The Conduit

[Arcturian]

I'll admit I have wondered ever since whatever review it was about you enjoying Zelda: TP and SMS over OOT and Mario 64. I justified it in my mind since directly afterwords you said "Also, I think Hitler was right!," meaning that you were joking about TP being good.

...but really? Really? Twilight Princess is far and away the worst Zelda game made by Nintendo. Its entire basis was to try to be Ocarina as hard as it could the entire game (image of TP box saying "oh fuck christ shit" while in a pooping pose praying to the box of OOT) while missing the point of what made it great. Did you pay attention to the stories? OOT gets a rap for being simple, but it's pretty much one of the best game stories yet -- you explore and develop a relationship with the game world, meet lots of interesting people and races in various locales, then you do what you thought you were supposed to do and the world turns to shit. This was partly your fault, and mostly the bad guy's fault. Now you've got to set things right -- that's motivation. Twilight Princess had an empty game world with no personality that only serves to funnel you from one dungeon to the next.

Somehow, I'm able to play N64 games more easily than I am able to play a below-average-looking PS2 game. Even the ones that nostalgia isn't tricking me into enjoying; particularly, none of the Zelda games look bad. So TP has higher resolution textures and higher polygon counts than Majora's Mask, so what? They're far from unplayable. If you emulate the N64 Zeldas on an HD-set up PC, it looks better than the original N64 cartridge.

On a side note, get on with playing The Darkness. Best story-based game of the past five years, though it's certainly got flaws.

To be honest, as far as graphics go there is little more that can be done.

This isn't true in the least.

 

[Giest118]

Anyone remember Chrono Trigger? And how it's better than Final Fantasies 7-12 in every possible regard? And how Chrono Trigger was 2D, while the other six were 3D?

And how they were made by the same company?

Interesting.

 

[S_K]

tldr version in order of most important to least:

gameplay, story, graphics

 

[Wolcik]

2D games might age longer, but some of them are build from too few pixels and look similary odd to first 3D games.

I take it like last ZP "there's nothing with game being liniar" about sandbox games.

 

[True Nero]

i still find myself playing ALOT of older 2D games. heck. i just finished playing The Gradius games up to number 3 (if there were any more after it, i forget) and i love them. simplistic, graphics aren't the worst, fun, not too repetitive, and just plain fun.

 

[Ninja-Claws-Benji]

"And no-one's yet found a way to make two 3D models interact realistically. You ever see game characters trying to kiss each other? I find myself listening for the clonk of wood on wood."

I think the Sims manage to interact realistically... That's based on relationships and having a life, so if it can't pull off how it interacts with other models, then the game would probably be shit.

 

[DANGERECTION]

From earlier into the 3-D era and on, I really couldn't enjoy the games I was playing because the graphics literally made me headsick. Spinning around the world of polygons made me outright motion sick, so much so that Twisted Metal 2, I believe, actually made me vomit after about a half hour of play-time.

But in the 360 era, I find that there are a lot of games I can play without the ill effects.

 

[DANGERECTION]

"And no-one's yet found a way to make two 3D models interact realistically. You ever see game characters trying to kiss each other? I find myself listening for the clonk of wood on wood."

I think the Sims manage to interact realistically... That's based on relationships and having a life, so if it can't pull off how it interacts with other models, then the game would probably be shit.

Real quick: From an animation point of view. No, they don't. Not even in the big blockbuster movies by Pixar. Realistic motion seems harder to pull than honest to goodness regular 2-d animation. Theres always something off about the perspective and the movement lacks in the organic department, that its very hard to pull it away from that "Uncanny Valley" feeling.

 

[ReverseEngineered]

I agree, Yahtzee. When the Wii was first announced, I was so excited to have a platform that focused on gameplay and innovation and didn't focus on graphics, that I was one of the first to buy it. And for the most part, I wasn't disappointed -- at first. Nintendo has made several good titles for it. But all the other companies have treated it like a gimmick and a toy. Either they insist on casual games, or they cram the Wiimote into the game where it doesn't belong, or they pretend like it's an XBOX and trash it. Is it really that hard for them to come up with something original and enjoyable?

Well, actually, yes it is.

 

[wildpeaks]

Yes it was easier to make 2-d games, they are fun and enjoyable, and you dont have to fuck around so much with a physics engine.

You can also make interesting things with a physics engine in 2D, Crayon Physics is a fun example of that.

 

[wildpeaks]

From earlier into the 3-D era and on, I really couldn't enjoy the games I was playing because the graphics literally made me headsick. Spinning around the world of polygons made me outright motion sick [...]

I never really understood people who are motion sick when seeing 3D (whereas I'm instantly sick in nearly any vehicule), maybe the sensibility of the mouse is too strong ?

Motion sickness comes (afaik) when you don't control the movement, whereas in games you're the one controlling the camera (well, except things like Prince of Persia 2 [of the modern serie] which gave me nightmares because of its camera movements).

But I'm a [crazy] programmer, that's probably why I feel fine in 3D spaces (except infinite black skyboxes, I have an irrational phobia of them: for example, noclip outside an Unreal 1 map if you want to terrify me whereas I have no problem with empty spaces or pitch black places in real life).

 

[cousto]

great work as always Yahtzee

 

[Jonesy911]

I don't really agree with Yahtzee, graphics literally mean nothing at all to me, like AT ALL. For example my favorite game of all time is Final Fantasy 7, which had amazing graphics in its day, the thing is that the first time I ever played it was in 2008 on my PSP. Point being that even though this game is 12 years old I still enjoyed it even though I only started playing games when the Ps2 came out.

 

[Ninja-Claws-Benji]

"And no-one's yet found a way to make two 3D models interact realistically. You ever see game characters trying to kiss each other? I find myself listening for the clonk of wood on wood."

I think the Sims manage to interact realistically... That's based on relationships and having a life, so if it can't pull off how it interacts with other models, then the game would probably be shit.

Real quick: From an animation point of view. No, they don't. Not even in the big blockbuster movies by Pixar. Realistic motion seems harder to pull than honest to goodness regular 2-d animation. Theres always something off about the perspective and the movement lacks in the organic department, that its very hard to pull it away from that "Uncanny Valley" feeling.

Films are different... In games, in the 2-D Realm, things were a lot more simple, therefore arranging a blur of pixels to do something, when you only have a small range of colours, would be very easy. Whereas in the 3-D World, things can be a lot more complex, so if things could be remotely close to real life, they at least deserve some praise.

 

[Littaly]

This may seem like flipflopping all over the place but I can honestly support the idea of the Wii. For the first time since the first generation, a console has abandoned the race for the best graphics technology in order to concentrate on controller and gameplay innovations. It must have made sense to Nintendo, whose signature franchises traditionally embrace simplicity. The hardware isn't up to scratch, but at least they're trying to fix that with the Motion Plus, and maybe the whole idea of motion sensors is flawed, but let's face it, we could only have figured that out through practice.

That so doesn't sound like what I'm used to hearing when it comes to Zero Punctuation and the Wii :S

But isn't this the direction we're sort of going in. With simplistic DLC and/or indie games becoming more popular parallel to the HD graphic blockbusters.

 

[acebrainbuster]

not to be mean but the title sounds like a total rip of of first person shooter syndrome

 

[samsonguy920]

Was the first time I saw gameplay with Little Big Planet...that looks farking awersome. And at the risk of sounding like a fanboy, yes I agree with Yahtzee, there is too much emphasis on upstaging graphics quality. Either level the stage for a while, or step back a few...it wont kill sales. Might even boost them.

 

[nakburz]

well i have the conduit and i completely disagree the game play is good online fights are awesome and if he couldnt look up then he has some problems like holy crap only a major retard cant look up so eat that

 

[Ericb]

By what I have read, it seems that Yahtzee's point is more about Pixels compared to Polygons than 3D VS 2D.

If there were a way to put pixels interacting with 3D environment, making it like a TRULY interactive cartoon (not like laser disc games of yore), than the best of both worlds would be combined. A dream still, but a exciting one nonetheless.

Anyway, pixel games rarely age badly graphics-wise as 3D ones do, because they are images generated from minute ares of color, pure and simple. It was uncommon for people to complain how fugly NES-era games used to be when compared to the them new SNES-era ones back here.

Of course most back then prefered the new and advanced graphics, that's natural. But rarely did I heard somebody flat out criticize 8-bit graphics after the 16-bit ones showed up.

The same cannot be said at all for polygon games. Ever since the 32-bit era came along, it's been one crazy race towards the creation of the ever-new and ostracism of the constantly-aging yesterday graphics.

It's gonna be like the ancient greeks with their sculptures. They've got to the point where more realism could only entail freezing an actual human being. So they've just let it go and went for creative styles. That's when their statues began to truly shine.

I can't wait for the day when this silly western videogame industry realizes this. History usually repeats itself.