Honestly, games with some reasonably modern approaches to controls/UI and configurable settings are really nice: vsync or framerate limits, dynamic resolution, different AA methods, changes to LODs or model detail/textures, ability to toggle effects like post processing, or disable film grain, chromatic aberration, vignette effects etc., or even geting to choose stuff like borderless fullscreen.
What makes them even better, is when they also run due to allowing scaling graphics back, or due to having a stylized graphical art style, in addition to some decent optimization. For example, in my eyes Valheim is definitely one of those games - it looks low fidelity when you have a look at some of the textures, but runs pretty well even on hardware that is not super recent! Most e-sports titles or games that aim for a wider audience also fit here.
Occasionally even remakes like Black Mesa are nice to behold (even though the performance situation is a bit more challenging there), initiatives that bring older games, even like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., into the modern day, with people really caring about the end result!
Thank you! I still have mad respect for people that had to work with what they had, and produced something truly playable - for example, things like Atari’s Pitfall. That hardware was positively primitive and it took real creativity to make something memorable.
I think it’s here where David Crane explains it, for example. I think I remember a video on the creation of Adventure on Atari, and the hacks that were required…for every platform (before and since) there are usually some constraints the creators are working with; the fact that many of these systems were able to do what they did often blows me away. I think as time goes on, obviously orders of power - memory, speed, storage have exploded, but then the creators are asked to do even more at that point, usually hitting some limit, but I’d never call what they did “bad”.
I’ve never really cared much about graphics in video games, and a game can still be great with even the simplest of graphics - see the Faith series, for example. Interesting story and still has some good scares despite the 8-bit graphics.
To me many of these games with retro aesthetics (either because they’re actually retro or the dev decided to go with a retro style) don’t really feel dated, but rather nostalgic and charming in their own special way.
And many other people also don’t seem to care much about graphics. Minecraft and Roblox are very popular despite having very simplistic graphics, and every now and then a new gameplay video about some horror game with a retro aesthetic will pop up on my recommended, and so far I’ve never seen anyone complain about the graphics, only compliments about them being interesting, nostalgic and charming.
Also I have a potato PC, and it can’t run these modern 8K FPS games anyway, so having these games with simpler graphics that I can actually run is nice. But maybe that’s just me.
Ultrakill imo is a perfect example of how you don’t need good graphics to be a successful new game today and TF2 is another example of what does good graphics even means as there’s more graphics directions than just realistic quite frankly with the advent of photos scanning combined with how real graphics can get today id imagine game graphics are going to be like art when the photography was invented
It’s more about the controls than the graphics. Like, GTA San Andreas is probably still my favourite one, but trying to play with the old controls after having played with the new ones is so hard.
All they gotta do is update the controls and it’s all good
It’s really interesting how added detail can detract from art.
Old games, you had to use your imagination, and every single detail of a game (the good ones, anyways) worked toward feeding the idea being presented. Even if the art part sucked, there’d be a clear vision to the game.
These days, graphics just look like what they are, no imagination required. It doesn’t even spin up that part of your brain because there’s enough detail to soak in. That sounds nice, but it can completely change the mood of a scene for a viewer if they’re watching instead of thinking.
It also seems like the artistic focus these days is on the literal art assets and not the whole project as an art piece. I think the corporatizing of the gaming industry hamstrung creativity in general. Managers and executives have no idea what good writing is, but you might get a raise if that character model looks cool! (haha just kidding, no one gets raises).
I think that’s part of the indie fascination of low poly horror. If your brain has to do some translating/inferencing of what it is seeing it adds a visceral element that horror especially benefits from
I still can’t believe Alien Isolation came from the same studio that made Rome: Total War. Though I imagine the developer overlap was quite small. I’ve never bothered to look further into the credits however.
Tbh I haven’t been playing 2d games recently but damn I just can’t abandon cave story I just love the music and the game feel of being able to aim up and down while platforming i have to say those are the two reasons why even tho I don’t play 2d games anymore I continue to return to cave story
The only games I can’t play specifically because of the bad graphics are “3-D” games from back in the 8/16 bit and just beyond generations.
The bright/highly contrasting colors, uneven grids, and camera rotation functions they used to achieve the effect made me throw up pretty much every time I tried to play them - motion sickness.
Beyond that I still rock non-remastered ps1/2/gc/Xbox and have a retropi for all the older stuff - those games were great, and they did so much with what was available. New games do too, but they have so so much more to work with.
Yea, only afew of those early 3D games were designed well. Somehow, Nintendo really nailed something good with Mario 64, though. That game was a dream compared to the mess of so many other early 3D games.
The tank controls in Tomb Raider made me quit that game even though it was really fun. ha
Yea. It also provided an example that so many failed to follow. I wish I remembered a specific example, but I remember a few things having basically the same control scheme, but still managed to be miserable to play.
Could’ve also been me being a dumb kid. I remember another kid having big issues playing on the display machine swimming under water in Mario 64 because they didn’t get the 3D controls. lol
The camera could be one example, in my opinion. Nintendo spent so much time trying to make it feel natural, and even included that one room where you could see the Lakitu cameraman, because they were worried that people would have a hard time transitioning to 3D thinking.
And they were right. A lot of other games didn’t handle it as well.
It’s so mind-boggling that games that by today’s standards look really dated were considered to be marvelous achievements. And I remember all the games I played back then to look amazing too.
Take Diablo 2. It looked amazing, and mind you it still does, but it does show its age today. I showed D2 Resurrected to my older brother, and he swears that the updated graphics is what he played with back in the day lol
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