Modern graphics a turn off for anyone else?

[vatermuzik]

I'm in my mid 30's and I can appreciate any modern games that try to break the mold. The Wii, for instance, seems to have a ton of inspired games that use less than traditional artistic styles (Muramasa, Ivy The Kiwi, Mad World, ect.). These can usually be found for next to nothing as they usually fly right under the radar of the casual gamer.

I kinda lost interest in the more recent Xbox and Playstation generations as they seem to be more focused on the "movie" game experience which you speak of, which is just not for me.

This being said, I'll always turn to my NES or SNES for maximum gaming enjoyment.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I prefer pixels and hand-drawn stuff. To me the "best-looking" games are on SNES, Genesis, TurboDuo, Neo Geo, Saturn...

I'm in my mid 30's and I can appreciate any modern games that try to break the mold. The Wii, for instance, seems to have a ton of inspired games that use less than traditional artistic styles (Muramasa, Ivy The Kiwi, Mad World, ect.).

Agreed. Love how those look. 3D Dot Game Heroes on PS3 is another good one.

I do like some modern "realistic" graphics when it comes to environments, level design, etc. The worlds of Skyrim and The Witcher 2 are really impressive, for instance. I don't like freaky-looking "realistic" characters though. Uncanny valley and all that.

[Tanooki]

Your argument has nothing to do with age, and everything to do with taste and tolerances. I don't enjoy a majority of the modern games, but some are just so well executed I can totally get sucked in hard core due to the total package and dig it. Uncharted trilogy really brings that to the surface for me, the original Dead Space, but even along those there are other new games of the PS3 type era that weren't an overkill blow out.

I kept only 6 games for the system, Uncharted 1-3, Civilization Revolution, Dragon's Crown, and the Journey Collection. Those non-Drake adventures there are not exactly modern and yet they are. You have a turn based evolution/government/combat map game/tech growth game. Then there's the modern equivalent to 'Final Fight' brawlers which throws in some cool items to find or buy. And the third, it's an art piece really, about as relaxed as you can get on any of them, pretty, but anything but pretty overwhelming. The other games I had were a couple Call of Duty history pieces (ww2, cuban/russian 60s/70s thing), Ghostbusters, God of War which was an epic story yet a mindless hack n slash, and I had Pinball Arcade and a few other things.

I do not get into online FPS fights with people screaming bitch and racist stuff and crap going a mile a minute, and other hyperactive crap, it's just not fun and too much to enjoy. It doesn't mean I have to just use my GBA which I do a good bit, or the NES/SNES stuff either, you just have to find a happy place.

[J T]

Your fiance is awesome

I'd kill for a woman who is more interested in retro stuff than a lot of the crap that passes for modern gaming.

My wife says gaming peaked with the Atari 2600 and it has sucked ever since then. She is more retro than me.

[Exhuminator]

When I first started dating my fiance she had zero interest in gaming. She would watch me play games if she was bored... but I kept getting her to try all kinds of games hoping she'd like something. Turned out ObScure: The Aftermath via co-op did the trick. She went from having problems playing simple Wii games to being able to play multiplayer FPS and actually kick my ass sometimes. This process took a few years, but now I have an awesome co-op player in addition to everything else she started out great at.

In contrast the craziest girl I ever dated was already a mega gamer when I met her. I mean she had a modded Saturn for starters. And although she was extremely knowledgeable of gaming and a super hardcore player... it didn't matter in the long run. Snakes and snakes and snakes. Her insane gaming abilities weren't worth squat compared to her inability to remain a rational person consistently.

Anyway the point is, finding a sane nice lady and coercing her into becoming a gamer is the ticket.

[dsheinem]

Modern graphics.

These are all games I played in the past few weeks and were released in the last year or so:

grafiks.jpg (75.5 KiB) Viewed 657 times

[Ack]

I gotta say, Ds, that last game with the doge, mind-blowing! Somebody really tightened up those graphics.

[3703]

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[J T]

I love "modern" graphics. That's part of the reason I created this thread and why I love this website that almost elevates taking screenshots to the level of being an artform.

I don't always like the highly detailed and well animated stuff for gameplay though. If you're going to have realistic physics and animation, that limits your scope. A game like Street Fighter II Turbo just wouldn't be possible if it had all the frames needed for smooth and life-like animation, plus the characters' jumping abilities just wouldn't feel quite right. There can also be a certain comedic charm to bad animation, like when characters jump and spin to convey they are happy in an older Final Fantasy game.

I also think high levels of detail in the graphics increase the difficulty of tracking what is going on. In a platformer game for example, simpler graphics make the game less of a visual chore to track characters and platforms, thus allowing for more game focused play (I made a thread about this point once).

I want both. I like the pretty things to look at and take screenshots of, and it is possible to have really great gameplay in those too. However, certain games just feel right in a simplified and/or pixelated style. Thankfully, the modern era actually has a lot of both HD and lo-fi games if you pay enough attention. I highly recommend you play the recent Shovel Knight if you haven't yet, because it should hit all the right buttons for your retro tastes.

[Key-Glyph]

There is an appeal to be found with artwork that is approximated rather than literalized.

This really resonates with me. I don't know what it is, but I just love pixelated artstyle -- and this extends beyond the medium of video games. Besides the basic fact that the aesthetic feels good to me, I love appreciating the inventiveness and beauty in what the designers create. I tend to enjoy art more when I understand what techniques/challenges/efforts went into producing it on some level, and there's more of an awareness of those background elements when you're dealing with something that clearly had serious limits on its development (hardware, storage space, displayable colors, and whathaveyou).

As far as modern games go, I find that I'm not "turned off" by titles with realistic graphics but rather "not excited by." I may be talking out my rear here, but regarding those games it seems like it's harder for me to discern what the "hook" of a game is just by looking at it. I can watch eight seconds of gameplay from many retro games and understand why I'm going to like it or hate it. With modern realistic games it seems like things don't get to the point quite as fast, and I don't linger long enough to get interested.

I think this is mostly a marketing issue, though. I am positive there are a lot of great things about the latest military shooters that I'm just not aware of because the commercials are nothing but over-the-shoulder clips of soldiers running around to classic rock music and watching stuff blow up. Those advertisements focus on nothing but the graphical elements, and since that alone doesn't grab me, I just keep moving along to the next thing. In contrast, I have brand recognition with things like Kirby and Zelda that stretches back over so many years and enjoyable experiences that I will simply believe, without any direct evidence to back it up, that I will get something out of any new game that revolves around them.

I will also admit that I unfortunately subscribe to the stereotypical assumptions that if a game has non-realistic graphics it is more likely 1) to be more inventive in all other areas of game design and/or 2) to have directly channeled the resources saved from discarding hyper-realism into beefing up other gameplay aspects. So it's largely my problem that I need more convincing than the average person that a realistic game is worthwhile, due to my biases.