Graphicks?

[-Slayer-]

Does anybody else miss sprite-based games?

Hell. and yes.

2d games give a unique experience that 3d games cannot. It makes me sad that not so many are released these days, and when they are, they're full of gimmicks.

In terms of graphics, A well stylised game can be awesome, but awesome graphics just for the sake of awesome graphics = no. Gameplay should always come first.

[Ben]

2d games give a unique experience that 3d games cannot. It makes me sad that not so many are released these days, and when they are, they're full of gimmicks.

... wait what?

Unique? Whats unique about the experience found in every game made before 93?

[Knight]

Sidescrolling?

[Ben]

Sidescrolling?

The best Sidescroller of the last 10 years was done in 3D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goemon%27s_Great_Adventure

[Noc]

In response to nostalgia:

I've said this before, but most of the prettiest and visually remarkable 2D games used prerendered 3D graphics. Even before that, at the high end of pixel animation, most of the work was being done in an attempt to make the environments LOOK 3-Dimensional. Yes, I agree that there's been recently a lot of focus on prettier graphics rendering at the expense of good artwork (I.e. Crysis), but even back in the day the visually engaging sprite-based games were swamped with visually BORING sprite-based games.

There is absolutely NOTHING to be gained by returning to sprite-based graphicry. That's why the only spritey games that are out nowadays are gimmicks . . . because there's no reason to make a game like that! Oh, and sprite graphics only started getting "good" when they started closely emulating 3D effects. I couldn't even play the early Final Fantasy games when I went back and tried them, because the sheer butchery of perspective gave me an aneurism. They relied on the player to sort out their confusing array of symbols and abbreviations (remember when everything you encountered in a side-scroller was a dot? That dot kills you, that dot gives you health (you can tell 'cause it's a different color) and THAT dot makes you blink for several seconds. It's probably invincibility.

Also, as far as gameplay . . .

A while ago, my roommate got a NES emulator for his Dreamcast, and we spent a while going over the hundreds of old Nintendo games we now had access to. And the thing that struck me was how many side-scrolling Streets of Rage ripoffs there were. It was the thing to do, and there was a version for every conceivable concept, movie, or what-have you.

And it struck me how similar this was to CURRENT three-dimensional action games. Only instead of moving along horizontally pressing one or two buttons to punch, kick, chop, or shoot an endless stream of enemies, you're moving through a three-dimensional field doing the same thing. And it occurs to me that this nostalgia is based off of comparing bad NEW games to good OLD games. Super Mario World is rather more entertaining that Marvel Ultimate Alliance, but that's not because it's in two dimensions: it's because Mario was a quality game, and Ultimate Alliance was crap.

(I was actually going to use God of War for that comparison, but it occurred to me that lots of people LIKE God of War. God knows why.)

So, yeah. Screw nostalgia.

Oh, and one more thing. If you want to focus on gameplay instead of graphical gimmicks? Use the most up-to-date graphics available. Because they make things much EASIER to build. You just tell the engine where stuff is, and what shape it's in, and it'll shadow everything and reflect light just as it would in the real world. One of the biggest problems, for instance, in the old Thief games was that there was no proper system for what they were trying to do, and they had to build the entire lighting system from scratch. Nowadays? Not a problem.

[Ben]

I've said this before, but most of the prettiest and visually remarkable 2D games used prerendered 3D graphics. Even

DIsa-fucking-gree

Most of the most gorgeous 2D games have come out on the modern systems and are using that technology to make the games gorgeous. Hell even in the old 16 bit days games like Earthworm Jim wich had cartoonists hand animating all the sprites looked a hell of alot better then Donkey Kong

On the gameplay thing, I had a cd of around 700 SNES roms, I think I only played through like 15 of them seriously and the others we're mostly shit.

[TealKick]

What did nostalgia do to you Noc?

Yea that's the problem with these next gens, there's this halo around everything. I think it's bump mapping or something with the lighting that's fucking everything up, but I really don't know much about these things.

LIGHT BLOOM!

NO MORE!

MOOOOORE!


MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE FUCKING LIGHT BLOOM NOW OR YOUR ALL FIRED!

God I hate light bloom, I turned it off for Half Life 2.

[stock]

Actually, light bloom was one of the cooler 3D environment enchancement doohickeys I've seen recently.

[Ben]

Actually, light bloom was one of the cooler 3D environment enchancement doohickeys I've seen recently.

Light Bloom looks great if used well, thats verry rarley.

[Matador]

I have to agree Ben on the sprite games thingy, Noc. A lot of good looking game don't use 3d pre-renders at all. Frankly, a lot of ugly ones do. Additionally, the pre-rendered ones often have choppy, isolated graphics. If you don't believe me, tell your Carrier to go in a direction other than 45 degree increments.

[Raithah]

Some of my favorite games are Disgaea, Cortex Command, Guilty Gear and Pokemon.

Does that make me nolstagic over years previous to my birth ?

[Knight]

Are you a little kid or something? Those games aren't old.

[Raithah]

Nolstagic in that I love sprite-based games, games that were far more popular before my time than now.

And if Disgaea (2) was made before my birth, the Guiness Records people would be knocking at my door for proof of the one-year old, legible typist.

[Ben]

Some of my favorite games are Disgaea, Cortex Command, Guilty Gear and Pokemon.

Does that make me nolstagic over years previous to my birth ?

No it means you like repetative ugly japanese RPG's and awsome fighting games.

Seriously when your PS3 games look like a PS1 game YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG!

Also when you're biggest improvement in graphics in ELVEN YEARS and over FOUR DIFFRENT CONSOLES is that you're now in colour and there are some reflections in the water...

See the problem with sprite based games is some of them look great, the majority look like arse.

[Raithah]

Sure it's repetitive, but that doesn't stop it from being ... filled to the brim with hilarious dialogue ? Awesome art ?

Maybe Pokemon was a bad example. Cave Story, then ?