Graphics in Video Games: How Much Do They Matter To You?

[S.Peelman]

I could have said what you said word for word.

I do expect there to be some progress though. The standard gets raised over time. I don't like it if a current game would look like a PS1 game, unless it deliberately goes for a certain style (and does it well). If I would play an actual PS1 game however, then I won't mind obviously because I'm very good at putting these things into context. Even today I can be more impressed by the graphics of (both artistic as well as technically) a 20 year old game than a 1 year old game if it looked better relative to it's time. That's why it's harder for new games to impress me, we've reached a point where differences become tiny and everything basically looks 'good enough'. The artistic direction is also more important to me than the bare technicality. Yoshi's Island on SNES or Bioshock look better to me than something generic and 'boring' as Titanfall or Skyrim.

In the end though, if gameplay or anything is bad, no amount of pixels can make up for it, even if it looked as good as reality itself. Then, graphics falls into last place as far as importance goes. An old game with excellent gameplay and 'terrible' graphics is better than a new game with great graphics and bad gameplay, which today is sadly the case more often than not.