shit. I guess you could say "anything can be done in VR!" but my point is more that most people aren't going to want to use VR for everything.

I've never had any problems with motion sickness, even during the early Prototype stage with low resolution and no positional tracking (head movement in space), even when things were lagging or games were extremely fast-paced, regardless of which control method I used e.g. whether it was Mouse+Keyboard in stuff like Team Fortress 2 or Half Life 2, a Controller in other games or whether I was sitting or moving around, so I'm not really the person to talk to about that. I don't even really hear all that much about motion sickness from actual people playing VR, I think "the teleportation shit" prevailed mostly due to an abundance of caution among some developers and this mindset:

 

[Child of Malkav]

Well, talk about being an agent of decline, holy shit. You like went off a list or something. You checked everything.
...
Regarding the story, lore, characters, narrative aspects, they should be secondary. Gameplay and mechanical depth should be the focus of any videogame.

What can I say? I've always been an unrepentant graphics whore and am always up to a debate of how Graphics matter more than Gameplay and many people are in denial about it even on this very board. For instance I don't think Hitman would be anywhere near as popular or have gotten close to as many sequels and movie adaptations if instead of being a 3D Action/Shooter/Stealth game with AAA production values it was an Indie pixel game with similar mechanics or if it had gotten popular during the C64 gaming era. It's questionable if you'd even still be a fan of it in that case or had ever heard about it.

To maybe make you even a bit more Butthurt, for instance while people were yelling about "Turn-based combat" during the Pillars of Eternity KickStarter, I was over there lobbying them to render their backgrounds out in at least 4K to future-proof the game(s) in the hope that we don't run into another Infinity Engine situation down the line in the case they become Classics, where your party of player characters looks like an ant colony or satellite image from low orbit if you play at native higher resolutions: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/6...ering-your-backgrounds-at-higher-resolutions/ so that situations like this do not arise: https://steamcommunity.com/app/317120/discussions/0/622954302084733803/ and by the point the game was released I already had a 4K display. Given how forgettable most of the new game(s) turned out overall though, I don't think it's really much of a concern anymore.

The main reason why I got into RPGs and Adventure games in the 90s wasn't really their amazing gameplay, but their intricate hand-drawn backgrounds and appealing pixel graphics. I dropped Adventures around the time they thought it was a great idea to jump onto shitty early 3D and only got into other genres like Shooters more later when they were more visually appealing.

The fact that some series are the same, and you exemplify with AC and FC, is no excuse to make changes for the sake of it. They could improve, add new mechanics, refine existing ones, add some more, you know, let their creativity shine. But no, you just want them to reinvent the wheel, quality be damned, because it's "boring".

Yes, having a game series run for over 10-15+ years across various console generations with respectively 23/7/8 titles without changing up too much of anything does tend to get boring.

I will say though that it's pretty common for people to say normal controller use... which I would never use a controller for first-person games anyway but let's ignore that...

I guess you could say "anything can be done in VR!" but my point is more that most people aren't going to want to use VR for everything.

Some of the Oculus Rift Launch titles that were designed around the use of the Xbox One controller and were released in March of 2016 or only slightly after were a 3rd-person Action RPG with room-based camera called Chronos that later spawned the Action RPG/Shooter Remnant: From the Ashes taking place in the same world, a 3rd-person Action Adventure called Edge of Nowhere, a 3rd-person 3D Jump&Run game called Lucky's Tale (that is inferior to Moss though), a Mountain-climbing Simulator from CryTek called The Climb, a fast-paced bird flight Simulator from UbiSoft called Eagle Flight, a Sci-Fi RTS game called AirMech Command, a Strategy Hacking Puzzle game called DarkNet, a Mystery/Horror Adventure with investigations called Dead Secret, a Tower Defense game with Defense Grid 2 VR, a Horror Dungeon Crawler called Dreadhalls with procedurally generated levels, a pinball game with Pinball FX 2 VR, a Swinging Parkour/Exploration game with Windlands, an Airhockey game with Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe, a Co-Op bomb defusal party game called Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes, a Multiplayer Card Battle game called Dragon Front, among many others. And again, we're only talking Rift Launch titles here, this by far doesn't cover the breadth of variety in the kind of titles released since.

This is why I can't help but comment on how some people's view of what VR is or can do, or what it's apparently only good for, or what people would want to use it for can be incredibly myopic, which can be a bit frustrating since they're talking about things like they were knowledgeable expert witnesses on the subject, when it's obvious they know near to nothing about it, often even without having ever even used a VR Headset, getting basic things wrong that someone who used one for a few hours would not and talking about how it's "not for them" based more on stereotypes in their head more than reality.

As for first-person games and controller use, that's why the Motion controllers are a lot more popular and the best choice for them, which is why I'd expect full support for them in something like a Hitman port, since getting your hands ready, tightening the wire and strangling some NPC with it would come a lot more natural than pushing a button. As does just aiming or reloading with your hands or bringing a gun to your face to look through the Iron sights, since they're all intuitive natural movements that you'd expect instead of abstractions based on Mouse or Controller movement and a permanent cross-hair often in the middle of your screen. Interacting with the environment, picking up objects to inspect them and find out more about a target, hiding evidence and the likes would also come naturally a lot more than "pressing E", although it's questionable how much of that would be available in a port. It's a strange choice that they went with PSVR first though since its tracking is generally considered a bit shit, I guess SONY paid them handsomely.

normal controller use along with VR kills you when it comes to motion sickness. That's why most VR games default to the teleportation shit. I guess you could say "anything can be done in VR!" but my point is more that most people aren't going to want to use VR for everything.

I've never had any problems with motion sickness, even during the early Prototype stage with low resolution and no positional tracking (head movement in space), even when things were lagging or games were extremely fast-paced, regardless of which control method I used e.g. whether it was Mouse+Keyboard in stuff like Team Fortress 2 or Half Life 2, a Controller in other games or whether I was sitting or moving around, so I'm not really the person to talk to about that. I don't even really hear all that much about motion sickness from actual people playing VR, I think "the teleportation shit" prevailed mostly due to an abundance of caution among some developers and this mindset:

Well, at least you admit but you could have said from the beginning that graphics are the only thing important to you. Could have saved both of us a lot of time.

Edit: God damn this quoting system especially on mobile.

 

[Dexter]

that graphics are the only thing important to you.

That's not what I said.

 

[JarlFrank]

What can I say? I've always been an unrepentant graphics whore and am always up to a debate of how Graphics matter more than Gameplay and many people are in denial about it even on this very board.

Considering how much you sperg about graphics in your post, it's not that most people here are "in denial about it" but that we have different priorities.

Yes, visual appeal is important. But I genuinely like the looks of early 3D, for example, and still play games like Thief, Quake, Tomb Raider, Doom, etc. because they still look great to me and are genuinely fun gameplay experiences. And the gameplay is the important part. I play games to have fun. What's the point of good graphics when the game is shit? Since this thread is about Hitman, just look at how the individual titles are perceived. The early games are still well-liked but people recognize their flaws, like Hitman 2's often ridiculous difficulty in missions like the snowy Japan one. Blood Money is still a fan favorite, even though it looks date now. And Absolution is the one everyone hates... despite it looking much better than Blood Money. Why? Because it has the worst level design and gameplay.

Personally I've never managed to get into cinematic games because cutscenes that take control away from me annoy me very much. Doesn't matter how pretty the game is. I'd rather play a game that looks like shit but has zero cutscenes and fun gameplay than a gorgeous game with lots of cutscenes and little gameplay. Graphics matter not even half as much as gameplay.

Also, artstyle > graphics.

Who cares about PoE being 4k or not I don't have a 4k monitor nor do I think I will ever get one. 1920x1080 is more than enough (and less intensive on the GPU, too!).

 

[Child of Malkav]

that graphics are the only thing important to you.

That's not what I said.

You said: "What can I say? I've always been an unrepentant graphics whore and am always up to a debate of how Graphics matter more than Gameplay and many people are in denial about it even on this very board. For instance I don't think Hitman would be anywhere near as popular or have gotten close to as many sequels and movie adaptations if instead of being a 3D Action/Shooter/Stealth game with AAA production values it was an Indie pixel game with similar mechanics or if it had gotten popular during the C64 gaming era. It's questionable if you'd even still be a fan of it in that case or had even ever heard about it."
Graphics, for you, are number one. That's it. You value graphics more than gameplay. You don't have to say it exactly like I did, but that's the underlying idea.

 

[Dexter]

Considering how much you sperg about graphics in your post, it's not that most people here are "in denial about it" but that we have different priorities.

No, I'm pretty sure if the game looked like a C64 title or a garbage Indie pixel game and had the same missions in the same places with similar gameplay there'd likely be hundreds or maybe at most thousands of people playing it, you can call that whatever you want.

Even if the new Hitman looked like this with generally the same basic gameplay it'd also have much less appeal or overall interest:

and still play games like Thief, Quake, Tomb Raider, Doom, etc.

More likely reason you're still playing them is because they were games you played and liked a lot when you were a kid. I played Tomb Raider back then too, but was never much into Quake/Doom until later. Although especially Wolfenstein/Doom/Quake are popular and important games in the development of 3D computer graphics and since even became a Meme: https://itrunsdoom.tumblr.com/

What's the point of good graphics when the game is shit? Since this thread is about Hitman, just look at how the individual titles are perceived. The early games are still well-liked but people recognize their flaws, like Hitman 2's often ridiculous difficulty in missions like the snowy Japan one. Blood Money is still a fan favorite, even though it looks date now. And Absolution is the one everyone hates... despite it looking much better than Blood Money. Why? Because it has the worst level design and gameplay.

That's also true, just because something looks good doesn't automatically make it good. I never said it did. Nor does a game looking like shit automatically make it good either.

And what about the other way around? It'd have extremely limited niche appeal, people would generally take a look at a few Screenshots or a Trailer and overlook it. Imagine if the new Hitman game looked like this: https://store.steampowered.com/app/904360/Family_Man/ People would have a good laugh about it and move on with it likely being the worst selling game in the entire franchise. Also, saying something is a "fan favorite" is a nice thing, but what does that mean? How about you compare how many people bought and played each? Absolution has about 4x the amount of reviews on Steam for instance than Blood Money.

Also, artstyle > graphics.

"art style" is part of "graphics"

Graphics, for you, are number one. That's it. You value graphics more than gameplay.

Yes, if your new game nowadays for instance looks like this I won't get to the part where I get to care about or appreciate the gameplay because I'll likely ignore it long before that bar unusual circumstances:


I can bet that everyone here went through their game queue on Steam and clicked Next on that shitty looking Indie pixel Roguelike #7655 or that Shovelware looking 3D Unity project even without knowing or making absolutely sure if it possibly had the best gameplay ever created or took a look at some new releases and disregarded them based on a few Screenshots or a shitty Trailer, even if they don't like to admit it for some reason in a discussion involving "graphics".

And if the Infinity Engine games looked more like the early Ultima's a lot less people would have ended up playing them and they would be a lot less known and beloved in general. It's just an undeniable fact, even if you don't like it.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Yeah, keep going from one extreme to the other. If the game isn't sporting 16k resolution then the game looks like shit. No middle ground. Game must also be bad. Logic in 2020.
And lol about the Infinity Engine games. You present a hypothetical scenario starting with "if" and then say it's an undeniable fact. What, you see parallel timelines or something? I mean, you probably can, with VR.
Wow, you made my day. Thanks for the laughs.

 

[JarlFrank]

Considering how much you sperg about graphics in your post, it's not that most people here are "in denial about it" but that we have different priorities.

No, I'm pretty sure if the game looked like a C64 title or a garbage Indie pixel game and had the same missions in the same places with similar gameplay there'd likely be hundreds or maybe at most thousands of people playing it, you can call that whatever you want.

Even if the new Hitman looked like this with generally the same basic gameplay it'd also have much less appeal or overall interest:

I have not played the game in the video, but it looks totally fine to me. Yes, it might not garner as much mainstream attention. But claiming that it would be less popular among the Codex crowd is bullshit. The majority of people here like games with worse graphics than that. Also, artstyle is more important than technical visual fidelity.

and still play games like Thief, Quake, Tomb Raider, Doom, etc.

More likely reason you're still playing them is because they were games you played and liked a lot when you were a kid.

I played Thief for the first time in 2009, when I was 21. I didn't play Doom and Quake until the mid 2010s, I started playing FPS in the mid 00s as a teenager with contemporary games of the time. Quake has become my favorite FPS due to the highly responsive movement and the great weapon and enemy selection. It's just great fun from a gameplay perspective. I enjoy classic Tomb Raider for its exploration & puzzle based gameplay, and while I did play it as a kid back in 1997 or so, I wasn't a big fan of it back then. It only grew on me in the 2010s when I was in my 20s. So no, this is not about nostalgia. I enjoy these games because they have genuinely enjoyable gameplay, and I didn't even play most of them until I reached my 20s.

And what about the other way around? It'd have extremely limited niche appeal, people would generally take a look at a few Screenshots or a Trailer and overlook it. Imagine if the new Hitman game looked like this: https://store.steampowered.com/app/904360/Family_Man/ People would have a good laugh about it and move on with it likely being the worst selling game in the entire franchise. Also, saying something is a "fan favorite" is a nice thing, but what does that mean? How about you compare how many people bought and played each? Absolution has about 4x the amount of reviews on Steam for instance than Blood Money.

That game you linked on Steam looks crappy because of the cartoony artstyle. I don't like cartoony graphics but - get this - I can overlook them if the game is fun. I'm not a big fan of how Rimworld looks, but the gameplay is fun and I have 60 hours of gameplay logged on Steam. Despite its shitty graphics, Rimworld sold a million copies and is extremely popular. That popularity comes 100% from its gameplay.

Also, we're on the Codex here. We don't care about a game's mass appeal. Oblivion also sold more copies than Morrowind, and Skyrim even more, but that doesn't say anything about their quality. Mass appeal =/= quality. Lower visual fidelity also generally means lower development cost so when you make a game that looks like it's from 2000 you don't need to have as big an audience to make a profit. Case in point: all these new retro FPS games like Dusk, Ion Fury, Project Warlock, Wrath, Hedon, etc. All of them solid FPS games that look and play like they were made 20 years ago, and the target audience loves them because the gameplay and level design is good.

Also, artstyle > graphics.

"art style" is part of "graphics"

Yet you keep stressing the importance of technical visual fidelity. Case in point, you say that if Absolution had the graphics of Blood Money it would be less popular, even though Blood Money looks perfectly fine even today. It just doesn't have as many fancy visual effects and a lower poly count. There is little actual difference in art style between Blood Money and Absolution. Art style and technical graphics are independent from each other, you can have a technically impressive game with the newest shaders and all that jazz but a boring, uninspired art style, while an older game has less fancy graphics but more interesting art. Just compare Morrowind and Oblivion. Morrowind looks blocky and clunky, sure, but the artstyle is still praised today. Oblivion has better graphics, but it lacks an artstyle and looks extremely bland and generic.

Graphics, for you, are number one. That's it. You value graphics more than gameplay.

Yes, if your new game nowadays for instance looks like this I won't get to the part where I get to care about or appreciate the gameplay because I'll likely ignore it long before that bar unusual circumstances:


I can bet that everyone here went through their game queue on Steam and clicked Next on that shitty looking Indie pixel Roguelike #7655 or that Shovelware looking 3D Unity project even without knowing or making absolutely sure if it possibly had the best gameplay ever created or took a look at some new releases and disregarded them based on a few Screenshots or a shitty Trailer, even if they don't like to admit it for some reason in a discussion involving "graphics".

And if the Infinity Engine games looked more like the early Ultima's a lot less people would have ended up playing them and they would be a lot less known and beloved in general. It's just an undeniable fact, even if you don't like it.

You keep being disingenuous in this argument. People argue that having top of the line graphics is not necessary. You keep returning to "But if your favorite game looked like a C64 game you wouldn't be as impressed by it". Well no shit. The early 80s were an age of strict limitations not only on graphics but also on gameplay, simply because the machines weren't powerful enough. You can't make a 3D action adventure that looks like it came from the C64 because the C64 and its extremely low res graphics would be incapable of running such a game.

Every time people say that graphics aren't of primary importance to them you resort to "muh C64 chonky pixels". Come the fuck on.

Meanwhile, a game that was made on the literal Build engine from the 1990s has almost 3000 reviews with a 95% positive rating:


A sci-fi roguelike with terrible ASCII-style graphics has over 2000 reviews at 96% positive:


A pixelated action roguelite with by-pixel particle physics and extremely fun gameplay but ugly graphics has almost 14k reviews with a 95% positive rating:


Dwarf Fortress clone in space with ugly but functional graphics has 66k reviews with a 98% positive rating:


But yeah keep going on about MUH GRAFFIX, I'm sure all of these people who gave those games positive reviews are either blinded by nostalgia or deluding themselves into not caring about graphics while they actually do. Lmao.

 

[DalekFlay]

This is why I can't help but comment on how some people's view of what VR is or can do, or what it's apparently only good for, or what people would want to use it for (although there's obviously always favorites as with every platform) can be incredibly myopic, which can be a bit frustrating since they're talking about these things like they were knowledgeable expert witnesses on the subject, when it's obvious they know near to nothing about it. Often even without having ever even used a VR Headset, getting basic things wrong that someone who used one for even a few hours would not and talking about how it's "not for them" based more on stereotypes in their head than reality.

You think I'm being myopic, I think you're being fabulously optimistic. Maybe the truth is in the middle. Maybe one day VR will improve to a point normal gaming seems silly outside of retro stuff, but for the time being I certainly think there are many reasons people would still want the "normal" experience, at least some of the time. I doubt you can change my mind on that no matter how many times you call me ignorant, simply for the relaxation and shit on your face reason if nothing else.

 

[Dexter]

If the game isn't sporting 16k resolution then the game looks like shit.

I've never said that, in fact I brought up Pixel Adventure art and hand-painted/pre-rendered 2D backgrounds in the 90s as an example of something that didn't look "like shit" compared to other stuff out there at the time (like a lot of early 3D graphics). You're the one here that called people who have a higher resolution monitor or TV than you 5-10 years before you do a "schizophrenic crutch for these comatose, braindead, mouth breathers", member?
It sure would have been great though if the Original Infinity Engine art assets weren't lost and they could be re-rendered at higher resolutions for an actual "Remaster" for today's displays and common resolutions instead of that thing Beamdog did, it's close to the main and almost only thing these games required to bring them up-to-date aside from a few UI improvements: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-enhanced-edition.114375/page-34#post-5040093

No middle ground. Game must also be bad. Logic in 2020.

That's also true, just because something looks good doesn't automatically make it good. I never said it did. Nor does a game looking like shit automatically make it good either.

Pretty sure that's not what I said either, but if a game is below a certain threshold I would simply not care if it's "good". J*rlFr*nk hit the bullseye with two of his four games with what I'd generally Skip or Ignore no matter how "good" it might be with his ASCII and Roguelike games. The others, I like Duke 3D and might have been interested due to familiarity, but going by the thread Ion Fury is nothing like it so that was a pass since I wasn't that interested anyway. Rimworld looks a bit like Prison Architect, which I briefly played and I'd guesstimate they're likely popular due to feeding a certain kind of Autism similar to Dwarf Fortress, but it ain't mine so that's a pass. Rather the Anno/Tropico/Sim City/Theme Hospital/Civilization kind of Autism here, that also happen to have better graphical representations.

Lower visual fidelity also generally means lower development cost so when you make a game that looks like it's from 2000 you don't need to have as big an audience to make a profit. Case in point: all these new retro FPS games like Dusk, Ion Fury, Project Warlock, Wrath, Hedon, etc. All of them solid FPS games that look and play like they were made 20 years ago, and the target audience loves them because the gameplay and level design is good.

No, I'm pretty sure if the game looked like a C64 title or a garbage Indie pixel game and had the same missions in the same places with similar gameplay there'd likely be hundreds or maybe at most thousands of people playing it, you can call that whatever you want.

Thousands of people will play them! Thousands! You solved the equation, you should send all the big publishers and developers like Take Two/RockStar/Activision/DICE/id etc. a letter telling them they're doing it all wrong and they should stop development of that new GTA game, because they could make a Retro Shooter instead.

Yet you keep stressing the importance of technical visual fidelity. Case in point, you say that if Absolution had the graphics of Blood Money it would be less popular, even though Blood Money looks perfectly fine even today. It just doesn't have as many fancy visual effects and a lower poly count. There is little actual difference in art style between Blood Money and Absolution.

Pretty sure I said Hitman was always an AAA video game franchise with Up-to-date visuals for its time, but yes I believe it's fair to say it got more popular and sold more as it technologically progressed:

You understand that you're posting in the thread of a AAA video game franchise about to get its 8th major installment (if you can call their late releases that), that would have had all of these things and production values whether it had a VR port or not?
...
Like "characters" or "story", do you expect the game to not have characters or a story? Pretty sure "voice acting" was also something Hitman has always had.

Art style and technical graphics are independent from each other, you can have a technically impressive game with the newest shaders and all that jazz but a boring, uninspired art style, while an older game has less fancy graphics but more interesting art.

Nope, Graphics is everything you see displayed on your screen. Video games are a visual medium and that's why I say Graphics matter more than Gameplay, Story or anything else. You don't get to decouple a thing and say it doesn't matter and come up with another term you call "technical graphics" that "has something to do with the newest shaders" and declare yourself the winner. I don't need 2020 logic for that btw., 2014 logic will suffice:

It is universal truth that graphics matter over anything else for a visual medium (and without visual representation the medium wouldn't be possible in the first place), the single most important factor in getting games to evolve and their increase in popularity as well as what one is able to do with the "gameplay" and "story" in the first place have been increasing technological jumps in computer graphics and the methods to display them over the years, from the very first "cathode ray tube" creations that a few scientists got to enjoy to today where Virtual Reality might finally become a possibility.

From being able to draw specific lines on a monitor, to monochrome representations, to the first colors, increase in bits, first possibilities of drawing out actual images and similar as backgrounds, the first animations, 3D graphics and so on...

Even the first CRPGs wouldn't have been possible without these improvements over times:

People who put anything else first are probably confused or have a highly different/very limited definition as to what "graphics" entails to something like "DirectX Versions" or "improved water effects" when "graphics" decide literally every single thing being rendered out to your display device, be it even Cartoony/Animation style or Isometric/Pre-Rendered 2D art. A lot of people on many forums are thinking solely in "console generations" or little incremental upgrades when that is a very small part of the bigger picture in regards to computer graphics and what they enable a game to be or be able to do.

In fact I believe you just conceded the argument by saying something that you wouldn't back then, and that is that "graphics" and their technological progress make certain kinds of gameplay and the evolution of said even possible in the first place, thanks for playing.

You keep being disingenuous in this argument. People argue that having top of the line graphics is not necessary. You keep returning to "But if your favorite game looked like a C64 game you wouldn't be as impressed by it". Well no shit. The early 80s were an age of strict limitations not only on graphics but also on gameplay, simply because the machines weren't powerful enough. You can't make a 3D action adventure that looks like it came from the C64 because the C64 and its extremely low res graphics would be incapable of running such a game.

It's not "being disingenuous" at all, it's upon the people that pretend that "Graphics" do not matter to defend said point. This isn't my position, I say Graphics and visual presentation matter above all else because video games are mainly a visual medium (although I never claimed they're the only thing that matters or that they're the only thing that make a game good). As such they better be ready to defend the position that every game would be just fine as a text adventure, ASCII representation or C64-style BASIC line draw construct, because we've gotten from there to here through the gradual improvement of computer graphics. You don't get to say "Graphics don't matter because I draw an artificial line 5 or 10 years ago and everything before that isn't "graphics", graphics are only this thing I call "technical graphics" that has something to do with the newest Shaders, water reflection algorithms and 4K (HD isn't "graphics" anymore though, that's fine cuz I have a 1080p monitor now lmao)".

You think I'm being myopic, I think you're being fabulously optimistic. Maybe the truth is in the middle. Maybe one day VR will improve to a point normal gaming seems silly outside of retro stuff, but for the time being I certainly think there are many reasons people would still want the "normal" experience, at least some of the time. I doubt you can change my mind on that no matter how many times you call me ignorant, simply for the relaxation and shit on your face reason if nothing else.

I do think you're being "ignorant" by talking so much about a thing you know so little about and making so many pronouncements about it. But I've also never claimed that people would not still want the "normal" experience or that anything would be replaced any time soon. I see no reason why anyone wouldn't want both. To begin with there's literally no reason I can see one would want to play games that are not 3D rendered in VR and I bet something like a TV, monitor or tablet will remain the main way to display plane/flat 2D images long beyond all of our lifetimes:

I've never used the phrase "VR is the future of gaming" and wouldn't make such a stupid prediction - I leave that "PC gaming is dead", "tablet gaming/computing is the future" stuff to the knowledgeable "journalists" and "analysts". I've actually stated that it's unlikely to replace traditional gaming, but it along with AR will play a big part in the next ~20 years though and will have gradual growth.

I'll leave the predictions to you and the Epic Games thread or whatever new Cloud gaming service thread comes along that'll surely be the unavoidable future of gaming.

 

[JarlFrank]

It's not "being disingenuous" at all, it's upon the people that pretend that "Graphics" do not matter to defend said point. This isn't my position, I say Graphics matter above all else (although I never claimed they're the only thing that matters or that they're the only thing that make a game good).

See, here's where you're wrong. They don't matter above all else. Yes, I said that ancient C64 graphics wouldn't be capable of displaying a modern 3D action adventure, even if you tried to design a Hitman clone with a resolution and color scheme that limited you'd end up with an indecipherable mess. So the ability to display sufficiently complex graphics to properly represent your gameplay is important.

But that's where the importance ends. Once you reached a point where you can portray everything you need to portray for your gameplay to work, you're good. From then on it's all about the gameplay. Bonus points for making appealing visuals (which don't necessarily depend on the technical shader stuff and poly detail and texture resolution), but Spiderweb games is proof that people will play games that look like literal vomit soup and fanboy over them as long as the gameplay and writing is good. No seriously, look at how buttfuck ugly Geneforge 1 is, yet how many people cite it as a great RPG. Look at goddamn roguelikes and their indecipherable ASCII soup, yet lots of people still like those.

You're taking it too far. You claim that because improved graphics allow for new genres that wouldn't have been possible back in 1983, having better graphics is always better, and if you don't agree you would be fine with every game looking like it was made in 1983. Wrong.

I believe that graphical technology is only important to the extent that it allows for new gameplay features to exist. The shift from Doom's pseudo-3D which was essentially 2D mapping with height levels to Quake's full 3D with sculpted polygon environments is not just a graphical step forward, it's also a huge step for level design and gameplay. Suddenly you can do rocket jumping and walking below bridges and climbing atop buildings and so on, which you couldn't do in Doom's more primitive engine. But that's not just "graphics". That's also physics and level architecture, which are more important than pure graphics.

It's quite easy. Can it represent a 3D space realistically? No? Then it's not good enough for 3D adventures. But when it can, it's enough to create decent 3D adventures with. That's why you still have strong modding communities for Doom, Quake, Tomb Raider, Thief. Those engines may be dated and the graphics are old and blocky by today's standards, but the engines are powerful enough to allow people to create exactly the kind of gameplay experience they want. Because gameplay is the most important thing of all.

Fun fact: in some genres, too good graphics can even be detrimental. In some multiplayer FPS games of the late 2000s, competitive players tended to switch off all special effects and even reduce foliage detail to minimum... so they could more easily spot their enemies trying to hide in the foliage. Modern competitive FPS are very noisy compared to early 00s titles, and in games like these where spotting enemies and weapon pickups is of prime importance, too high visual fidelity can be bad as it interferes with environmental readability.

 

[Child of Malkav]

I was exaggerating your underlying idea in order to prove a point. It doesn't matter now because you did it yourself.
The underlined portion in your post is all I needed to know.

Graphics, for you, are number one. That's it. You value graphics more than gameplay.

Yes, if your new game nowadays for instance looks like this I won't get to the part where I get to care about or appreciate the gameplay because I'll likely ignore it long before that bar unusual circumstances:
[/QUOTE]

 

[blrrmmmff]

I have not played the game in the video, but it looks totally fine to me. Yes, it might not garner as much mainstream attention. But claiming that it would be less popular among the Codex crowd is bullshit. The majority of people here like games with worse graphics than that. Also, artstyle is more important than technical visual fidelity.



I played Thief for the first time in 2009, when I was 21. I didn't play Doom and Quake until the mid 2010s, I started playing FPS in the mid 00s as a teenager with contemporary games of the time. Quake has become my favorite FPS due to the highly responsive movement and the great weapon and enemy selection. It's just great fun from a gameplay perspective. I enjoy classic Tomb Raider for its exploration & puzzle based gameplay, and while I did play it as a kid back in 1997 or so, I wasn't a big fan of it back then. It only grew on me in the 2010s when I was in my 20s. So no, this is not about nostalgia. I enjoy these games because they have genuinely enjoyable gameplay, and I didn't even play most of them until I reached my 20s.



That game you linked on Steam looks crappy because of the cartoony artstyle. I don't like cartoony graphics but - get this - I can overlook them if the game is fun. I'm not a big fan of how Rimworld looks, but the gameplay is fun and I have 60 hours of gameplay logged on Steam. Despite its shitty graphics, Rimworld sold a million copies and is extremely popular. That popularity comes 100% from its gameplay.

Also, we're on the Codex here. We don't care about a game's mass appeal. Oblivion also sold more copies than Morrowind, and Skyrim even more, but that doesn't say anything about their quality. Mass appeal =/= quality. Lower visual fidelity also generally means lower development cost so when you make a game that looks like it's from 2000 you don't need to have as big an audience to make a profit. Case in point: all these new retro FPS games like Dusk, Ion Fury, Project Warlock, Wrath, Hedon, etc. All of them solid FPS games that look and play like they were made 20 years ago, and the target audience loves them because the gameplay and level design is good.



Yet you keep stressing the importance of technical visual fidelity. Case in point, you say that if Absolution had the graphics of Blood Money it would be less popular, even though Blood Money looks perfectly fine even today. It just doesn't have as many fancy visual effects and a lower poly count. There is little actual difference in art style between Blood Money and Absolution. Art style and technical graphics are independent from each other, you can have a technically impressive game with the newest shaders and all that jazz but a boring, uninspired art style, while an older game has less fancy graphics but more interesting art. Just compare Morrowind and Oblivion. Morrowind looks blocky and clunky, sure, but the artstyle is still praised today. Oblivion has better graphics, but it lacks an artstyle and looks extremely bland and generic.



You keep being disingenuous in this argument. People argue that having top of the line graphics is not necessary. You keep returning to "But if your favorite game looked like a C64 game you wouldn't be as impressed by it". Well no shit. The early 80s were an age of strict limitations not only on graphics but also on gameplay, simply because the machines weren't powerful enough. You can't make a 3D action adventure that looks like it came from the C64 because the C64 and its extremely low res graphics would be incapable of running such a game.

Every time people say that graphics aren't of primary importance to them you resort to "muh C64 chonky pixels". Come the fuck on.

Meanwhile, a game that was made on the literal Build engine from the 1990s has almost 3000 reviews with a 95% positive rating:


A sci-fi roguelike with terrible ASCII-style graphics has over 2000 reviews at 96% positive:


A pixelated action roguelite with by-pixel particle physics and extremely fun gameplay but ugly graphics has almost 14k reviews with a 95% positive rating:


Dwarf Fortress clone in space with ugly but functional graphics has 66k reviews with a 98% positive rating:


But yeah keep going on about MUH GRAFFIX, I'm sure all of these people who gave those games positive reviews are either blinded by nostalgia or deluding themselves into not caring about graphics while they actually do. Lmao.

You are forgetting about selection bias. The more simple or niche a game is, the more likely people rate it highly. Because you know exactly what you will get, and the people who won't like it won't even buy it (so cannot rate it badly). Whereas a more mainstream game will try to appeal to more people with more false advertising, so naturally get more disappointed buyers.

Most of these titles I get an exact impression of what they are like quickly (with the exception of Rimworld) and I would not want to play them. And probably not rate them well if I somehow did.

Plus people are more motivated to give bad reviews to some hyped up triple A title with false promises made, made by a large 'evil corporation', than to some Indie labor of love that received little hype. Plus most of these games are cheap compared to the better graphic triple A $50-60 games, so again more likely to not get a bad review.

Also random walk, take 1000 pixelated Indie games, there will always be some highly rated ones in there.

 

[IDtenT]

You guys really know how to shit up a thread.

 

[LESS T_T]

 

[Ghulgothas]

Very eager to see if this will pass the VR Litmus Test of giving you the ability to kill yourself with your own gun.

 

[Wunderbar]

Epic snaps up Hitman 3 as another PC store exclusive

The PC version of IO's assassination game launches on the Epic Games Store exclusively in January 2021. It's also due out then on PlayStation 5, PlayStation4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One and Google Stadia.

"Self-publishing Hitman 3 is a big step for IO Interactive in achieving our highly ambitious goals as an independent studio," explained IO boss Hakan Abrak. "Furthermore, this partnership with Epic has given us the freedom to create the game exactly as we imagined, for our fans and for our community uncompromised. For our long-term fans that have supported us on the World of Assassination journey, we're happy to have mastery and location carryover from their existing progress into Hitman 3 on Epic Games Store."

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-08-20-epic-snaps-up-hitman-3-as-another-pc-store-exclusive

 

[Ghulgothas]

Fuck, Season 2's earnings must've been terrible. Gives me plenty of time to go back and 100% it I guess.

They also showed off one of the new missions.

 

[†††]

Epic snaps up Hitman 3 as another PC store exclusive

The PC version of IO's assassination game launches on the Epic Games Store exclusively in January 2021. It's also due out then on PlayStation 5, PlayStation4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One and Google Stadia.

"Self-publishing Hitman 3 is a big step for IO Interactive in achieving our highly ambitious goals as an independent studio," explained IO boss Hakan Abrak. "Furthermore, this partnership with Epic has given us the freedom to create the game exactly as we imagined, for our fans and for our community uncompromised. For our long-term fans that have supported us on the World of Assassination journey, we're happy to have mastery and location carryover from their existing progress into Hitman 3 on Epic Games Store."

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-08-20-epic-snaps-up-hitman-3-as-another-pc-store-exclusive

Way to fuck over your core base, the ones keeping the series alive. I guess we can add Hitman to the illustrious "Dead stealth franchises" list. F for the genre.

 

[Belegarsson]

Those fucking cocksuckers again...

 

[IDtenT]

Nope.

 

[DalekFlay]

Way to fuck over your core base, the ones keeping the series alive. I guess we can add Hitman to the illustrious "Dead stealth franchises" list. F for the genre.

How are they "fucking us over" exactly? Everything goes through an IO Account anyway.