Hrmm. I made out a list of exclusives I want for each system to help with my purchase decision if you want to see that? http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x31/naznatips/Comparison.jpg

I've been one of the staunchest defenders of Blue Dragon on the site against people who said it sucked. Although the beginning is slow, it's quite good once you get into it. I'm also a big Viva Pinata fan (Granted that's also on PC, so not really fair).

I liked Uncharted from the time I played it. Valkyrie of the Battlefield (Valkyria Chronicles) is among my top 3 most anticipated games for the remainder of this year. I'm a big Eternal Sonata fan, and I'm looking forward to any JRPG being made by Tri-Ace or Tri-Crescendo (Star Ocean, Infinite Undiscovery).

Does that help at all? I may not be as vocal about games on systems I don't own, but that doesn't mean I don't like them. To the contrary as you can see from my comparison list there are a multitude of JRPGs I want for both consoles that I won't find anywhere else.

The games I'm specifically criticizing are only games I've played, as I don't feel I have the right to criticize any I haven't.  It may seem like I'm attacking the 360 to you, but that's only because it and the PC share many big games, and many of the high profile PC releases are also on 360.

Graphic whores are the most foolish people in the world. The problem is not that they care about good looking things, but that they can not tell apart good looking games. Let`s take a historical approach. Let`s say graphic in games follow a linear evolution, that is, a game from a newer generation will always look better than the old ones (excluding discrepancies in hardware or low budget games). That means that a Playstation game (with a good budget) will look better than any Snes games. Let`s take a look back:

Try comparing

Legend of Legaia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRuZxxeT1-w
Resident Evil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVcFHZwOzR4
Fear Effect
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98ON92mSTB8&feature=related
Tomb Raider 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96EiVoGXGGE&feature=related
Metal Gear Solid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiOnV40gIV0
Final Fantasy 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qnyxd7Vq0Q
Donkey Kong 64
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKuO-1GoNJk
Goldeneye
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB4DDtIKrAw

to

Wonder Project J
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxHILsMX2-M
Donkey Kong Country
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdzAqO1NBik&feature=related
Tales of Phantasia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50tC7DbkKk0
Final Fight 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMk1JJGEJSU
Chrono Trigger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-E0nOfcZzk&feature=related
Street Fighter Alpha 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhawXgfK--g
Streets of Rage 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iffpBT8ZLUQ


The thing is that most of the Psx games are 2 or more discs and you could fit all the Snes games ever made in 2 CDs. Look at these games today and tell me which one hurts your eyes the most? Snes/Mega Drive aged better IMO.


From technical standpoint the Psx/N64 win, but the 16 bit games games look better overall. Hell, for me these games look better than some PS2 games (like Persona 3).

For the last example Flashback (Snes-1993) looks way better than its sequel Fade to Black (PC-1995).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7kzKG4-kxI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FB9lddQ-fE

graphics means nothing to me gameplay is more important.

Cool, I didn't make it back 6 months in your post history to find the Blue Dragon comments.  I guess I was wrong.

What is the point I am trying to make? That this generation shiny sexy games may/will look ridiculous in future generations. So you say that generic FPS number 78 has the best water and lightning effects ever? I say that they have 300k different tones of red, brown and gray but lack colors other than these.

As sarcastic as you're being, I suppose that's as amicably as you're willing to end this. I'm honestly not trying to attack your game system or your gaming preferences Legend. Just giving my opinions on some games.

To a certain extent this thread reminds me of the thread we had yesterday "Why don't they make every ds game 3d." where the answer "because not every game needs to be in 3D" was not accepted by some people ...

There are some people who argue "All things being equal, everyone would choose to play a game with 'better' graphics" which is true but misses the core point that all things are not equal; the move towards advanced graphics in recent years has come at the cost of shorter and more generic games, higher development costs, and longer development cycles which have massive delays. At the same time you have to ask what value these advanced graphics are brining into games; the lack of advanced graphics did not hurt Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess being that they received critical acclaim aswell as massive comercial success.

There are some people who argue "Wii fans only argue about graphics being unimportant because they favour the Wii; they used to be all about the graphics durring the N64/Gamecube days" without ever considering that in earlier generations processing power made more of a difference, and the lack of success of the N64 and Gamecube may have impacted a lot of gamers view of this; the jump from the N64 to Gamecube was massive being that you now had full facial animation producing more realistic characters, the capability to have physics engines which allowed every object in the world to be manipulated, AI which could be scripted to do just about anything in the developers imagination, and large detailed worlds that didn't require a tutorial to understand what a mail-box looks like. Many Gamecube fans owned PS2 systems in the previous generation as well, and they started to realise that even though the Gamecube could produce far better graphics this did not make the PS2 games they played any worse.

3-D games age like shit.  2-D games age like wine.

I'll play Flashback again any day of the week.  That game is absolutely gorgeous, and so's Out of This World.  Two of my favorites of all time.  Donkey Kong Country and Yoshi's Island had completely opposite art styles (and for good reason, teehee), but they're both still beautiful to this day, while a million shitty looking brown games come out with good eyebrows and wrinkles and grass effects.

 Not only was this post full of the truth, great comparisons, and logic behind the argument... but it included a link to this video, at least tripling the amount of win involved, and possibly even making it "epic."

I think good gameplay is what truely defines a game. I'm not saying graphics are a bad thing but being a violin performance major at a music conservatory I can see many relations between graphics and performance.

For example, a player with excellent posture and good visual energy may be able to bulls*t a lot of musical ideas. The audience in general will respond saying "Oh he looks so confident and comfortable on his violin" How can they tell he's made a mistake without a score in hand or is just playing distastefully? However a player that plays from the heart and understands the chords and phrasing of the piece will be able to move the audience and communicate with them. Two players that can communicate with the audience can never be really compared if they both play equally well. At that point it all comes to personal preference as to who "plays better" because both performances are unique and can't be compared.

The visual player obviously adds a little bit to the performance, however it's been said that visual energy takes away from the music, too much movement could divert an audience from listening to instead seeing the performance. Just like too many shiny graphics can take away from the core game.

There needs to be a balance always between gameplay and graphics. It's been proven many times that bad graphics don't make a game bad, and that good graphics don't make a game good. Good graphics can make a game more enjoyable of course.

I believe the younger generation can't grasp the gameplay aspect as well because Gameplay is such a intangible term just as musicality is intangible. On the other hand graphics are extremely solid. It's easy to compare graphics and tell which one is better than it is to compare different gameplay because well that's just impossible...they're different and can't be compared most of the time.

I'm a old gamer - over 23yrs :P I actually look forward to gfx and love to be impressed and inspired by the talent that devs show. I look forward in the future and how realistic gfx will be. I find it truly amazing how games have evolved.