Really? Cause I don’t know, I can play Shadow of the Colossus, Resident Evil 4, Metal Gear Solid 3, Ninja Gaiden Black, God of War, Burnout Revenge and GTA San Andreas just fine.
And yes, those are all 20 years ago. You are now dead and I made it happen.
As a side note, man, 2005 was a YEAR in gaming. That list gives 1998 a run for its money.
I would say GoW and SotC at least take realism as inspiration, but aren’t realistic. They’re like an idealized version of realism. They’re detailed, but they’re absolutely stylized. SotC landscapes, for example, look more like paintings you’d see rather than places you’d see in real life.
Realism is a bad goal because you end up making every game look the same. Taking our world as inspiration is fine, but it should almost always be expanded on. Know what your game is and make the art style enhance it. Don’t just replicate realism because that’s “what you’re supposed to do.”
Look, don’t take it personally, but I disagree as hard as humanly possible.
Claiming that realism “makes every game look the same” is a shocking statement, and I don’t think you mean it like it sounds. That’s like saying that every movie looks the same because they all use photographing people as a core technique.
If anything, I don’t know what “realism” is supposed to mean. What is more realistic? Yakuza because it does these harsh, photo-based textures meant to highlight all the pores or, say, a Pixar movie where everything is built on this insanely accurate light transfer, path traced simulation?
At any rate, the idea that taking photorealism as a target means you give up on aesthetics or artistic intent is baffling. That’s not even a little bit how it works.
On the other point, I think you’re blending technical limitations with intent in ways that are a bit fallacious. SotC is stylized, for sure, in that… well, there are kaijus running around and you sometimes get teleported by black tendrils back to your sleeping beauty girlfirend.
But is it aiming at photorealism? Hell yeah. That approach to faking dynamic range, the deliberate crushing of exteriors from interiors, the way the sky gets treated, the outright visible air adding distance and scale when you look at the colossi from a distance, the desaturated take on natural spaces… That game is meant to look like it was shot by a camera all the way. They worked SO hard to make a PS2 look like it has aperture and grain and a piece of celluloid capturing light. Harder than the newer remake, arguably.
Some of that applies to GoW, too, except they are trying to make things look like Jason and the Argonauts more than Saving Private Ryan. But still, the references are filmic.
I guess we’re back to the problem of establishing what people mean by “realism” and how it makes no sense. In what world does Cyberpunk look similar to Indiana Jones or Wukong? It just has no real meaning as a statement.
If anything, I don’t know what “realism” is supposed to mean. What is more realistic? Yakuza because it does these harsh, photo-based textures meant to highlight all the pores or, say, a Pixar movie where everything is built on this insanely accurate light transfer, path traced simulation?
The former is more realistic, but not for that reason. The lighting techniques are techniques, not a style. Realism is trying to recreate the look of the real world. Pixar is not doing that. They’re using advanced lighting techniques to enhance their stylized worlds.
Some of that applies to GoW, too, except they are trying to make things look like Jason and the Argonauts more than Saving Private Ryan. But still, the references are filmic.
Being inspired by film is not the same as trying to replicate the real world. (I’d argue it’s antithetical to it to an extent.) Usually film is trying to be more than realistic. Sure, it’s taking images from the real world, but they use lighting, perspective, and all kinds of other tools to enhance the film. They don’t just put some actors in place in the real environment and film it without thought. There’s intent behind everything shown.
I guess we’re back to the problem of establishing what people mean by “realism” and how it makes no sense. In what world does Cyberpunk look similar to Indiana Jones or Wukong? It just has no real meaning as a statement.
Cyberpunk looks more like Indiana Jones than Persona 5. Sure, they stand out from each other, but it’s mostly due to environments.
I think there’s plenty of games that benefit from realism, but not all of them do. There are many games that could do better with stylized graphics instead. For example, Cyberpunk is represented incredibly well in both the game and the anime. They both have different things they do better, and the anime’s style is an advantage for the show at least. The graphics style should be chosen to enhance the game. It shouldn’t just be realistic because it can be. If realism is the goal, fine. If it’s supposed to be more (or different) than realism, maybe try a different style that improves the game.
Realism is incredibly hard to create assets for, so it costs more money, and usually takes more system resources. For the games that are improved by it, that’s fine. There’s a lot of games that could be made on a smaller budget, faster, run better, and look more visually interesting if they chose a different style though. I think it should be a consideration that developers are allowed to make, but most are just told to do realism because it’s the “premium” style. They aren’t allowed to do things that are better suited for their game. I think this is bad, and also leads to a lack in diversity of styles.
I don’t understand what you’re saying. Or, I do, but if I do, then you don’t.
I think you’re mixing up technique with style, in fact. And really confusing a rendering technique with an aesthetic. But beyond that, you’re ignoring so many games. So many. Just last year, how do you look at Balatro and Penny’s Big Breakaway and Indiana Jones and go “ah, yes, games all look the same now”. The list of GOTY nominees in the TGAs was Astro Bot, Balatro, Wukong, Metaphor, Elden Ring and Final Fantasy VII R. How do you look at that list of games and go “ah, yes, same old, same old”.
Whenever I see takes like these I can’t help but think that people who like to talk about games don’t play enough games, or just think of a handful of high profile releases as all of gaming. Because man, there’s so much stuff and it goes from grungy, chunky pixel art to lofi PS1-era jank to pitch-perfect anime cel shading to naturalistic light simulation. If you’re out there thinking games look samey you have more of a need to switch genres than devs to switch approach, I think.
By “all games look the same” I’m being hyperbolic. I mean nearly all AAA games and the majority of AA games (and not an insignificant number of indies even).
Whenever I see takes like these I can’t help but think that people who like to talk about games don’t play enough games, or just think of a handful of high profile releases as all of gaming.
Lol. No. Again, I was being hyperbolic and talking mostly about the AAA and AA space. I personally almost exclusively play indies who know what they’re trying to make and use a style appropriate to it. I play probably too many games. I also occasionally make games myself, I was the officer in a game development club in college, and I have friends in the industry. I’m not just some person who doesn’t understand video games.
Absolutely they went for realism. That was the absolute peak of graphics tech in 2004, are you kidding me? I gawked at the fur in Shadow of the Colossus, GTA was insane for detail and size for an open world at the time. Resi 4 was one of the best looking games that gen and when the 360 came out later that year it absolutely was the “last gen still looked good” game people pointed at.
I only went for that year because I wanted the round number, but before that Silent Hill 2 came out in 2001 and that was such a ridiculous step up in lighting tech I didn’t believe it was real time when the first screenshots came out. It still looks great, it still plays… well, like Silent Hill, and it’s still a fantastic game I can get back into, even with the modern remake in place.
This isn’t a zero sum game. You don’t trade gameplay or artistry for rendering features or photorealism. Those happen in parallel.
They clearly balanced the more detailed art design with the game play.
GTA didn’t have detail on cars to the level of a racing game, and didn’t have characters with as much detail as Resident Evil, so that it could have a larger world for example. Colossus had fewer objects on screen so it could put more detail on what was there.
Nothing was going harder for visuals, so by default that’s what was happening. They were pushing visuals as hard as they would go with the tech that they had.
The big change isn’t that they balanced visuals and gameplay. If anything the big change is that visuals were capped by performance rather than budget (well, short of offline CG cutscenes and VO, I suppose).
If anything they were pushing visuals harder than now. There is no way you’d see a pixel art deck building game on GOTY lists in 2005, it was all AAA as far as the eye could see. We pay less attention to technological escalation now, by some margin.
Except for the ones that don’t do a good job of balancing the two things. Like the games that have incredible detail but shit performance and/or awful gameplay.
Well, yeah, but again, that’s not new, and it’s something every game has to do, better or worse.
I’m aging myself here, but if you must know, the time that stands out most to me in the “graphics over gameplay” debate is actually… 8 bit micros, weirdly.
There was a time where people mostly just looked at how much of a screen a character filled, or whether the backgrounds scrolled and just bought that, while a subset of the userbase and press was pleading to them to pay at least some consideration to whether the game… you know, could be played at all.
Really? Cause I don’t know, I can play Shadow of the Colossus, Resident Evil 4, Metal Gear Solid 3, Ninja Gaiden Black, God of War, Burnout Revenge and GTA San Andreas just fine.
And yes, those are all 20 years ago. You are now dead and I made it happen.
As a side note, man, 2005 was a YEAR in gaming. That list gives 1998 a run for its money.
I would say GoW and SotC at least take realism as inspiration, but aren’t realistic. They’re like an idealized version of realism. They’re detailed, but they’re absolutely stylized. SotC landscapes, for example, look more like paintings you’d see rather than places you’d see in real life.
Realism is a bad goal because you end up making every game look the same. Taking our world as inspiration is fine, but it should almost always be expanded on. Know what your game is and make the art style enhance it. Don’t just replicate realism because that’s “what you’re supposed to do.”
Look, don’t take it personally, but I disagree as hard as humanly possible.
Claiming that realism “makes every game look the same” is a shocking statement, and I don’t think you mean it like it sounds. That’s like saying that every movie looks the same because they all use photographing people as a core technique.
If anything, I don’t know what “realism” is supposed to mean. What is more realistic? Yakuza because it does these harsh, photo-based textures meant to highlight all the pores or, say, a Pixar movie where everything is built on this insanely accurate light transfer, path traced simulation?
At any rate, the idea that taking photorealism as a target means you give up on aesthetics or artistic intent is baffling. That’s not even a little bit how it works.
On the other point, I think you’re blending technical limitations with intent in ways that are a bit fallacious. SotC is stylized, for sure, in that… well, there are kaijus running around and you sometimes get teleported by black tendrils back to your sleeping beauty girlfirend.
But is it aiming at photorealism? Hell yeah. That approach to faking dynamic range, the deliberate crushing of exteriors from interiors, the way the sky gets treated, the outright visible air adding distance and scale when you look at the colossi from a distance, the desaturated take on natural spaces… That game is meant to look like it was shot by a camera all the way. They worked SO hard to make a PS2 look like it has aperture and grain and a piece of celluloid capturing light. Harder than the newer remake, arguably.
Some of that applies to GoW, too, except they are trying to make things look like Jason and the Argonauts more than Saving Private Ryan. But still, the references are filmic.
I guess we’re back to the problem of establishing what people mean by “realism” and how it makes no sense. In what world does Cyberpunk look similar to Indiana Jones or Wukong? It just has no real meaning as a statement.
The former is more realistic, but not for that reason. The lighting techniques are techniques, not a style. Realism is trying to recreate the look of the real world. Pixar is not doing that. They’re using advanced lighting techniques to enhance their stylized worlds.
Being inspired by film is not the same as trying to replicate the real world. (I’d argue it’s antithetical to it to an extent.) Usually film is trying to be more than realistic. Sure, it’s taking images from the real world, but they use lighting, perspective, and all kinds of other tools to enhance the film. They don’t just put some actors in place in the real environment and film it without thought. There’s intent behind everything shown.
Cyberpunk looks more like Indiana Jones than Persona 5. Sure, they stand out from each other, but it’s mostly due to environments.
I think there’s plenty of games that benefit from realism, but not all of them do. There are many games that could do better with stylized graphics instead. For example, Cyberpunk is represented incredibly well in both the game and the anime. They both have different things they do better, and the anime’s style is an advantage for the show at least. The graphics style should be chosen to enhance the game. It shouldn’t just be realistic because it can be. If realism is the goal, fine. If it’s supposed to be more (or different) than realism, maybe try a different style that improves the game.
Realism is incredibly hard to create assets for, so it costs more money, and usually takes more system resources. For the games that are improved by it, that’s fine. There’s a lot of games that could be made on a smaller budget, faster, run better, and look more visually interesting if they chose a different style though. I think it should be a consideration that developers are allowed to make, but most are just told to do realism because it’s the “premium” style. They aren’t allowed to do things that are better suited for their game. I think this is bad, and also leads to a lack in diversity of styles.
I don’t understand what you’re saying. Or, I do, but if I do, then you don’t.
I think you’re mixing up technique with style, in fact. And really confusing a rendering technique with an aesthetic. But beyond that, you’re ignoring so many games. So many. Just last year, how do you look at Balatro and Penny’s Big Breakaway and Indiana Jones and go “ah, yes, games all look the same now”. The list of GOTY nominees in the TGAs was Astro Bot, Balatro, Wukong, Metaphor, Elden Ring and Final Fantasy VII R. How do you look at that list of games and go “ah, yes, same old, same old”.
Whenever I see takes like these I can’t help but think that people who like to talk about games don’t play enough games, or just think of a handful of high profile releases as all of gaming. Because man, there’s so much stuff and it goes from grungy, chunky pixel art to lofi PS1-era jank to pitch-perfect anime cel shading to naturalistic light simulation. If you’re out there thinking games look samey you have more of a need to switch genres than devs to switch approach, I think.
By “all games look the same” I’m being hyperbolic. I mean nearly all AAA games and the majority of AA games (and not an insignificant number of indies even).
Watch this video. Maybe it’ll help you understand what I’m saying.
Lol. No. Again, I was being hyperbolic and talking mostly about the AAA and AA space. I personally almost exclusively play indies who know what they’re trying to make and use a style appropriate to it. I play probably too many games. I also occasionally make games myself, I was the officer in a game development club in college, and I have friends in the industry. I’m not just some person who doesn’t understand video games.
Did those go for realism though, or were they just good at balancing the more detailed art design with the gameplay?
Absolutely they went for realism. That was the absolute peak of graphics tech in 2004, are you kidding me? I gawked at the fur in Shadow of the Colossus, GTA was insane for detail and size for an open world at the time. Resi 4 was one of the best looking games that gen and when the 360 came out later that year it absolutely was the “last gen still looked good” game people pointed at.
I only went for that year because I wanted the round number, but before that Silent Hill 2 came out in 2001 and that was such a ridiculous step up in lighting tech I didn’t believe it was real time when the first screenshots came out. It still looks great, it still plays… well, like Silent Hill, and it’s still a fantastic game I can get back into, even with the modern remake in place.
This isn’t a zero sum game. You don’t trade gameplay or artistry for rendering features or photorealism. Those happen in parallel.
They clearly balanced the more detailed art design with the game play.
GTA didn’t have detail on cars to the level of a racing game, and didn’t have characters with as much detail as Resident Evil, so that it could have a larger world for example. Colossus had fewer objects on screen so it could put more detail on what was there.
Yeah. So like every other game.
Nothing was going harder for visuals, so by default that’s what was happening. They were pushing visuals as hard as they would go with the tech that they had.
The big change isn’t that they balanced visuals and gameplay. If anything the big change is that visuals were capped by performance rather than budget (well, short of offline CG cutscenes and VO, I suppose).
If anything they were pushing visuals harder than now. There is no way you’d see a pixel art deck building game on GOTY lists in 2005, it was all AAA as far as the eye could see. We pay less attention to technological escalation now, by some margin.
Except for the ones that don’t do a good job of balancing the two things. Like the games that have incredible detail but shit performance and/or awful gameplay.
Well, yeah, but again, that’s not new, and it’s something every game has to do, better or worse.
I’m aging myself here, but if you must know, the time that stands out most to me in the “graphics over gameplay” debate is actually… 8 bit micros, weirdly.
There was a time where people mostly just looked at how much of a screen a character filled, or whether the backgrounds scrolled and just bought that, while a subset of the userbase and press was pleading to them to pay at least some consideration to whether the game… you know, could be played at all.