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Whatever reason modern games have for looking like shit, it's not good enough. The end effect is that they look like shit. Maybe a little snark is good. These

Whatever reason modern games have for looking like shit, it's not good enough. The end effect is that they look like shit. Maybe a little snark is good. These big studios have been pumping out bigger and louder games for a decade, and each one is more soulless than the last. There's a reason Minecraft took off the way it did. It's because it was a return to the visually appealing age when pixel colors were in some sense manually selected, resulting in a pleasant palette. I can say without a hint of irony that I prefer the look and feel of the original Doom to any modern blockbuster game. Are you here to tell me that Minecraft and Doom are paragons of bad gameplay?

kllrnohj 9y ago
Maybe I wasn't clear. I said, basically, gameplay trumps visuals. You are in agreement that gameplay trumps visuals. If gameplay and visuals are at odds, gameplay should win. Minecraft's contrast is boosted and its colors are not accurate, and this all adds to its charm. This is in dispute of the article, which is taking the stance that tone mapping and colors should be tuned to look like a painting or film, rather than aspects that can influence gameplay.
- Promit 9y ago
  My response here is mostly that many of the visual choices made in the games I'm criticizing were made completely independently of the game design team. This is far from ideal but it's a consequence of how the production pipeline is set up in these blockbuster titles. I do vehemently disagree that the aesthetic traits I'm looking for are at odds to gameplay and design decisions, though. I could go on for a while about how Zelda BOTW manages to integrate the design and aesthetic choices, but I'm going to get mugged if I try to use that game as an example again. Maybe I'll use it as part of a different write-up on visual design.
  - kllrnohj 9y ago
    Zelda BOTW has climb-anywhere gameplay, though, so it doesn't need landscape contrast to support gameplay purposes. Contrast that to something like Horizon Zero Dawn where you need the harsh ledge contrast on rock faces to distinguish between walls you can climb on and those you cannot. Similarly combat in BOTW happens up close, you don't actually need to distinguish things at range. This is not generally true, especially for the other titles you're comparing BOTW against. BOTW also has problematic cases such as this: https://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1552/15524586/3223713-3_elements.jpg https://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1552/1552458... That rock face is horrible. Totally washed out in a highly unrealistic way, to say nothing of the ridiculous saturation of the torch light.

kllrnohj 9y ago

Maybe I wasn't clear. I said, basically, gameplay trumps visuals. You are in agreement that gameplay trumps visuals. If gameplay and visuals are at odds, gameplay should win. Minecraft's contrast is boosted and its colors are not accurate, and this all adds to its charm. This is in dispute of the article, which is taking the stance that tone mapping and colors should be tuned to look like a painting or film, rather than aspects that can influence gameplay.

Promit 9y ago
My response here is mostly that many of the visual choices made in the games I'm criticizing were made completely independently of the game design team. This is far from ideal but it's a consequence of how the production pipeline is set up in these blockbuster titles. I do vehemently disagree that the aesthetic traits I'm looking for are at odds to gameplay and design decisions, though. I could go on for a while about how Zelda BOTW manages to integrate the design and aesthetic choices, but I'm going to get mugged if I try to use that game as an example again. Maybe I'll use it as part of a different write-up on visual design.
- kllrnohj 9y ago
  Zelda BOTW has climb-anywhere gameplay, though, so it doesn't need landscape contrast to support gameplay purposes. Contrast that to something like Horizon Zero Dawn where you need the harsh ledge contrast on rock faces to distinguish between walls you can climb on and those you cannot. Similarly combat in BOTW happens up close, you don't actually need to distinguish things at range. This is not generally true, especially for the other titles you're comparing BOTW against. BOTW also has problematic cases such as this: https://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1552/15524586/3223713-3_elements.jpg https://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1552/1552458... That rock face is horrible. Totally washed out in a highly unrealistic way, to say nothing of the ridiculous saturation of the torch light.