Immersive Gaming: Graphics vs. Fun

[Anarchemitis]

Since I don't care for long things to read on the quick glance i'll keep my statement short:

I've heard the concept behind graphics is to be immersive and I beleive we will very soon or have reached the pinnacle of graphics. [Crysis, Grand Turismo 5, etc.]
The focus of the previous statement is immersive: graphics designed to completely engulf the player.
But I say that the focus of games should be not to have immersive graphics but an immersive gameplay thing or storyline.
In my opinion the best shooter ever made [Star Wars Battlefront] came out 4 years ago and that's because I love how well the gameplay works. The FUN is immersive, not the graphics.

-Meatbags.

 

[[HD]Rob Inglis]

You've got a point there. Graphics are very nice, adding the extra detail to a piece of computer generated artwork, or adding bloody detail to a beheaded zombie. Graphics are really only useful if they ADD to the GAMEPLAY. I mean, I still play the original doom for the computer, because it is really fun. Halo 3 has amazing, if shiny, graphics, but the game itself has already been made before and better. Not saying Halo 3 is bad, in fact it's quite fun; it is much better than Halo 2, as was Halo: Combat Evolved. It's just that you can't slap beautiful pictures and graphics and call it a good game. I have played part way through Bioshock, and really like the game. Everyone says, though, that the game Systemshock 2 was much better than its successor. I'm very sure I'd like Systemshock 2 better, even though it is older, with worse graphics. Bioshock was still awsome though. You don't have to like it so don't yell at me for it, or not completely agreeing with Halo 3.

 

[alexhayter86]

Let's be careful not to mix graphics with polygons/bump mapping/'sexiness'.

Older, or less 'sexy' games, can still be very immersive games graphically. Super Mario World is still a joy to look at, still bright, colourful and possesses a fine artistic style. Defcon and Darwinia are very simple, in terms of their 'sexiness', but are still beautifully immersive games in terms of sheer visuals.

We should look at games' graphics being self-contained and therefore immersive in their own right. Sure, System Shock 2 doesn't have the 'sexiness' of Bioshock, but its still a graphically dynamic game. It's graphics engine, while basic, still contributes very strongly to the 'feel' of the game. Same with something like Deus Ex. It didn't have the most 'sexy' visuals back in it's day, but the graphics still contributed strongly to the immersion felt while playing it.

It's not as simple as better graphics = better immersion. But graphics can get more realistic, and more can be done in games with the growing capabilities of technology. For one, I'm glad that graphics engines are constantly being updated and stretched to their limits, because it means that we're never going to be stuck with the same aesthetics in games.

When we play Doom, we aren't just enjoying it's gameplay: the graphics have a self-contained worth in their own right, despite their age.

 

[romitelli]

Graphics are useless as an ashtray on a motorcycle. It just paints a pretty picture and often covers up a bad game.

Play Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis or any crap that Lucasarts released in the 90s

 

[[HD]Rob Inglis]

Never though of it that way alexhayter. Are you describing the idea that, even though as games graphics may not be "good", that they may still add to the atmosphere and gameplay, depending on what the designers are trying to convey?

 

[neems]

Put it this way - I have Crysis, Cod 4, Bioshock, Gears of War, X3 Reunion, Dirt, Oblivion, and various other games that all have graphics that vary anywhere from great to amazing.

The most 'beautiful' game I own? Okami, on the PS2. In terms of hardware and graphical bells and whistles it pales by comparison to Crysis, but the visual style is amazing, absolutely phenomenal.

Style goes an awful long way - look at TF2. Still using the source engine, but it looks amazing.

 

[Esta]

Graphics are useless as an ashtray on a motorcycle. It just paints a pretty picture and often covers up a bad game.

Nicely put.

Graphics can be all great, but if the story is utter bollocks the game will be bad, no matter how incredible the graphics are. Same with gameplay.

They all cancle each other out.

Bad graphics, good story, could be great.

Bad graphics, good gameplay, could be great.

Bad gameplay, good story, could be great.

Silent Hill is an example of this.

Style goes an awful long way - look at TF2. Still using the source engine, but it looks amazing.

Indeed it does look amazing. What's wrong with the source engine mate? Elaborate.

 

[neems]

Nothing wrong with it per se, but it is getting a bit long in the tooth now. I know they upgrade it with all the gubbins that people expect these days, but in all honesty, it lacks a little in comparison to, say, Unreal Engine 3, Cod 4, Crysis or whatever. Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike Source effectively run on the same engine - but a little thought put in to the visual style, and TF2 looks light years ahead.

Of course, the advantage with Source is that it is probably the best optimised 'high end' graphic engine around. The range of hardware you can run source games on is amazing, especially given the penchant for SM 3.0 minimum that so many games seem to have now.

Make no mistake, I like Source. And I am waiting with baited breath for Left 4 Dead.

 

[alexhayter86]

Rob Inglis]Never though of it that way alexhayter. Are you describing the idea that, even though as games graphics may not be "good", that they may still add to the atmosphere and gameplay, depending on what the designers are trying to convey?

Absolutely. What I'm saying is that the graphics - or visuals - or of extreme importance in ANY game. They contribute so much to the experience of playing the game. Play through any old game and you'll notice how much the graphics, no matter how bad they are in comparison to modern games, are intergral to forming your experience of the game. Sure, the original Prince of Persia isn't exactly up to the 'sexiness' of, say, Assassin's Creed, but the graphics still contribute to your emotional response greatly.

I think its fairly redundant to make the argument that gameplay is the all-important factor in games. Graphics, visuals, are the vessel by which we interact with the game. The controller forms the other part. Graphics/aesthetics are extremely important then, but 'sexiness/multi-polygonal/bump-mapping/shader2.0/semen' is not.

 

[werepossum]

I love good graphics, but personal preference plays a large part as well. I absolutely hate anime-style graphics and would find that sort of game graphically crude, but lots of people love that style and would find the same game graphically excellent. And many people prefer a game with bright, sharp colors and inventive art design over one with very realistic graphics reflecting the grays and browns of a battlefield.

Good art design can carry mediocre graphics a long way and give a game long life. Conversely, poor art design can kill a graphically excellent game. I loved F.E.A.R. and the graphics were great - but the level design was mostly painfully dated and generic.

 

[ShadowFlex]

Well Graphics..Sadly..Will come to a halt sooner or later right? I mean there is as close to real as you can get before it becomes real. So if you are a concerned gamer who fears for the depth and soul of a game fear not. When all the graphics finally get pushed to the limit consoles will only have two (maybe three) Things to fall back on.

1. The amount of objects on screen at once (Let's face it when you have seen one thousand zombies on screen trying to get your nads once, ten thousand is not very life changing).

Or.

2. An Actual decent game, with depth, purpose, and a hook. Not a lie to us with fancy words and screenshots of Dragons (Yes I'm looking at you LAIR you giant pile of disappointment, anyone want to buy a £40 frisby?)

And finally the maybe,

3. By the time graphics reach there peek, video games will have been banned for corrupting the youth, Starting the war on Iraq, Not believing in Santa thus making him die, Taxes, spam, Low fat cheese, low fat anything, Michel Jackson, Day time television, zombie masses (Might actually be to blame for this one), Gansta's, drugs, The JFK Assassination, IKEA, Microsoft. Making my solutions stated previous Pointless.

....That or Global warming gets us...

 

[The Madman]

I still play Nethack every once and awhile and just finished downloading some new mods for Baldur's Gate 2 for yet another replay.

No, graphics are pretty irrelevant to me when it comes to judging a game in the long term. That's not to say I don't approve of great graphics, properly used lighting techniques and effects can make all the difference between a yawnfest and a truly ambient game... but so does sound. A game can look magnifient and have the creepiest art direction ever, but if the sound effects are terrible and the story bland the ambience is ruined all the same, no matter how many polys you're pushing.

Graphics and art direction are only parts of a greater whole, why they get all the attention with most new games is mind boggling. Personally I'm of the oppinion developers need to stop pushing the graphics envelope for awhile and focus more on improving other gaming elements like sound or AI. Make a more cohesive whole as it were. I still find the old Thief and System Shock games sound better than many new games, and those are 6+ years old. Somethings wrong with that!

 

[super_smash_jesus]

I agree with almost everyone here, when saying that graphics are great, but generally, the nicest looking games are just covering themselves up with a lot of glitter and pizazz. They could make a game that had the most realistic graphics to date, but if it is the same old FPS that they churn out every 3 weeks, then who the hell cares how nice it looks. give me some innovation or storyline that deserves to be praised, and then the game may actually be worth playing.

 

[TheHound]

Personally I think games companies should have an Art department and a coding department that work seperatly so that the graphics vs gameplay doesnt come into it. But wait they do. 'Spend less time on graphics more on gameplay' doesnt make sense as a texturer is unlikely to be able to code well or write a good story with a good set of lines. The ideal is the art department creates the graphics that suit the game.

i.e. taking Crysis. It started with Cervat Yerli saying 'I want an island then I want it frozen and i want the game to change.' The coders came up with an engine that can render large areas and the art department came up with foligage that moved so there would be the contrast when it didnt. Because these graphics are high end meant they did a bad job? Heres something to take note of pause a game of quake 4 or oblivion looks fine. pause crysis it looks wrong. Why cos nothings moving you dont notice it but everything moves in crysis.

For all its high end trickery Crysis is far from a bad game. yeah i love it and have played through it at least 5 times, so you can call me a fanboy but the reviews tend to agree its not a bad game.Graphics dont hurt.

 

[TheHound]

Some of my favourite games are Planescape Torment, Baldurs Gate - complete series, and Vampire Bloodlines. All had excellent story lines well told with good lines. Vampire also had great graphics and i thought Baldurs Gate graphics were great. The beautifully drawn backgrounds thoguh 2D we amazing to look at. The artists on those games were just as committed to good graphics as those in Crysis or any other modern release. If the end product had sucked would hardly be their fault.

 

[Terramax]

I think it depends on the game. One of my most adored games is Myst IV: Revelation.

Sometimes I upload that game and just spend 5-10 minutes wondering around Atrus' house, watching the river flow, the birds and butterflies come and go, listen to Jack Walls' subliminal musical talent.

It's the same with Mario Sunshine. I don't care for saving the princess, and I didn't enjoy Mario 64 that much (and I doubt Galexies) but I played for the exploration for the masterful level design, heated blur effects and awesome detail.

However, I do agree that sometimes too much graphics can also break a game.

I'm having a heated debate on a Silent Hill forum over the graphics of the up and coming Silent Hill V. The game looks too detailed with shiny walls and overzealous lighting effects.

Silent Hill 1 & 3 benefit from their console's limitations. SH3 looks gritty only because of the lack of sharpness and low resolution of the PS2 compared to, say, the Xbox.

The gritty side of Silent Hill complimented the feel it was meant to pull off. Although I've not looked this up, I'm considering this is one of the reasons why SH3 was not released on the xbox(?)

I don't agree on either side of this. I think it's up to developers to think about a game' individual balance of gameplay and graphics rather than the industry as a whole.

Whatever the case, I must say, I do 'prefer' pre-rendered graphics to 3D. Very few 3D games have convinced me that it can be used to significant use (Shenmue, Silent Hill 1-3, games by the Ico Team).

 

[dan_the_manatee]

I don't think good graphics carry bad games. Bad games frequently have terrible graphical glitches framerates etc. I'm pretty sure most developers and publishers know a mediocre game, even if they're making it. There's no point labouring over graphical bug fixes with shoddy games.
Has anyone actually said they like the graphics?

I will: they're the bit I have to look at. I don't like seeing pop-in, poor models, boring level design, crude textures, clipping and jagged polygons.
And fun isn't immersive: fun is enjoyable. Immersion needs everything - story sound, art design, graphics etc. If a gmae isn't fun, then it's not a good game; that's their entire remit.
Bioshock and Mass Effect are immersive - you feel for protagonists, you make choices for your character; it fires your imagination. Both of those games are indisputably good; but they'd be a whole lot less immersive if you gave them the graphics of 5 yrs ago.

 

[neems]

Of course, most of the people posting on these forums are reading from the same page, or can hold up their end of the argument if they disagree with the prevailing viewpoint. I think most of us would say that gameplay / story are more important than visuals; some might say that graphica are an integral part of gaming, but not necessarily the be-all-and-end-all. Not many of us would proclaim that we love graphics and nothing else matters.

But that is not always the case.

As an example (but by no means isolated), there was a post on the steam forums when the pc port of lost planet was first released, that went something along the lines of "...i dont care if im getting 6 fps, i just wish i could play it with nice pretty graphics, hell i can get it to max without dual core and all that jazz to around 13-15 and it runs fine,". I've seen an awful lot of posts like that in various places; I always assume that it's kids, but who knows?

Graphics sell - or at least they used to. Apparently Crysis knocked a bit of sense in to people. They actually stopped, looked at the screenshots and the requirements, and thought 'I'm never gonna be able to run this properly'. They'd probably been burned too many times by graphical powerhouse games in the past.

As an aside, does anyone else find that they're starting to look at Indie games more now? Introversion (Defcon, Darwinia, Uplink) being a perfect example of stylish visuals married to unusual / intriguing ideas; the kind of thinking you don't tend to see from the major developers anymore.

 

[ExileNZ]

Bioshock and Mass Effect are immersive - you feel for protagonists, you make choices for your character; it fires your imagination. Both of those games are indisputably good; but they'd be a whole lot less immersive if you gave them the graphics of 5 yrs ago.

The graphics of FIVE years ago? (with apologies for caps)
Dude, System Shock 2 came out in like 1998 and, to hear Yahtzee tell it, Bioshock is SS2 "dumbed down for the console tards". Sadly I still haven't played it myself, but Yahtzee does at least back up his claim - the turrets, the wrench, the hack- PLUMBING, the cyber- PLASMIDS (with more apologies for caps)... the list goes on.

Now I have no problem with this, I loved SS2 and I've looked forward to Bioshock for a long time regardless. If anything he's confirmed I'll love it to death (I may beat my previous record of 30-something hours at the machine minus lunch and toilet breaks).
But let's not kid ourselves here, pretty-shinies and 2048x1600 do not make or break immersion. They just make it a tad more enjoyable (and I hope to God easier on the eyes).

As a side-note, I got SS2 Resurrection/Rebirth/whatever a while ago and, while I loved the new models, they just weren't as scary any more - the former aesthetic was grafted to my mind and stayed there like a Many larva (kudos to the guy who did it tho, I hear he got yummed up by Bioware or someone before he could even finish the mod).

Finally, and this is the one time I'll EVER ask for a spoiler: does Rapture have monkeys?

 

[Terramax]

The graphics of FIVE years ago? (with apologies for caps)
Dude, System Shock 2 came out in like 1998 and, to hear Yahtzee tell it, Bioshock is SS2 "dumbed down for the console tards". Sadly I still haven't played it myself, but Yahtzee does at least back up his claim - the turrets, the wrench, the hack- PLUMBING, the cyber- PLASMIDS (with more apologies for caps)... the list goes on.

Yahtzee slammed the game for its gameplay, not graphics. I like the look of Bioshock for the same reason I liked Psychonauts - it wasn't just great graphics, it has a certain sense of style. Pity then half the time there?re so many shadows I can?t tell where the heck I and everyone else is most of the time.

Of course, most of the people posting on these forums are reading from the same page, or can hold up their end of the argument if they disagree with the prevailing viewpoint. I think most of us would say that gameplay / story are more important than visuals; some might say that graphica are an integral part of gaming, but not necessarily the be-all-and-end-all.

I disagree with both viewpoints stated here. I believe graphics, plot and game play go hand in hand with the best of games.

The reason why computer games are closer to my heart than films and books is because games can be more eclectic than other mediums.

Using visuals, sound, voices, dialog, the next level of interactivity and choice to tell a story. I'm a firm believer games can go further than any other medium. Of course, 99% of games appear to not bother with the real capabilities games have to offer, so we?ve yet to see just how far games can go (I hope anyway).

This is the reason why I resent so many games. When I heard Yahtzee describe Mass Effect ?has characters spill out their life stories' every time you approach someone, or a phonebook's worth of information is thrown at you when you click on a computer screen of some sorts, I immediately switched off.

To me, that isn't great storytelling (or entertaining).

I think I made a point of this with the dialog and story in my Tomb Raider Legends review.

I'm pretty sure Ico and Shadow of the Colossus has proven to an extent that you can tell a great, albeit ambiguous story, out of almost visuals alone.

Psychonauts is another prime example. It looks great! But the visuals are another character in the story. Its uniqueness drew me in to wanting to know more about the world and the characters. It never felt like a chore learning about the environments and it?s characters.

Take the tormented painter later on; showing his head as a cartoony world of abstact art told me more than any dialog could.