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Frogger on 06 May 2016
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Zekkyou said:
spemanig said:

I don't think luxuries matter in an assessment like this. I think ND were irrefutably more intelligent with their priorities for their game than RaD were, but that made for a significantly less visually impressive game. But then I think that KojiPro were irrefutably more intelligent with their priorities for their game than ND were, but that made for an even less visually impressive game.

I'm not praising The Order. It's a shit game. But it looks more technically impressive than U4. Significantly, and to its absolute detriment.

(I feel like we might be talking about two different things. Are you talking on a purely technical level, e.g. graphics, physics, pretty pots and pans. Or are you using 'technical' in the broad sense, so all in-game design decisions? I'm going to assume the former for this post, but i apologize if it's the latter and i'm just confused ^^. I'd still disagree in many respects, but for different reasons).

I know we have significantly different opinions on what constitutes good technical prioritize (outside of personal preference, i don't think any of their technical prioritize are inherently better than the others, bar UC4 pushing the technical boat out the furthest, and MGS5 the least), but when judging a game on a technical front its 'luxuries' are definitely important. The resource cost of your basic design necessities relative to your visual goals (hallways vs forest, slow vs fast, etc) directly effect how much you can spend on 'luxuries' (content of the hallways vs quality of the trees, etc). You have to consider all that when deciding if A or B are overall the more technically impressive, regardless to opinions of the intelligence of a decision.

I wholeheartedly agree that 1886 is a mess, but i think that relates more to its gameplay and story design. I firmly believe that 1886's problems primarily stem from RaD's seemingly obsessive need to control everything that happens to the player. It's fine to have very narrow technical prioritize, there are games that have taken it even further than 1886 and still been great, but that becomes irrelevant if you're going to fail to balance everything else. There's no point trying to pull me into your world with stunning visuals when that world's a boring/messy place to be.

I mean technically more visually impressive. As in, how good does everything look from a techical point of view that cannot be made up by something more subjective like art style?

That's why I don't think it's important to take those luxuries into account at all. They chose to make the game more open, and they knew the game would look worse for it. They chose to make the game run at 30fps instead of 60fps, and they new their game would look better for it. They were in charge of their luxuries, and they were prepared for the benefits and downfalls of budgeting them.

But I don't want to keep going though, as I think I've dragged this far enough.