arsenal009 said: I want to see more games that use an artistic design style. Mirror's Edge still looks too realistic for me, other than that there is so much grey & the red & blue is way too shiny.

When I played the Mirror's Edge demo I was disappointed the actual game looked more realistic then the cool Killer7-eqse graphics the opening movie uses. Things just seemed to flow better in the opening's movie style then in the game's quasi-realistic/quasi-arty style.

 

Really, I think the style of art needs to fit the game. I do like the style of the new Prince. I think it works well. The art is dynamic but not quite realistic. Seeing as how Prince of Persia, as a series, is about amazing acrobatics and heroic deeds the style reinforces the themes of the game. I am not performing realistic actions when I am running on walls and bouncing down with stealth kills from above. A style that is more realistic might not fit with the high action setting.

Survival horror and war games need to feel realistic most of the time. I need to feel like I am fighting for my life to enjoy these games. There are few things that kill a suspenseful mood faster than bland zombies with poor fields of vision. You heard me "Alone in the Dark." I am talking to you.

Platformers are often purposefully unrealistic.
Art direction and music are key to enjoyment of a game, but it is more about how well the overall package fits. There are games that I play that I feel unattached to for reasons difficult to sum up. Often, if I am not really enjoying a game there is just something missing in the tone. Even if there are no obvious glitches, or control issues, or obvious graphical problems I can feel uninterested in a game.

Better graphics work for everything. As long as developers keep a sense of style and don't always go for recreating reality exactly then it shouldn't get stale.

People are conditioned to orgasm over graphics. For 30 years its been the benchmark of technological progress in video games. We're also a visually oriented species. It's through the eyes that we learn most about the world, and with our eyes that we do most of our judging. We don't have near as much experience judging on level design, innovation, or control responsiveness as we do judging on looks.

With time this'll change. There's only so much better graphics can realistically get, and only so much the eye can take in at 60fps. At some point the graphic detail will become less important than the graphic style.

I don't know, PoP did look amazing and it would be unfair to say its problems were coming from the artstyle but I think some of it belonged together.

The original PoP was a fairy tale, pretty classic with slightly more realistic graphics and the environment was a city were you slowly got higher. Starting at the bottom and in the end you were up in the highest areas sometimes looking down Pretty amazing.
The current PoP had a weird story about corruption/fertility (whatever who cares), the areas didn't even pretend to be anything other than jump&run environments in different colors (apart from the temple area which looked amazing). Everything was beautiful but meaningless. I was slightly disappointed.

A more realistic and less abstract approach would have benefited the game.

Kyros said: A style that is more realistic might not fit with the high action setting. I don't know, PoP did look amazing and it would be unfair to say its problems were coming from the artstyle but I think some of it belonged together. The original PoP was a fairy tale, pretty classic with slightly more realistic graphics and the environment was a city were you slowly got higher. Starting at the bottom and in the end you were up in the highest areas sometimes looking down Pretty amazing. The current PoP had a weird story about corruption/fertility (whatever who cares), the areas didn't even pretend to be anything other than jump&run environments in different colors (apart from the temple area which looked amazing). Everything was beautiful but meaningless. I was slightly disappointed. A more realistic and less abstract approach would have benefited the game.

 

I don't know what original PoP you were playing, but the one I played was VERY VERY FAR from realism of any sort when it came to graphics. In fact they didn't even ty to hide the fact the evironment was meant solely for jumping and other such puzzles. In the new PoP the graphics were the best part of the gameplay by far, had they been anything more realistic and the game would have outright sucked. The most interesting part was traversing these very unique looking environments, if it was realistic it wouldn't have been even half as good doing the puzzles. It had the best "graphics" this year, only rivaled by World of Goo. God is that game absolutely fantastic.

You know what? It's not immersion. Realistic graphics just look good. I've never seen a Nazi U-Boat on the edge of a waterfall in the middle of a dense jungle on an isolated island in real life, Uncharted does it with incredible graphics, and that makes it breathtaking.

Generally, the things you see in video games are not the things you see in real life.

Because of that I sad "SLIGHTLY more realistic". Yes levels were for designed for jumping but nevertheless you first started at the bottom, than jumped over houses, later you were in the palace and in the end at the top of the highest towers. It gave you the impression you were doing something. The new game essentially said here you have 4 enemies, 4 jump areas, have fun. Takes away the atmosphere.



Bah humbug. The by far most beautiful area was the area around the temple which was also the most realistic. The cartoon characters looked out of place and some of the jumping areas could have also fit into Banjo, for example the ensemble of floating spheres at the alchimist. It always got beautiful if you could see water, sand, mountains in the background which had a slight cartoon look but not too much.



Now your trolling to make a point Fair enough.

Realistic graphics are not important but CGI like graphics are.

Kyros said: VERY VERY FAR from realism of any sort when it came to graphics Because of that I sad "SLIGHTLY more realistic". Yes levels were for designed for jumping but nevertheless you first started at the bottom, than jumped over houses, later you were in the palace and in the end at the top of the highest towers. It gave you the impression you were doing something. The new game essentially said here you have 4 enemies, 4 jump areas, have fun. Takes away the atmosphere. had they been anything more realistic and the game would have outright sucked Bah humbug. The by far most beautiful area was the area around the temple which was also the most realistic. The cartoon characters looked out of place and some of the jumping areas could have also fit into Banjo, for example the ensemble of floating spheres at the alchimist. It always got beautiful if you could see water, sand, mountains in the background which had a slight cartoon look but not too much. only rivaled by World of Goo Now your trolling to make a point Fair enough.

So I see you didn't mean the original PoP, but Sands of Time. Which does bring up a point. The actual original PoP, with it's horribily pixelated graphics and whatnot, is still a better game today than about 98% of the games that come out, regardless of graphics, shadows, physics, and all that jazz. Also I'm not trolling with WoG, every time I launch it I'm amazed, eventhough my nVidia driver complains about it completely ruining my resolutions.