Current Graphic trends in video games?

[Mr_Furious]

The PS2 shouldn't be to blame. It's inexperience and/or laziness of developers on both the art and code side. I know there are exceptions to this due to time, money, or resources (or a combination of these) but just the sheer prospect of ignoring this valuable aspect of the gaming experience is mind boggling to me. At this time all I can say is thank god for Japanese gaming. The japanese has proven time and time again that they're willing to go out on a limb and try new ideas.

[Mfkzt]

Artistic direction is tied hand-in-hand with hardware, and PS2 is the weakest link. The weakest link is also the most popular system, so most games are designed with PS2 in mind. Artists have to limit their vision or lose money by make something Gamecube/Xbox-only.

I agree that it's partially lack of imagination on the part of developers. I just wish good developers would stick with Gamecube and Xbox.

I don't like this notion that PS2 programmers are somehow more talented because PS2 is harder to program for. They aren't coding on PS2 for fun. They're doing it because it's where the money's at.

[Mr_Furious]

Originally posted by Mfkzt
I don't like this notion that PS2 programmers are somehow more talented because PS2 is harder to program for. They aren't coding on PS2 for fun. They're doing it because it's where the money's at.

who said that?

[AaronChance]

Originally posted by Mfkzt
Artistic direction is tied hand-in-hand with hardware, and PS2 is the weakest link. The weakest link is also the most popular system, so most games are designed with PS2 in mind. Artists have to limit their vision or lose money by make something Gamecube/Xbox-only.

Art direction has nothing to do with hardware limitations. Do you even understand what the phrase means? If you want to talk vision or scope or something along those lines, sure, but even xbox and gamecube impose strict limitations upon how many polys an object can be and how many light sources and how many textures... and it all adds up rather quickly. Until a console can produce a real time radiosity solution you're just splitting hairs.

Besides, games like Dark Cloud 2 prove that the PS2 can produce pretty effects in big enviroments, even without the help of nice things like bump mapping. I think in that case the artistic direction and vision were both pretty well realized.

[negitoro]

Originally posted by Mfkzt
Yeah, and PS2 is holding artists back. You're limited from the get-go with PS2. Look at games like Zelda or Panzer Dragoon Orta. The best looking games (from a technical and aesthetic standpoint) are not PS2 games, and they aren't multisystem. There's a reason for that.

Just as comment, true, must multisystem games look like crap. The reason is that the games are developed with multiple teams using assets created catering to the lowest common denominator in every case. The budget for porting a game is sufficiently high that all code (which includes the graphics engine) and art assets are done simply to facilitate a cost effective port.

Single system games in general, will look better as they're allowed to tweak the hardware to their liking. Of course, in some cases, like SC2, the developer spends enough time and care to ensure good quality across all platforms. Sadly this is more an exception than the rule.

Saying that, I do believe that the PS2 has some great looking games. And yes, most of the people I know who have developed on the PS2 don't always have good things to say about the hardware. But the problem is that it's inherent in the industry. Real time has always been resource pushing and allocation. Xbox and Gamecube ? You're still having poly limits, texture limits, effects limits. Regardless, you can have shitty looking games across the board regardless of hardware.

Fact is, if a game doesn't look up to it's potential, it's more to do with developers cutting corners and a lack of ability, resources and/or knowhow in fixing the problem.

Problem is that they're cutting costs which leads to inexperienced programmers, inexperienced 3d artists, inexperienced art directors. A few hundred wasted polys here, an unnecessarily large texture there, throw in some programming inefficiencies and the resources get eaten up really fast. So as it is, perhaps even though the system did have enough performance to run some better filtering or full screen anti aliasing or it did have enough texture space to do some mipmapping... fact is, it's not impossible. Other games have shown us they can.