Graphics
July 3, 2008
My post on fidelity and quality uses music as its example, but the real battleground in this debate is with graphics. Indeed, the desire for more realistic graphics has been a driving force in hardware improvements for decades; it’s only recently with the Wii that graphical fidelity has been intentionally sidelined in favor of other new features.
As with audio, though, more realistic doesn’t necessarily mean better. Crysis may look more like real life than Yoshi’s Island, just as the orchestral music in Super Mario Galaxy sounds more like real instruments than Mega Man 2, but photorealism is not in and of itself an objective improvement.
Actually, to be honest, I’m a bit worn out with photorealism. Sure, it’s technologically impressive to try to create a lifelike environment, but there are diminishing returns — I was floored when I first saw Super Mario 64 after playing Genesis games, but was only moderately excited by the improvements from Morrowind to Oblivion. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who would prefer to have the original sprites in Chrono Trigger DS instead of the 3D graphics of the Final Fantasy III and IV remakes. Low-fidelity can be beautiful too.
Anyway, all this is to say that Okami, which I recently started, is the best-looking game I’ve seen in years. True, it’s not any great technological feat, and more could certainly be done with the powerful hardware of the PS3. But frankly, if all games had such original art direction, I’d happily never play another photorealistic game again.
I’m unfortunately too busy to play Okami the way I’d like, but that hasn’t been much of an issue. Even playing for 30 minutes at a stretch I’m happy to just walk around the game world and marvel at the graphics. I can’t remember the last time I felt that way — maybe Ocarina of Time.
After I get a bit further in I’ll have more to say about the gameplay itself.
8 comments
Shouldn’t the title of this post be “OMG GRAPHIX!!”?
by Ben Abraham on July 3, 2008 at 11:08 pm #
I completely agree, both about non-photorealistic graphics in general and about Okami in particular. Killer 7 is another fairly recent example: far from photo-realism, and with a much more powerful graphical impact because of it. (Of course, both games had a strong style that went beyond their graphics.)
by David Carlton on July 3, 2008 at 11:15 pm #
I couldn’t agree with you more. I always find games with strong, original art styles more interesting/appealing to look at than those games striving for realism. Another game with beautiful, unique art is Patapon. Loved it, and lots of fun too.
by Korey on July 4, 2008 at 4:40 am #
I have similiar feelings as well. Although, photorealism can still maintain a strong art style which is striking in its own way. For example, I have been playing through Resident Evil 4 again and while a realistic game the art direction is almost impossible to resist. The old architecture and designs just boggle the mind.
Realistic doesn’t necessarily mean a loss in artistic direction and I think that people are quick to jump to that conclusion. Particularly with the flood of war/post apocolyptic war games.
As I have found before though realistic itself is a highly subjective term which in this case has caused a lot of confusion. One realistic may be Tiger Wood’s Golf while another Metal Gear Solid. Yet MGS is in many ways unrealistic.
I’m interested to know how you approach this. Because why I too love my Zelda Wind Wakers and Locorocos, Castlevania and Halflife have their own merits.
by Daniel Primed on July 4, 2008 at 9:44 am #
Daniel: I don’t have any particular dislike for photorealism, or think that it’s not artistic; I’m just frustrated that many gamers (and developers) seem to focus on it exclusively. Similarly, I wouldn’t want all paintings to be pointillist or all novels to be modernist, even though I enjoy those things. Variety is good! (Here, though, it seems that I’m preaching to the choir on that point.)
by Dan Bruno on July 4, 2008 at 12:18 pm #
Ah, I see your point. My apologies if I was too brash.
While I usually try and steer away from these games (these games are often about some sort of war which doesn’t intereste me; be it America replay a past moment of glory or a fictional telling of America playing a future moment of glory) I have actually made myself watch trailers to some of these games and by golly (no sarcasm) they are just so very…..grey. Particularly the latest Gears of War 2 trailer actually. So uninteresting. -_-
by Daniel Primed on July 7, 2008 at 2:34 am #
Totally agreed on Okami (and it’s fun to play, too!); I’ve thought for a while that really good art direction is much more important than polygon count.
Do you really think PS3/360 graphics have reached photorealism? (Or is that just a short way of saying realistic art direction?) I’ve heard people suggest that this generation’s graphics are as good as it will get, but I’m not so sure. I’ve only just gotten a PS3, so while I’m floored by the environments in games like Assassin’s Creed and Uncharted, I think character models leave something to be desired.* I think one problem (others being facial movement and animations looking stiff) is the realism is a bit broken when character animations don’t interact with the environment properly, like when you jump off a ledge in Uncharted. Even when the character is just running around, it /feels/ like they’re a model placed in a box (for example, walking on a flat surface rather than grass, or whatever) rather than a person interacting with their environment. I’m not really sure how to explain it.
Coincidentally, this is something that Okami does very well, with the blooming flowers and other things: Amaterasu is a part of the world and her every action has some effect on the environment around her.
Hmm, big tangent there, sorry!
*I haven’t played MGS4 yet, but if the whole game looks like what I’ve seen in videos, then this probably won’t be a problem here.
by Alex on July 11, 2008 at 10:03 pm #
Daniel: Oh, I didn’t think you were brash at all. Debate is healthy! :-)
Alex: I agree that we’re not at the point of “true” photorealism. I suspect that we’ll never get there, actually, and that’ll we’ll just inch ever closer — approaching it asymptotically, if you will. I use photorealism here to describe what you’ve called realistic art direction — striving to match a real-world visual aesthetic as closely as possible. As I said above, that’s a perfectly viable approach in games, just as it is in, say, painting. But it’s also great to see other approaches as well, like the ink and wash-inspired art in Okami.
by Dan Bruno on July 11, 2008 at 10:12 pm #