Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

In 1999, the PC world was taken by storm by a graphical wonder called Unreal. The game won high praise for its revolutionary textures and lighting effects.


However, if you play this game today, you'll think it looks like crap. Low res textures, blocky characters. Some people can look past the exterior, but I'm not one of them. I don't enjoy playing the original Doom. It's a pixilated mess. I can't enjoy the original Half-life because it looks so outdated.

Graphics are the life blood of FPS games, and as we become accustomed to the newer game engines, the old games look much worse. In this sense, gaming is the only entertainment medium that is not timeless. I can enjoy The Matrix from 1999 and still be amazed by the effects. I can't enjoy Unreal the same way.

So will we ever reach a point where graphics are so good that they stand the test of time? Or will the Unreal 3 engine look like crap 10 years from now? I believe we are headed closer to a plateau where games won't age so fast. For example, Halo still looks great to me, and this game is several years old. Half Life 2 is still quite impressive with the peeling paint and weathered textured look, and I can't imagine Bioshock ever being an eyesore. Then again, I was once blown away by Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

It has nothing to do with the technology behind graphics and everything to do with art direction on game design.

Limiting ourselves to then-current display technology, games like Metal Slug 3 and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island cannot (and need not) be improved graphically.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

I agree with Bus. Tough for the OP, I think that photo-realistic graphics without dead eyes will be the pinnacle.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

I don't think that's very accurate. 2D games can get away with this because there isn't nearly as much visible progression in that style, just like 2D animated movies from 50 years ago still look good today. In that case, art direction can carry the look on for years.

3D games, on the other hand, are very much limited by their technology and attempts to render life like images make a huge difference between eras. Playing a lot of PS1 era 3D games is dreadful. Even playing some PS2 games are an eyesore for me, despite people at the time saying that the graphic performance was going to be "good enough" for a decade.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

Heck, I'll take game play over graphics ANY day! I'm a guy that grew up before and during the Atari/Intellivision/ColecoVision days, and back then it was all about game play. I can still play some of those games today partially out of nostalgia, but also because they were fun. Take Adventure for the Atari VCS (2600) - your character was just a square, but the fun came from the play itself.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

Some cell shaded games from last gen and the PS1 still look quite beautiful.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

Yeah, but cel-shading is kind of a different beast since it masks the low number of polys, lack of texture, low resolution and aliasing. Basically anything with a 2D layer can maintain a good look, but something like the first Tomb Raider... ugh. At least the PC ports had bilnear filtering :p

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Yeah, it's interesting how SNES and Genesis games still look beautiful to me but lots of PS1 games are polygon messes.

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Even FFVII looks pretty ugly these days. Now turn based strategy games like HOMM3 are still gorgeous a decade later. I think Civ4 will be timeless as well.

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Isn't this the whole "Uncanny Valley" argument?

I'd settle for graphics stagnation if gameplay and AI improved.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

You are comparing 2D versus 3D. Of course sprite-based graphics age better than polygonal based graphics.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

I think that nails it on the head.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

I have heard arguments like this and arguments about how 2D ages better than 3D, and it is really kind of silly.

You cannot compare the SNES to PS1. That is not a fair comparison at all. You are comparing 3rd generation 2D graphics to 1st generation 3D graphics.

If you want an accurate comparison, then compare PS1 games to 1st generation 2D graphics (Atari 2600 and Colecovision). Both 2D and 3D are butt ugly as hell.

Then you would compare 2nd generation 2D to 2nd generation 3D... NES compared to PS2/Xbox. Both are improvements over 1st generations, and a few of the games still hold up but most of them do not.

Compare 3rd generation 2D to 3rd generation 3D... SNES compared to PS3/Xbox360. Just as SNES games tend to hold up well, I think PS3/Xbox360 games will still hold up well in the future too.

In fact, regarding the statement that 2D tends to hold up better... I personally believe that 3D has held up better. The PS1 era, while it is butt ugly, is still better looking than the Atari 2600. The PS2 era has held up better than the NES era. The PS3 era could possibly hold up better than the SNES era.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

The PS1, Saturn, N64 suffered from people wanting to capitalize on the tech too soon IMO. Formerly great games like Tomb Raider, Silent Hill, Perfect Dark, etc. really play like shit now. Even if you go back and play a game like Halo which holds up pretty well, you'll notice the lack of features present in Halo2 and 3 that seem standard in first and third person shooters now. The life of some of these games are starting to extend but I think even games from this gen will seem like shit games from a graphical and control standpoint 20 years from now. The graphics will definitely make it there before the controls will though. Take Gears of War a game many people love and think is on top of the genre. How many times have you taken cover behind something and wanted to run forward only to take cover behind another wall or gotten stuck in cover because you got too close to a pillar? Things like that are already annoying, think of how much it's going to suck when they've perfected cover systems and you go back and try to play gears again in 15 years (not that you'd even want to).

In Short, yes graphics will get to the point that we still think older games look good enough. But I'm more concerned with the gameplay/controls and AI. And I think those are the things render older 3D games obsolete.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

Playing as a square in Adventure was accepted because that was the norm for that time. Look at Superman, Space Invaders, and even the crappy interpretation of PacMan. For the time, who cared about graphics, they all looked the same.
Compare that today...not every game looks as good as Gears, Far Cry 2, and Assassin's Creed, but plenty of games are just as good or better, but graphically they fit the time period. If Halo 3 Brutes were just squares, the game would suck, period.
Lesser graphics are accepted within reason, and gameplay is far more sought afterthan graphics, but there is still a standard.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

Yeah, plenty of 2-D games since the SNES have had good "enough" graphics, IMO.

As far as 3D, not sure how they'll hold up to the test of time like the 16-bit 2-D games, but the current crop of the better looking 3D games on the 360 and PS3 I feel are plenty good "enough".

At this stage, it's more about design than it is about raw graphics.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

I wasn't making an argument. I understand it is unfair to compare the technology, it's just a unique situation in that the older generation seems more playable now than the newer one. :shrug:

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

On an SDTV, a lot of PS2 and Xbox games are great.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

The Unreal 3 engine is pretty damn photo realistic. I think we are maybe one or two generations away from photo realistic graphics.

With everything else being equal, I'll take better graphics. Why play Unreal when I can play Unreal 3, why play Halo when I can play Halo 3, etc.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

I wouldn't say they look great, but that's up to personal opinion. That still isn't really relevant though, as i'd say even the best looking games are still limited in some cases by their graphics. I thought RE4 looked terrible on my PS2 at the time, and that was supposed to be one of the best looking games. Even something like... say Shadow of the Colossus, which is all about great art direction like you posted is limited by graphical slowdowns, muddy textures, and a lot of aliasing. The game play certainly allows you to overlook those items, but improvements would only enrich the experience.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

I like better looking games too, but only with everything else being equal.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

I like my games to look great so graphical improvements are always welcome. And they don't have to be photorealistic. I just started playing Penny Arcade and that game looks glorious in HD. Also, the way it transitions between 2D panels and the 3D environment is really cool. Also, Geometry Wars 2 was a nice graphical upgrade from 1.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

While I did quote you, I was talking more in a general sense to all the people that compare SNES graphics to PS1 graphics. I just wanted to point out the fallacy of comparing 3rd generation 2D graphics that have had many years to improve itself to 1st generation 3D graphics that are still in a primitive state with many kinks to work out. Comparing Atari 2600 to PS1 is more accurate.

Re: Will Graphics Ever Be Good Enough?
 

I can say I was around when 'Quake" and "Unreal" took gaming by storm and in my opinion opened it up. I can recall using the old 56K modem on a 486 and saying WOW!

But that was then and today those that didn't experience those early times of the 486, Pent III, Atari Jag, Genisis, PS1, and even the faithful Commodore 128 are nick-pickn' graphics. The benchmark has seem to be the Unreal Engine and it has come a long way since the early "Unreal" games. Early games came in about 500-600mb and today combined with the audio we're seeing 6-7 GB+on the PC's needing the latest hardware to push those textures.

The question is more like, "will we ever be satisified" with the eye candy and you can say yes and no. I think for those of us who have seen it come of age over the years yes but for the newer ones no. They're seeing stuff we only wish to see ten year ago now and if they only saw what we did then yea. All I have to do is fire up my original "Unreal Tournament" and say wow, we've come a long way and thanks.