4 ms·
This article reminded me of a trend I noticed when reading the book "Masters of Doom," which discussed (among other things) the graphical improvements that made
by DanAndersen 11y ago
This article reminded me of a trend I noticed when reading the book "Masters of Doom," which discussed (among other things) the graphical improvements that made games like Wolfenstein and Doom so impressive. Very often, the book's prose would start sentences something along the lines of "though the graphics were crude, etc etc etc."
These sorts of lines, constantly repeated, irked me, not because they weren't technically true or anything, but because it's such a "looking-backward" point of view. At the time, that's not how people saw it. It was all about pushing forward the state of the art, and we miss something when we look back on it in that way.
I guess in a similar way I've had the same feeling about "modern" pixel art, where it often seems to miss the point. By treating it as just an art style, it turns it from an exercise in conveying a vision despite limitations, into an effort to simplify and downsample because those are the most easily-recognized surface-level hallmarks of that period.
For me, the magic of that era comes from seeing techniques like color cycling ( http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/?sound=0 http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/?sound=0 ), where the desire to get a certain effect led to interesting workarounds, rather than being satisfied with limitations because it's "retro."
- vacri 11y agoWhen Half Life came out, it was amazing. I went back to retry it half a year ago, and it looked awful. And what was a wonderful intro sequence was now unskippable minutes of a slow ride past crude polygons and very low detail environments. It was interesting seeing how my opinions had changed.
- dceddia 11y agoFunny, as I was reading the parent post my mind jumped to Half Life too. What an amazing game! Part of me wishes I could un-see all the stuff that came after it, so that I could go back and play it with my original excitement intact. Instead, it seems my mind is happy to find flaws at every turn and compare how it actually looks to how good I remember it to be. It's even worse with older games. I tried to play the original X-Wing in DOSBox a while back, and wow, I couldn't believe it. Did it really look that bad back then? Maybe my 486 DX2 and 14" CRT made it look better somehow.
- jefurii 11y agoPart of me wishes I could un-see all the stuff that came after it, so that I could go back and play it with my original excitement intact. You're in luck: "Black Mesa is a re-envisioning of Valve Software's classic science fiction first person shooter, Half-Life. ... All-new music, voice acting, choreography and added dialogue give way to a more expansive and immersive experience than ever before." http://www.blackmesasource.com/ http://www.blackmesasource.com/
- mdpopescu 11y agoI've had this experience with Dune 2: it was amazing when I first played it but now it seems incredibly bad.
- agumonkey 11y agoI love when I revisit some old amazement and the magic is still there. When I see some old arcade games (SEGA chasing games) I'm still amazed at how pretty and swift they are.
- kibibu 11y agoDaytona USA still looks phenomenal in my opinion
- Terr_ 11y agoI think Deus Ex offers a contrasting example. It's almost as old as Half Life (2000 vs 1998), but I think it ages better because the appeal is different. Story/dialog/writing/role-play don't go out of style as quickly as graphics/gun-play.
- egypturnash 11y agoYour memory may be playing tricks on you. Check out this series at Rock, Paper Shotgun where a writer who remembers Deus Ex as the Best Game Ever!!!!! plays through it: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/deusexy/ http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/deusexy/
- Drakim 11y agoI replayed Deus Ex recently, and was surprised at how bad it looked, especially the character models. It was so bad that it was ruining my immersion. However, my brain eventually forgot about this and I could continue play, and eventually I stopped seeing crude low-poly models and instead saw just "people".