Do we need to improve graphics?

That, along with Crystal and Unreal, is the only engines I know. Oh hell, I don't even know how engines work.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Um, I guess I'm jumping into an ongoing disscussion, but...

Where are the realistic adventures?

What I mean is, whenever anyone is speaking about realistic graphics, it's about how good the guns look, how good is the physics, how real the scenery is... the most realistic games are the first-person shooters. For the other genres, it seems that everyone thinks the more stylised the better. And god forbid you made an adventure game (or some adventure/action hybrid) that looked realistic! But, with the capabilities of the game engines, we could be producing games that could play and look(!) like action movies. Or, better, game equivalents of action-oriented books.

I can't stand how the new games reduced themselves to killing-simulators, racing games and the ocasional "indie" game which mission is to look as weird as possible.

You are digressing. We don't tolerate that here.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

I imagine it has something to do with the genre dying first. The wounds, btw, were self-inflicted.

Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.com

Well, adventure games and it's ilk stopped being possible around the time graphics got good. There's also stuff like FMV games, I'd recommend Phantasmagoria: Puzzle of Flesh and the Tex Murphy series.

As for other more adventure-based genres with realistic graphics, there's the Uncharted series, Heavy Rain, L.A. Noire, everything Rockstar puts out, the Yakuza series, Alone in the Dark: Inferno, and others.

Je Suis "Aware"

@Anna:

Not quite true. See: Shift 2: Unleashed.

I thought Modern Warfare 2 was already at Michael Bay-levels of Action Movie-ness.

Again, not quite true. See: Killing Floor, Terraria, Minecraft, Toki Tori, RUSH, Audiosurf, Monday Night Combat, Cthulhu Saves The World...

edited 21st Jul '11 3:43:36 PM by RocketDude

"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel

Acceptable Breaks from Reality put a HARD cap on just how realistic an adventure can be before it becomes unplayable. An adventure maximizing realism would limit your possible actions to stuff that you yourself would be able to get up and do, which 99.9% of the time (at least) doesn't lead to the kind of awesome effect or climax that gamers have come to expect.

^ I think Uncharted could count as an adventure game that tries to go for that level of realism, at least in the actions your character performs. Although the climbing... that's arguable.

Personally I want to see two things improve before graphics get another upgrade: Loading times (up to and including streamlining the game) and multiplayer connectivity. One can be solved by hardware the other has to be solved via infrastructure (which is very very hard to do).

Apocalypse: Dirge Of Swans.

FPS tend to have the best graphics because it's where they look the best, full control over the camera and all.

Let's be honest, game graphics are nowhere near as good as they could be. I mean, if you look at a screenshot of a game, you can immediately tell that it's a game.

And I've yet to see a game that sacrifices gameplay for graphics. All I've seen is both aspects rising in complexity and quality, we've just learned to accept it as the norm.

Leave your dignity at the door.

• Looks on this thread for a latter time*

Actually... I might say something before that...

HAHAHA

Ok, for most of the part it is perfectly true.

However, I remember that one time were there were photos of real life cars compared to their counterparts of Gran Turismo 5.

It worked quite well. Of course, they are only cars, but still...

AS for the whole grapichs problem...

I belive than its more than excellent already, I mean, better than the current generation? Really? I just cant see it getting better than that... or not necessary, at all.

edited 24th Jul '11 1:06:15 AM by NONAMEGIVEN

"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death itself may die."

I beg to differ.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Oh yeah, how the heck could I forget about Crysis...

Well, point is, its not unrealistically hard to get at least a bit confused by these photos...even if for a few seconds only.

"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death itself may die."

I'm fine with graphics the way they are now. Biggest problems seeming to need upgrades are gaming controls, backwards compatibility, multiplayer options, voice acting, high DLC costs (@ an earlier post: there are free DLC patches for some games, I just can't think of any), games that don't get exported...

Wow, that's a lot of problems I have with gaming.

I think this is a different and rather interesting angle, provided by Square-Enix's technology director here:

Physically-based rendering and global illumination are techniques that allow coders to create photo-realistic effects. Both processes are already used in CGI film-making - and this in turn could benefit game developers.

"It's going to enable new forms of art direction, but it's also going to enable deeper convergence between multiple media - being able to share more assets horizontally between movies, TV series and games," said Merceron.

"This means that when you're doing a cartoon, or when you're doing an animated movie, you could think about an art direction for the game that could be far closer [than current tie-ins]. Obviously it won't be the same, because the processing power won't be there, but you can think about art directions being way closer. And you can think about assets being re-used."

(Bolding mine)

To me, it sounds like one of the potential benefits of better graphics is a much higher degree of scalability between games and CG, which seems like it could particularly benefit a company like Square-Enix that has large numbers of people dedicated to CG already.

It also seems like it could go quite far towards "future-proofing" games — it could be much easier to re-release a PS 4 game on the PS 5 with updated graphics if everything's made to scale up to CG levels.

x4 I got a malware warning from one of those links.

edited 25th Jul '11 1:18:08 PM by rmctagg09

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Whoa, sorry about that.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.