Old graphics. Not bad graphics.
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”.
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 personally haven’t found low poly horror to do too much for me.
Alien Isolation had to be one of the scarier games I’ve played, on top of SOMA and those both look great.
The issue imo of hyper real graphics is by taking a boring approach to it, the whole game suffers
Older games also don’t treat me like I’m the product.
Older games just seemed thrilled that you were playing them! So many NES era games had long “thank you for playing” screens at the end.
I love playing old games. Hit me with those polygons and bitmaps any day of the week. If the game is good it doesn’t matter how old it is.
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.
Yeah, there’s an “awkward teenage years” for 3d graphics that is hard for me to play too.
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
It probably didn’t help that Mario 64 was the first 3D game that a lot of people played. It set a high bar that so many others failed to reach.
