Somehow, I never had that first feeling. The first console that there ever was at my house was a PS2 (my dad’s), and the only game he purchased was a SNES Station. So I kinda grew up playing only pixelated games. Turns out I got too used to it and play almost no realistic games.
My expectations were far lower, without me realising it, as a child.
I remember getting Mortal Kombat 4, on the N64, and thinking “holy shit, the graphics are so good!!! SO 3D!”
I replayed Neverwinter Nights base campaigns again not too long ago. Replayability used to be the standard, and for $20. I’m not paying $60+ for a 30hr game that lacks the compulsion to turn around and start up another play through. Granted, D&D 3.5 character builds are compelling on their own, but I digress.
Replayability was largely replaced with “content”. A good modern contrast is God of War and Resident Evil. Resident Evil embraces their tradition of replayability, God of War has an insane amount of “content” on a checklist to make a playtrough be a dollar an hour.
Except with God of War you get collectibles only visible from a certain angle or “puzzles” where the puzzle is an unreasonably short time limit to execute something obvious or an inordinately tight set of jumps to bad time.
Meanwhile in Resident evil every corner actual still has a purpose, like it did before.
I really don’t see the point of the whole pixelated aesthetic. I mean, it’s nostalgia, but for what? For a time when we wished we had more pixels? If you want that kind of nostalgia, why not also have a loading screen showing a cassette tape going round… for 15 fucking minutes. Hell, it isn’t even accurate nostalgia, because pixelation on a hi res smartphone or monitor looks totally different from the blurry pixelation you get on a shitty CRT TV. If you can see the corners on your pixels, you’re doing it wrong.
I know there is a lot to be nostalgic for, it’s just that the lack of pixels isn’t one of those things. Some things have simply gotten better, more pixels is one of those things. Pixelation is just a way of making a game graphically less clear and less pleasant to look at. /rant
Don’t get me wrong, I love the creativity that comes from having such a limitation. And back when it was a necessity, and you could count the color palette on your fingers, some pixel art was amazing. But it was largely about trying to transcend those limitations. For example, it was very common to use antialiasing as much as possible, because you’re trying to make things look good despite the pixellation. Whereas the aesthetic of modern pixel art tends to be about making things as clunky and jaggy as can be, so you can really check out those pixels, or showcase that crappy color palette. Conspicuous pixellation is untrue to its origins. It also makes game objects less recognizable, sacrificing utility for an aesthetic. I know there are people who like it, which is fine, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be criticized, and so far I have seen no counterpoints to the criticisms I have raised.
Just because you personally dislike certain art style doesn’t make it objectively bad. I’m a zoomer, I don’t have nostalgia for pixel graphics and yet I enjoy pixel art. I can’t stand CRT filters on pixel games (modern or emulated) btw.
I’ve dealt with enough people who think their preferences are absolute that I just couldn’t be sure whether you’re one of them or not. I’m glad we agree that art is subjective.
I still stand by the whole “Glorious PC gaming master race!!!” Circlejerk had a profoundly negative impact on video games, as for about 10 years the mainstream gaming community seemed to only give a shit about frame rates and resolutions and Devs where happy to just focus on that instead of making their games fun to play or have interesting stories.
In most games I find no matter how good the static assets look, the animations immediately break the illusion of ‘realism’.
One recent exception to this were some of the cutscenes in Expedition 33, the facial mocap was very on-point and, even though the game isn’t anywhere close to photorealistic, it felt close to watching real actors perform a scene.
it’s not even about “worse” it’s that we’ve always been more impressed by stylish graphics than high fidelity graphics. probably the most frustrating franchise to have forgotten this lessons is borderlands
Might I suggest Doom Patrol? Umbrella Academy was inspired pretty much entirely by Doom Patrol and Gerard Way dropping the ball on his run at the series.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne