pikarceus (2013-09-29 03:48:33)

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So many people on here seem to think we've maxed out graphics. It's mainly in defense of the Wii U's hardware, but I'm actually going to take you guys seriously and explain how much better our games can end up looking.

Get ready for something of an essay, as I have nothing better to do and I'd like to cultivate some discussion in these forums that have been dull of late.

360/PS3 are definitely showing their age now, when they first came out these things were even better than high end PCs, when Uncharted 2 came out, you could barely find any PC games that looked better. Not the case anymore. In sheer detail, PC blows current gen console away these days. I can't explain too much in depth as I don't own a high end PC and only have screenshots to go by, but it's easy to highlight how next gen can make graphics better.

Let's talk open world games. PS3/360 saw an explosion of these games, Assassin's Creed, Saints Row, Far Cry, inFAMOUS, you name it. All these games have technical and graphical issues.

In Saints Row: The Third, get into an aircraft during the day and fly above the city. Everything looks like crap, buildings have no texture whatsoever until you fly close to it, then textures start poping like crazy. Drive down the streets quick and trees and pedestrians pop out of thin air. And the pedestrians aren't detailed to begin with. I have not seen a single free-roaming game this gen with detailed pedestrians. They all have pretty basic details, and their animations are very simple. They mostly just repeat the same few animations over and over again. They have no where near the detail as protagonists like Connor, Lara Croft, and Nathan Drake. I'll believe we'll be getting close to max graphics when EVERY NPC has that kind of detail. And on-top of that, there aren't all that many on screen at once. In a big city you'd expect more than 50 people on the street at once, you'd be looking at 500-1,000+
I live in the Chicago area and I am not expecting realistic pedestrian numbers when Watchdogs hits, especially on the current gen versions.

And back to pop-in. The plague of open world games. There is ONE open world game this gen I have played that doesn't have in it large amounts and that is Batman: Arkham City.

And it also annoys me have everything is always blurry and lacking detail when you get far away. It's like your character has eye problems or something.

Another thing is destruction. When you destroy stuff in most videogames, they explode, splinter, whatever, and it all looks good until the bits magically disappear seconds after they hit the ground. This is also really obvious in Saints Row.
BattleField is also a good example.

Plants: On 360/PS3 foliage looks so fake. Grass usually looks like plastic and leaves look like bits of tissue stuck together.
In all the Assassin's Creed games before III, this is really obvious. And even in better looking games like III, you still notice funny stuff. The leaves don't actually move individually, the branches just move. Very few games have individually moving leaves, I've noticed.

And the thing is, even in linear games like The Last of Us and Uncharted, that have jacked up insane graphics, they still aren't perfect. I've seen a couple of jagged shadows and a board in The Last of Us, also when a character in the game (Bill) guts a Clicker in a scripted part, the animation is a bit weird. I should also mention that what looks like tons of leaves on the ground on the college campus are actually flat textures with no real depth, I discovered this when zooming in.
And of course, detailed things in the game world like fine text on signs gets blurry when you zoom is. Some games are worse than others. Bioshock: Infinite is a big offender in blurry textures if you get close to something.

I am being nitpicky? Yeah, but graphics have quite a ways to go.

My prediction: By the end of next gen we'll be laughing at the graphics of pretty much every open world game this gen, and at least half of this gen's AAA linear games.

I won't be convinced we'll be close to maxed out until

-60fps and 1080p (Make that 4k) at once in GTA V size+ world

-Every NPC has Lara Croft/Nathan Drake detail

-Perfectly realistic environmental destruction (If you shoot a wall, it looks real, not a black smudge)

-Perfect physics (Grabbing on to a ledge after reaching maximum velocity will break your arm, this doesn't happen in AC, jumping on a table will scatter the stuff on the table, etc)

-Zero pop-in

-Perfect draw distance (Everything looks crisp miles in all directions, no fog or blur)

My thoughts.

This post has been edited one or more times, the last time was:
2013-09-29 03:50:25

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WYoshiX2 (2013-09-29 04:01:05)

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Perfection.

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SackThing101 (2013-09-29 05:20:31)

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^

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Bean (2013-09-29 09:09:33)

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All hail Fox Engine and it's mighty MGSV graphics.

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DeathKid (2013-09-30 06:36:29)

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^Then don't comment.

What you want sounds nice in theory, but to have thousands of fully animated and drawn characters would take amazing amounts of effort and time. Plus, all those textures and thousands of individually textured leaves and crap all appearing at full clarity from far away would be insanely taxing on the system, and none of the graphics cards or processors on even the most advanced gaming PCs would be able to handle that at a solid FPS rate. It would be a very long time until we have the technology for ridiculously high-end graphics like that.

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Nin10dude789 (2013-09-30 15:42:21)

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Pika's logic:
''If a game doesn't have good graphics, then it sucks''

Call of Duty fanboy's logic:
''call of dootee haz de bezt grafics evr all geims haz horibl grafics''

Does it ring a bell?

A game doesn't need to be super realistic. Sure, I can agree graphics are important, but why making it too detailed? I want to play a GAME, not watch a movie.

Bit. Trip Runner is a perfect example graphics doesn't need to be pretty. The gameplay is the most important element of a game.

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Bean (2013-09-30 20:02:41)

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^ Decent graphics are nice too, though.

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Nin10dude789 (2013-09-30 23:28:02)

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^Ok, want another 3D game? Here it goes:
Minecraft

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DeathKid (2013-10-01 04:07:02)

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This is something i've done for over a year, i'm not stopping because it irritates you. @mega

Anyway, the graphics vs. gameplay argument is getting old. IMO neither alone make a good game, a good blend of the two make a game good. Also, what constitutes "good" graphics? If you look at a lot of great NES games, the art looks really crisp and appealing, even though it's mostly 8-bit sprites. Plus, what looks good now will likely look subpar in twenty years when compared to graphics that gaming systems have then. Can you really put the Ocarina of Time graphics to the same standards as CoD? And even if a game has pretty good gameplay, if the graphics are extremely unappealing to the point where they're distracting, it would draw away from the experience.

This post has been edited one or more times, the last time was:
2013-10-05 18:51:07

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Shalala (2013-10-01 20:48:06)

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I don't care about graphics. As long as they are decent and the gameplay is good, I'll be entertained.

If you people want awesome graphics, go play Outside: The Video Game. Not the best game ever, but it has the most realest graphics.

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Ron1212 (2013-10-01 22:20:55)

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I believe that graphics do matter, but gameplay will almost always matter more, as it's the core aspect of what're you're playing. Graphics are for the visual eye candy, but gameplay is what's actually going on in the game.

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Nin10dude789 (2013-10-02 15:39:08)

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@Mega
I know Minecraft was released like that, but Mojang could do a better job with the graphics.

Therse a ton of PS3/360 that has amazing graphics, but gameplay sucks.

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Nin10dude789 (2013-10-02 15:47:43)

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Then Pac-Man is still popular not because of it's graphics, but it's known for the gameplay.

Even Mega Man. It has super cartoony graphics, it's not HD, doesn't have super realistic elements, but the main reason why Mega Man is famous for it's gameplay.

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Nin10dude789 (2013-10-02 23:38:35)

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@Mega
Well you said 3D games needs to good graphics. Of course I thought of Minecraft, since it's an 3D open world game with blocky graphics, and we all know that this gen, EVERYONE thinks having bad graphics means it will suck, which is a completely false statement.

Besides Minecraft, therse a ton more 3D games with bad graphics, but amazing gameplay.

For example, the PS1 (32-bit) vs N64 (64-bit). Obviously 64-bit wins, however, the PS1 has better games than the N64, kicking the N64's butt in the 5th gen.

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BioMan8 (2013-10-03 02:50:14)

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"For example, the PS1 (32-bit) vs N64 (64-bit). Obviously 64-bit wins, however, the PS1 has better games than the N64, kicking the N64's butt in the 5th gen."

You don't actually think bits makes a console any worse, do you? A console can be far superior aesthetically despite housing 32 bits on an ARM, simply by enduring play with a better board. Granted, the Nintendo 64 was an improvement over Sony's Play Station X, it wasn't because of the bits it held.

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