The I am a graphics whore thread

[Renegen]

Art direction and how well a game ages is important. I can still play Betrayal at Krondor after so many years, while other newer games don't have as much luck. I also for the longest time hated games that looked like M&M 5 and earlier. Now I can enjoy them. But even now, the only 2 Wizardry games that I can play are 7&8.

You slowly get used to other graphical styles.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Many of you are merely cutting off your nose to spite your face.

So many brilliant games, ready to be played....I pity you. If only I could experience them again for the first time...

 

[ever]

This is strange. I am a huge graphics nerd, but I don't really care about how a game looks when I decide to play it. I don't even care about art direction as long as its not that really sort of disgusting anime. I like Street Fighter, King of Fighters style anime but that other sort the one with the exagerated heads that just disgusts me.

In terms of *value added* I *do* care about both of art direction and graphics , but when I am playing a game they sort of go away.

The thing that doesn't go away is inconsistency. Inconsistency can really suck you out of a game. For example in Ultima Lazarus I cannot talk to Phillip in West Brittany without getting the feeling that I'm just playing some amateur PoS mod, which the rest of the game save for a few other NPC portraits does a good job in avoiding.

This kind of stuff really, and I mean really really breaks the entire experience. It's one of the things that separates indie, mod type efforts and a larger market commercial product.

I also notice these sorts of flaws in graphical user interfaces, especially with the alpha channel being incorrect on some textures. In every third game from the early 2000s and late 1990s to use billboard florae, there are alpha channel problems ( or maybe they were designed for some really specific hardware or something ).

 

[Admiral jimbob]

To me it's not good graphics, or bad graphics. It's about the following: can I easily recognize what I'm trying to see? If it's too indistinct, then the game has to be REALLY good for me to keep playing, and then I'm far more likely to stop than anything else.

Pretty much this. I'm absolutely fine with, say, Wasteland graphics, but I struggle with early 3D (no sperging about what 3D means please people) like Arena, because at anything beyond striking distance I have to strain to tell the difference between a door and a troll. Which isn't very good.

 

[ever]

Also shadow mapping is a disappointing trend in global illumination. Volumes really make more sense in any dynamic situation with point lights from both a quality and performance perspective. I can understand why you might want to use shadow mapping for an outdoor scene with one infinite light, and they come free with some particle effects ( like good cloud rendering ), but that's as far as my understanding goes.

Yet you see shadow maps everywhere.

Especially disappointing are shadow mapping implementations with temporal aliasing, and noticeable popping in the case of cascaded shadow map like techniques.

 

[JaySn]

Which version/level of Mechwarrior is that? From memory, my mechs were always solid black. None of that odd camouflage attempt. Nor do I recall attempts to distinguish ground and mountain, beyond changing a single tone.

Maybe that's what I get for playing them on a 16-bit 12" screen.

All of these games look pretty good, Thief included. The newer XCom clone . . . gah.

 

[Zomg]

CGA is too ugly for me to deal with

Old 3D, especially pre-texturing, double-especially pre-shading, is too ugly for me to deal with. Although if you go all the way back to wireframes they look ok and abstract instead of badly concrete

Render or photo sprites are usually too ugly for me to deal with but a few games pulled them off

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

You have successfully added CrunchyHemorrhoids to your ignore list.

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If you are in linux use exult, for instance (unstable build from some random guy that can install a backdoor):
https://launchpad.net/~dallen.wilson/+archive/ppa

I can't get Exult to play sounds on Linux.

 

[betamin]

Why so many codex coming out threads? Whatever happened to guys like Gary Cooper, you know, the strong silent type?

 

[PorkaMorka]

I don't really "get" good graphics.

1993

2000

2006 (admittedly, different sub species of beholder)

2000 Beholder actually seem uglier and less detailed/colorful than 1993 Beholder... not to mention the information needed to play the game is presented less clearly.

 

[UserNamer]

I enjoy the way some older games look. I honestly enjoy the graphics of fallout 1-2 except some of the blander areas in the second. Arcanum was cool too, they could have worked harder on the sprites of the characters tough. Monkey island 1 and 2 are beautiful in my opinion. Doom and Quake look great with modern ports. I think there are some other examples I can't think of right now.

 

[Sceptic]

Perhaps you missed this gem of what REAL cRPG's are: http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic ... 6&start=75

Oh lordy, I had forgotten about this. And I hadn't realized that MMXI was the one who baited him

Your M&M series is SHIT! SHIT SHIT!

This is pretty much what he wrote in an M&M thread on Underground Gamer some time ago so I'm not surprised to see it appear here. Though over there he just got a fuckton of negative karma then everyone ignored him

However, EGA titles (particularly Sierra adventures) can have a unique illustrated look; something that was lost with VGA.

True, but then Sierra's VGA games gained the painted look, which was also pretty unique and which I admit I like very much in most of their games (especially SQ4, Conquest of the Longbow and Dynamix adventures)

 

[FatCat]

I don't really "get" good graphics.


2000 Beholder actually seem uglier and less detailed/colorful than 1993 Beholder

Graphics is merely a technology powering games visuals , the rest is art design.
"Better graphics" is something that has more polygons , better lighting , dof , hdr and all other shit.

 

[sea]

I can wholly appreciate good graphics, but I think "good graphics" for me follow a slightly different definition. What I'm concerned with is not so much the fidelity or artistry, but in how successful a game's graphics are towards accomplishing its overall goals.

As an example, Super Mario Bros. looks, more or less, like crap, but functionally the visuals work perfectly to establish a certain mood, tone and ultimately do an excellent job of integrating with and communicating gameplay concepts. Those visuals still hold up well today precisely for that reason. They were expertly designed with quite a bit of care; you could replace that game's visuals with stuff plenty more detailed, but you're not losing anything because of how dated it looks. Same goes for a game like Monkey Island, Pac-man etc.

Where I'm less forgiving is in interface and controls. The fact is that I honestly have a lot of problems playing older games not because of the fact that they look bad (they're more than functional in this regard), but because they're just so archaic to actually play. Poorly-designed menus, laggy and imprecise controls, etc. are all timeless, and they will hurt a game far more now that interface standards have improved so much.

 

[Mastermind]

Where I'm less forgiving is in interface and controls. The fact is that I honestly have a lot of problems playing older games not because of the fact that they look bad (they're more than functional in this regard), but because they're just so archaic to actually play. Poorly-designed menus, laggy and imprecise controls, etc. are all timeless, and they will hurt a game far more now that interface standards have improved so much.

 

[Surf Solar]

Where I'm less forgiving is in interface and controls. The fact is that I honestly have a lot of problems playing older games not because of the fact that they look bad (they're more than functional in this regard), but because they're just so archaic to actually play. Poorly-designed menus, laggy and imprecise controls, etc. are all timeless, and they will hurt a game far more now that interface standards have improved so much.

Examples?

 

[FatCat]

Examples?

most dosbox rpg's

 

[Jaesun]

Examples?

most dosbox rpg's

Which ones?

 

[MMXI]

Examples?

most dosbox rpg's

What is a dosbox RPG?

 

[FatCat]

Which ones?

Bard's tale for one and plenty of other by the looks of them , but i can't vouch for it , as i never extensively played RPG's from 80's .

What is a dosbox RPG?

the one that runs in MS-DOS ?

 

[MMXI]

Which ones?

Bard's tale for one and plenty of other by the looks of them , but i can't vouch for it , as i never extensively played RPG's from 80's .

But The Bard's Tale is one of the easiest 80s RPGs to control. The interface is really intuitive too.

 

[Jaesun]

Bard's tale for one and plenty of other by the looks of them , but i can't vouch for it , as i never extensively played RPG's from 80's.

So you come in here and make claims that DOSBox games have bad interfaces yet you have never played them, and think that justifying your statements off a screen shot?

How much more of a fucking moran can you be?

 

[MMXI]

Bard's tale for one and plenty of other by the looks of them , but i can't vouch for it , as i never extensively played RPG's from 80's.

So you come in here and make claims that DOSBox games have bad interfaces yet you have never played them, and think that justifying your statements off a screen shot?

How much more of a fucking moran can you be?

Wait, didn't the DOS version also have mouse support? That makes his statement even more retarded.

 

[Mastermind]

never extensively played

never played

Kill yourself.

 

[FatCat]

So you come in here and make claims that DOSBox games have bad interfaces yet you have never played them, and think that justifying your statements off a screen shot?

You have to be a blind not to notice a difference.

You often have to write shit down.
Bard's tale

Everything is in one place and quickly accessible.
baldurs Gate

Video material can provide a better perspective.

How much more of a fucking moran can you be?

Idk

Wait, didn't the DOS version also have mouse support? That makes his statement even more retarded.

So what ? Most things are still text based.