What happened to "digitized" sprites?

Post by **Doctor Fugue** » Thu May 22, 2008 5:08 am

I understand that the push for companies to make 3D games was at least partially responsible for the demise of digitized sprites; but there are still lots of 2D games being made, so why not in this style? Most of the games were fighting games (Pit Fighter, Street Fighter: The Movie, Mortal Kombat, Bikini Karate Babes), and not all very good ones, but I loved the style.

There were a couple of WWF games like this, NBA Jam had these sprites, and of course NARC (I'm sure you recognize my avatar as a boss from that game, right?). With the old hardware these games can look a little dated, but I would love to see some new games with smooth animation and crystal-clear razor-sharp realistic sprites that are motion-captured actors.

I like all kinds of animation and sprites, I'm not tired yet of cel-shading, but I want to see some "digitized" sprites. Am I alone? Do you gamers feel the Mortal Kombat characters look too cheesy as real actors?

Post by **SpaceBooger** » Thu May 22, 2008 6:50 am

I do agree that the focus in games has changed. It seems to go in cycles, like fads.

When games first came out they were not about story lines or graphics instead it was high score. Now we are seeing that trend return with all of the downloadable content for current gen systems. Star Solider and Dr. Mario comes to mind for the WiiWare (since I do not have a xbox360 or ps3 there may be more for them).
I think there the trend will move back to some of the styles we grew up playing, but for now I guess the only digitization is the faces of the players on sports game.

Post by **kevinski** » Thu May 22, 2008 8:38 am

Honestly, I think that it was just hard to do in a way that wasn't completely cheesy. MK did a really good job, but most other fighting game series didn't. The sprites tended to look really out-of-place, due to the lighting on the "actors" and whatnot. In fact, after reading up on the development of Street Fighter: The Movie, I can understand just how annoying it must've been to create a game with digitized sprites. I'd love to see more of them, especially with the increased resolutions that newer gaming consoles can handle. I kinda wish that they'd remake MK and MK2, actually.

Post by **Ramatut4001** » Thu May 22, 2008 12:53 pm

I was playing Mortal Kombat III last night and it is a great style.

Post by **Doctor Fugue** » Thu May 22, 2008 8:59 pm

Ramatut4001 wrote:I was playing Mortal Kombat III last night and it is a great style.

Yes, MK really got it right. I don't enjoy playing the 3D Mortal Kombat games because I think they look cartoony or something. Having motion-captured actors for the first few games was a great idea and I wish they would go back to it. Think about how great the characters would look now, and how huge they could be.

Post by **marurun** » Thu May 22, 2008 9:48 pm

I think they key is that with good texturing (often from photographs) you can get even more realistic results. 2D these days seems to be saved for particular genres or for representing very stylized graphic representations. I have to admit that I wasn't crazy about the digitized look. I never felt it contributed much graphically over and above the hand-done techniques.

Post by **nateup2** » Fri May 23, 2008 2:02 am

I gotta say fellas... not a big fan of digitized sprites. I would imagine that they could be much more impressive now, but I think I would still prefer drawn characters. Digitized sprites, then polygons... all that raped the artistic value, IMO. (mostly the polygons)

I liked many of the games at the time and still do play them (just nastalgia), but in hindsight, I feel that the look didn't really do a huge favor.
What was with them being used in the most shallow, basic games (NBA Jam, MKs, pitfighter, etc)?
I'm sorry if I offend anyone with this, but the MKs are trash to me. I played them constantly during their time... but then again, I was like 11 years old. I still have all of them that were released on saturn, but I can't play more than about 5-10 minutes of em.

I LOVE NARC, THOUGH!

Games like DK on SNES were digitized werent they? If so, those are an exception to my digitized diss.

Post by **lordofduct** » Fri May 23, 2008 5:27 am

what exactly is digitized? If you mean taking live photos or the sort and making them sprites... ok. But then DK would not be included, those a prerendered 3D models casted as sprite sheets.

...
oh and all sprites are technically digitized, as they are all digital.

Post by **Doctor Fugue** » Fri May 23, 2008 6:06 am

lordofduct wrote:what exactly is digitized? If you mean taking live photos or the sort and making them sprites... ok. But then DK would not be included, those a prerendered 3D models casted as sprite sheets.

...
oh and all sprites are technically digitized, as they are all digital.

I used the word digitized because I remember that was the term used to distinguish photographed and drawn sprites.

Some people might include ClayFighters in this group since I believe those characters were photos of actual clay models.

Anyway, I'm mainly talking about NARC and Mortal Kombat and games like that. I'm certainly not saying these kind of sprites are better than traditional sprites (yes we know they are all technically digital), but I would like to see at least some progression in that style.

As for digitized sprites being in shallow games, I agree...except I had and still have fun with them. NBA Jam is still a good arcade b-ball jam session, NARC is a brutal and awesome deathfest, and discussing MK's good and bad points requires an entirely new thread. My favourite Mortal Kombat is still the first one, and by the time the canned combos were introduced I lost interest.

Post by **nateup2** » Fri May 23, 2008 8:35 am

I guess there have been some good games that used that style -

Shinobi Legions used digitized sprites and I love that game. (I will continue to call them digitized sprites since it is the accepted term for sprites that are directly based on photos) I also still enjoy NBA Jam (its a great game to bust out when I have company - after a few beers of course), Road Rash 3, and obviously NARC.

Some terrible ones off the top -

Revolution X, Primal Rage, SF the Movie, Batman Forever, some other horrible movie based games.
Remember Way of the Warrior - Naughty Dog's MK knockoff on the 3DO? I had forgotten about that one.

I do agree that it is a shame that the style is dead. It would be cool to see what they could do with it now. As far as why this style is missing from modern releases... its prob because today's gamers just eat whatever junk they are fed, not even realizing or giving a shit how much has been lost over the past 10-15 years.
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What happened to "digitized" sprites?

What happened to "digitized" sprites?

Digitized Sprites