'Current graphics are good enough' - Facepalm

[Torrasque]

I'm going to taking two sides to answer this, a two pronged attack if you will.

"Current graphics are good enough": I underlined good because of the point you brought up about pre-rendered cinematics. You can go back to PS1 games and see how their pre-rendered cinematics are a VAST graphical upgrade compared to the regular gameplay (by god, Cloud has fingers?!?!?!). Final Fantasy has always been especially notorious for this, the cinematics look sexy as shit, but the gameplay is pretty standard.
In this regard, your argument that graphics can and will improve, is true[/U]. Obviously graphics can improve to the point where the regular gameplay becomes as good as the best pre-rendered stuff, and the pre-rendered stuff is just heavenly (and then on, and then on, etc.). This issue is less about graphical quality, and more about how powerful the hardware fueling those graphics is. SC2 has some pretty nice graphics, but if your machine isn't up to par, then you have to play on lower settings. Does that mean the graphics of SC2 are crap? No, it means the graphics depends on the hardware.

"Current graphics are good enough": I underlined enough because I think it is important to bring up the position that @Terminate421 brought up; that graphics are pretty damn good the way they are now. Consoles that I grew up with (N64, Gameboy, PS1) relied on music and gameplay more than graphics to create an immersive atmosphere. Current gen consoles (even the last gen) have much better graphics than the previous consoles and can actually make you believe that you are the player that you are controlling. Yes music and gameplay are still very important, but it is easier to believe you are the one man/woman stopping an alien race from annihilating humanity, if the world around you looks real.
In this regard, my underlined snippet is true[/U]. I am content to play my Ogre Battle 64 and Pokemon Soul Silver, the graphics are not really a big deal to me. Could they be better? Well yeah of course they could be. Do I give a fuck? Not really. An Ogre Battle 64 with 2012 graphics would look awesome, but it wouldn't make me enjoy the game more. It would just make me enjoy the older version of Ogre Battle 64 less; something that is very important to note. You never play a game later in your life and say "the graphics in this game look like shit since the last time I played it!", you say "the graphics in this game look like shit compared to a newer game with better graphics".

Cake doesn't suddenly taste bad some day, it just doesn't taste as good as a newer cake that was made with newer and better ingredients. From the sounds of your argument, you are saying that your cake suddenly tasted like shit, and that makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

[endtherapture]

Shiny graphics do not a good game make. There's a reason Fallout: New Vegas sold far more copies than Crysis ever did, after all.

A multiplatform game with a large fanbase and 3 main games in the series and a fantastic reputation.

Vs

A new, shooter IP that was available on PC only.

There was more than graphics at work methinks.

Crysis was a tech demo disguised as a game, designed and released to stroke the internet cocks of idiots with more dollars than sense. People buying it and expecting a compelling or fun game will be SORELY disappointed, because in the name of giving us graphics from 2083 they skimped on EVERYTHING ELSE. The end result is a mediocre shooter who's only claim to fame is the textures.


Crysis is an excellent example of why graphics alone do not make a good game.

I really enjoyed Crysis, they nailed it on the gameplay, got lots of fun out of it.

It actually uses it's powerful system requirements to create a nonlinear gameplay style, instead of simple using it for better textures.

One of the best FPS's in the past decade for me.

 

[Zantos]

It depends on your definition of good enough. If good enough for you means photorealistic, then they're not. If good enough means that they look good enough to compliment good games, then they've been good enough for a while. I've never noticed a difference in graphics between PC, xbox 360 and PS3. It's probably there, but I have never been playing a game and thinking about the polygon count, I tend to be busy playing the game.

 

[endtherapture]

Shiny graphics do not a good game make. There's a reason Fallout: New Vegas sold far more copies than Crysis ever did, after all.

A multiplatform game with a large fanbase and 3 main games in the series and a fantastic reputation.

Vs

A new, shooter IP that was available on PC only.

There was more than graphics at work methinks.

Crysis was a tech demo disguised as a game, designed and released to stroke the internet cocks of idiots with more dollars than sense. People buying it and expecting a compelling or fun game will be SORELY disappointed, because in the name of giving us graphics from 2083 they skimped on EVERYTHING ELSE. The end result is a mediocre shooter who's only claim to fame is the textures.


Crysis is an excellent example of why graphics alone do not make a good game.

I really enjoyed Crysis, they nailed it on the gameplay, got lots of fun out of it.

It actually uses it's powerful system requirements to create a nonlinear gameplay style, instead of simple using it for better textures.

One of the best FPS's in the past decade for me.

I found it as linear as Half Life 2. Sure you could choose your method for attacking the next objective, but you couldn't sequence break in any real way. The game didn't like it. You were still sent to X location to kill Y enemies.


Not saying Linear is bad though. Linear can be done well, and Crysis certainly didn't botch it up. It was fun. But I still call it average because A: I've had no reason to play it again, B: They spent SOOOOOOO much time and money on the graphics that the story is pretty meh, and C: You can't mention having enjoyed it without 9001 elitists popping out to brag about how much anti-aliasing they could run while it was set to 1080P. So it's an average shooter in my eyes, it's only true claim to fame being the graphics. Had it not had that going for it we wouldn't even remember it today.

The story certainly wasn't good but it didn't need to be. It was an intelligent shooter that didn't hold your hand, you could quite easily die quickly on the easiest difficulty settings. HL2 was more linear but it had a better fleshed out story, Crysis didn't concentrate on story but had more interesting gameplay instead.

It gave you an objective, and different means to accomplish those objective. You can hop in a vehicle, sneak around, or just run and gun. I think more games need to have gameplay like that with different options to complete an objective instead of just one way.

As a game, Crysis is really underrated, I've sunk many different playthroughs into it just trying out different ways to do each level, and each time they turn out completely different. It's fun.

 

[Signa]

Just remember kiddies, Super Mario World was a 512 KILOBYTE game. Yet I consider it to be the best strictly Mario game ever made. In 20 years, neither graphics nor technical prowess has developed a better game. There is just no need for a new console generation while devs are struggling to make better games. If anything, RAM is holding the current systems back far more than graphical fidelity.

Keywords here "I consider".

and anyway, Super Mario 64 owns that.


Yes, RAM is holding back some games (Skyrim). However, consider the graphics quality in Mass Effect 2.

What the hell was with that? Add grainy textures to cover up the aliasing issues? On my PC it looked like a 5 year old game. On Max.

Still, only 8MB for SM64. You can't even find USB Flash drives for that small anymore.

EDIT: HAHAHAHAH!!!! My captcha was a picture of Holiday Inn, and it asked me to describe it with any words. I chose "Gay Bathhouse" and it worked.

 

[zombieshark6666]

In my crusade for better grass textures and military hardware models, I will not rest...

until game budgets are consistently over 100 million dollars.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's not just about the graphics. New hardware can improve everything. The number of people on screen, the size of worlds in free roaming games for example, the amount of features the game can have etc. Bioware had to cut the holster feature from ME3 because consoles lack the required RAM for it. I still don't know how that justifies the lack of holster on PC's but it's not important. The point is, there's more than just good graphics in a game, and that's why new hardware is preferable.

Wait... you can't holster your weapon in ME3 due to lack of RAM.... WHAT!? Seriously?!

Yeah, they're stretching for memory space. The old hardware and APIs are at their limit.
Just look at Skyrim. Picking up and moving objects over the course of the game will inevitably cause lag and eventually unplayable hanging since every interaction (change from static/default) has to be saved. (there is a system to reset this, so it varies with each player, but it's a well-documented problem, and NOT a bug).

Even so: What the detractors about "graphics" are ignoring that even when graphics tech doesn't become prettier, it can (and has) become more efficient. DX11 is far more memory and processing-savvy on average than DX9.0c (what modern consoles are running).
When I migrated between the two for Deus Ex: HR for example, the difference in frame-rate was astonishing, and the visual quality actually improved.

We really don't need shinier graphics; we need more efficient programming and, for consoles, better hardware to use it. Hell, I'd say that developers should scale back the graphics a tad and scale up the content. Implement some bloody stylings into your game instead of the latest iteration of Bloom (I always found it ironic how Bethesda games look breathtaking, but their NPCs are firmly trapped in the uncanny valley)!

As for new consoles:
None of the Big Three wants to move ahead (before anyone says it, Nintendo isn't moving ahead so much as they're playing "catch up") with that because their loss-leader strategies in subsidizing the systems per unit are no longer efficient enough to be secure.

The PS3 was a HUGE gamble for Sony financially, and that's coming from them at a time when they were arrogantly doing proverbial victory laps around their competition. Remember the initial prices? 800 bucks for a fucking CONSOLE? That was marked DOWN from what Sony paid to manufacture it.

Any system that steps ahead of that in the tech curve by the same scale (which they will have to in order to compete with PCs in the interim) is going to cost a mint to produce and distribute. At that point, you might as well buy a gaming PC; which have gone DOWN in price to compete with the dominating consoles, while not being stuck with one hardware-firmware profile.

Personally, I think the Console giants are quietly panicking for the first time in decades, so for now they have to stall. And stall. And stall...or focus on handhelds (good strategy, I say).

 

[Sehnsucht Engel]

I do think that the current graphics are good enough, but then again I grew up with much worse graphics and I do prefer games that work on my pc. I don't like it when I can't run things just because of the graphics. I don't really care at all if a game looks great, if I can't run it. Sure, they should still strive to improve every aspect of a game, graphics as well.

 

[targren]

What's wrong with the graphics we can output now? Nothing. Ever notice that the better graphics a game has the more failings elsewhere it tends to have? Not everybody gets to look like Crysis, cause not everyone can afford that while building a decent game.
Graphics whoring is the number 1 cause of stagnation in the market. Not lack of new IP's, not sequalitis, graphics whoring. The strive to look better has peaked and become more complex than simple bit count.
Ain't nuthin' wrong with pre rendered cut scenes looking better than the game. I would almost say they should.

Pretty much this. With the graphics obsession pushing the budgets through the stratosphere, we just get more and more samey, "safe" crap. Ever notice how the "new" stuff[footnote]The most recent I can think of is Catherine, since I found most of the 2011 tepid and skipped them[/footnote] pretty much always seems to have "lower-end", "stylized" graphics? It's because, scummy though they are, publishers are like movie studios: extremely risk-averse. Who's going to risk a $25M development budget on something new and innovative when they know another military shooter will sell 400k copies on the first day?

 

[VladG]

This generation gives us a decent compromise between production cost and graphical fidelity. Look back at the previous generation and notice that games were much bigger back then. This is because current production costs for a AAA game are huge, and most have to do with the way it looks. Graphics, motion capture, cinematics, they are much more resource intensive than they were 10 years ago. A leap in hardware will force developers to put in even more work into graphics just to stay competitive.

What we should focus on improving are development tools that can drastically cut these costs before we look into more powerful hardware for consoles.

 

[TheLastSamurai14]

You know what game looks fraking gorgeous to this day? Mirror's Edge.

Mirror's Edge image snip

Brofist. That game is the reason I bought a high-end gaming PC. It's not as photorealistic as Crysis or anything like that, but it brings its own unique aesthetic flavor to the table, and I love it for that.

I think game devs that aim for photorealism should take a slightly more stylized approach like DICE did with Mirror's Edge. It helps alleviate the whole "uncanny valley" situation, and ends up being aesthetically pleasing to more people.

 

[endtherapture]

The story certainly wasn't good but it didn't need to be. It was an intelligent shooter that didn't hold your hand, you could quite easily die quickly on the easiest difficulty settings. HL2 was more linear but it had a better fleshed out story, Crysis didn't concentrate on story but had more interesting gameplay instead.

And I agree 100%. I'm not going to say I didn't enjoy playing it either. I did, and I certainly got my $15 worth out of it.


I just haven't had an urge to play it again.

It gave you an objective, and different means to accomplish those objective. You can hop in a vehicle, sneak around, or just run and gun. I think more games need to have gameplay like that with different options to complete an objective instead of just one way.

Fallout 3
Fallout: New Vegas
Just Cause 2
GTA III
GTA: Vice City
GTA: San Andreas
GTA IV
Episodes from Liberty City
Mafia II



And those are just the ones I've played personally.

Fallout games are just a massive sandbox so it's not really applicable to the shooter genre.
Never played Just Cause.

The GTA game missions are on horrible timers so I just end up doing things within the limit and getting stressed - Crysis gave me time to plan out and approach with any method I wanted.

 

[viranimus]

Do we need a new console generation? Sure. Were approaching the time when a new console generation is realistic and viable (IE release in 2013-2015)

However the problem is not needing new hardware. The problem is the rabid graphics whores who thought we needed a new console generation in 2008 having entirely too much sway on the industry and trying to force developers to learn new techniques of development before they have even figured out how to optimize the old hardware.

Look back into history. Specifically around the PS1 era. Now if during the PS1 era you had fanboys demanding a new generation, that would be understandable. But what good would it have done to increase hardware specs had the developers not figured out how to utilize anti aliasing?

Lets look at another historical reference. Remember what graphics looked like on the Snes? By 1994 in the face of the upcoming PS1 and sega saturn, people thought Nintendo was insane for not yet producing a new console because graphically it simply could not compete. Then came games like Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct that showed that creating 3d models on a 16 bit system was entirely possible and it let the Super nintendo remain somewhat competitive for another five years before releasing the N64. Sure they would have looked "better" on the N64, but would a game like Donkey Kong country have even been made on the N64 without the inherent limitations of the hardware?

This is a case where the general public has no clue what it wants or needs so they are the last one to be an appropriate gauge on what is needed.

 

[Pinkamena]

We can get better graphics, of course. But do we need it?

 

[Awexsome]

Graphics aren't a priority for upgrading consoles anymore and for good reason. Current gen graphics are totally good enough. Even the difference of current top of the line PC graphics and say a PS3 or 360 is barely anything.

No, the current difference is not much because the PC is stuck with playing console ports or games built with consoles in mind. Now wonder there is not much of a difference.....

Well who's fault is that? The consoles for existing and being a more appealing option to developers? Or the developers for not trying to build a game meant for PC?

 

[Waaghpowa]

All I'd like to ask for is for console games to be in true HD, aside from that I couldn't care less.

 

[Fishyash]

I think it's more than graphics.

I don't think people can make an extremely sophisticated AI without sacrificing graphics and vice versa. This is mainly due to the 512mb of RAM you are dealing with (to my knowlege). More glitches, less animations, greater FOVs (which goes hand in hand with what you can put on screen) etc are at cost for higher resolution textures. The graphics is definitely not the only thing that can improve with a new generation of consoles, although better graphics is inevitable. At the moment people are sacrificing gameplay elements to try and keep the graphics high quality.

 

[Robert Ewing]

I don't think having good enough graphics is the point of the graphics race.

There is still waaaay more room for improvement before we hit photo realism. And that's just stills. A photo-realistic game would be even harder, making every part absolutely indistinguishable from real life is no small feat.

Tbh, I think graphics are just a selling point. A game with good graphics will help the sales, it's just a fact. Not to mention it increases the chance the player will enjoy the game with all the glorious eye candy floating around on screen.

Humans like flashing lights.

 

[Batou667]

Hrmm. I think last-gen graphics were pretty damn good (think Prince of Persia, Ninja Gaiden, Dead or Alive 3...), and that there's only so much you can polish a 3D animated model before frankly you start spelunking the uncanny valley.

Graphics are really the least of our problems. Give me immersion, not graphical glitz, and the grey stuff between my ears will construct a living, breathing world from a handful of grainy pixels (like back in the 80s and 90s). Give me dialogue that isn't wooden and stilted, and the characters don't use the same canned lines over and over. Give me character models that don't get stuck in the scenery, don't intersect with their weapon models, and don't ice-skate when walking or spin like a bloody Exorcist-style possessed manequin when turning.

Somebody earlier mentioned Mirror's Edge, and they're spot on the money. When some actual thought and consideration is put into graphics, they can be give an ageless appeal that will long outlast the lens-flare du jour. The stuff I liked about Mirror's Edge were the broad, minimalistic strokes combined with small touches. A trash can here, a bit of half-hidden graffiti there, the distant murmer of road traffic and the lazy contrails of overhead planes. Fantastic stuff.

tl;dr: never mind the bloody window-dressing. Occasionally fantastic graphics aren't as important as consistenty adequate graphics.

 

[Dys]

the thing is we are reaching the point where continuing to chase the graphical dream as it were is starting to get to a bad % increase in beauty verus cost ratio.

With games budgets sky-rocketing ANY good reason to hold us here for a while is actually a good one.

And while i am aware we can get much better (i play bf3 on pc, ofc i know lol) but in all honesty i think waiting is in our best interests.

While I believe that games should go for the graphical increase, soon the budget for making current-gen graphics will cause games to either be the new crysis or a retro game in comparison. There will be no middle ground.

that lack of middle ground is whats got many of us spooked.
You know why there were so many just amazing games on the ps2 (other than its lifespan ofc) it was good looking enough to create worlds, but not too expensive that you couldn't have these random high concept ideas that take off out of nowhere.

We lost it a little this gen and to see it go altogether. That would make me very sad.

Surely a lack of middle ground is a good thing. That would mean less 'half assed' games and more crysis (visual emphasis) and tf2 (less visual emphasis). Both are great games, I generally find the 'middle of the road' titles to be the most disappointing. Either fully commit or make a lower cost title!

without the middle ground you can't have experimental but funded games. And thats where the real innovation occurs and gets some polish too . Its why this generation has seen so very little of it. Without the sales figures to back a successfull first experiment theress no way to get that sequel. Sorry state of affairs in my eyes.

(plus this whole two teired pricing structure needs to bugger off, but thats another issue entirely)

I'm not sure I really agree with that.

This idea that pretty or well developed games are hugely expensive seems a little unfounded given how heavily recycled some of the "big budget AAA" titles are and how much more expensive they are to develop, call of duty modern warfare 2 cost between $40 and $50 million to develop (source) whereas the average cost in 2010 for a multi platform "mainstream" games are averaged at costing $20 million (source) (crysis cost $22 million and was released in 2008). Compared to other "mainstream" games released around the same[footnote]Think 'Brutal Legend', gran tourismo, bayonetta, heavy rain, red dead redemption and even starcraft 2. as popular mainstream games for comparison.[/footnote] time MW2 has poor to average graphics, yet cost a relative mint.

Really innovative games, like Mirrors Edge or Company of Heroes tend to feature relatively high graphics quality. I suspect it has more to do with having a smaller team working on the project which would allow more creative freedom than it does with having a huge budget.

Do we need a new console generation? Sure. Were approaching the time when a new console generation is realistic and viable (IE release in 2013-2015)

However the problem is not needing new hardware. The problem is the rabid graphics whores who thought we needed a new console generation in 2008 having entirely too much sway on the industry and trying to force developers to learn new techniques of development before they have even figured out how to optimize the old hardware.

Good graphics have little to do with hardware and more to do with good design. Yes, good hardware allows you to do a lot more, but even the most rabid of graphics whores can look at Gran Tourismo 5 or A link to the past and see how good the art is. Good graphics create an atmosphere and immerse you in the world, photo realism is only one possible direction, and it isn't by a long stretch the only thing limited by shitty processing power (physics, draw distance, destructible terrain, AI, reactive environments like fire spreading over flammable objects, lighting etc).

Look back into history. Specifically around the PS1 era. Now if during the PS1 era you had fanboys demanding a new generation, that would be understandable. But what good would it have done to increase hardware specs had the developers not figured out how to utilize anti aliasing?

Lets look at another historical reference. Remember what graphics looked like on the Snes? By 1994 in the face of the upcoming PS1 and sega saturn, people thought Nintendo was insane for not yet producing a new console because graphically it simply could not compete. Then came games like Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct that showed that creating 3d models on a 16 bit system was entirely possible and it let the Super nintendo remain somewhat competitive for another five years before releasing the N64. Sure they would have looked "better" on the N64, but would a game like Donkey Kong country have even been made on the N64 without the inherent limitations of the hardware?

That would be a fantastic point if developers weren't creating games for 3 platforms simultaneously. Neither Donkey Kong or Killer Instinct would have had anything on what they did if they had been developed for multiple platforms and inherited the weaknesses of all and the strengths of none.

This is a case where the general public has no clue what it wants or needs so they are the last one to be an appropriate gauge on what is needed.

Why do you assume that good graphics is limited to pixel counts or 3d effects? And why do you assume those are the only areas that need improvement?

The reason people have been pushing for a new console generation since 2008 is because the current generation is, quite frankly, shit. High failure rates, abhorrently low memory and relatively unimpressive CPUs (which effects a shitload more than just how many polygons you can draw-as I mentioned above).

And you know what, if we look back historically and analyse what would have happened if nintendo or sony decided not to go ahead with a console generation, say PSone to PS2 or super nintendo to 64, we can pretty inescapably see that games like golden eye, GTA3, OoT (cue long list of fantastic games) wouldn't have worked or would've been completely compromised.

Can you even begin to think how incredible skyrim could be if they had the power to work with so they could allow large scale battles between humans, dragons, draugr and god knows what else happening around you? Or if Alien vs predator (the new one) could have swarms of xenos appear as a flock, out of nowhere through flickering lights casting an eerie glow over the compound. What if skyward sword was placed on a map 5x bigger, and you could sit on top of a mountain and look down over the whole land in HD? It's pretty easy to say these people are being unreasonable with their insatiable quest for better games, but I don't think I'm alone in thinking that technology has seriously been hindering games for some time now, and it's pretty easy to say "it's fine" without trying to guess what we've missed out on, but there's no way we've not missed cool shit because of technological limitations.