We have yet another problem in our industry. This dilemma has been getting more serious as every year passes. The problem that I speak of is the false notion of what graphics really are. Today, visuals in games are seen as benchmarks on which to base numbers such as frames per second (fps), polygons per second (pps), and draw distance. In fact, graphics have been weighted so high that they have often been the sole category of judgment to many casual players. Hence, if a game looks good to someone, it automatically means it is good.
So here lies the situation which we are pitted with. Game visuals have been entirely misrepresented by the gaming public and journalists en masse. This piece intends to debunk this false standpoint of graphics in trade for a new and well rounded one. We are going to take what you know of graphics, turn it sideways, and kick it straight in the pants. Our proposition is that game visuals consist of almost all art with technical merits as only a helper. Eventually we will approach a case study showing that The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has better graphics than Starfox Adventures (a game that many consider to be the best graphics).
Pixel Power
By nature, video games are exceptionally visual experiences. Pixels quickly form images on your television that gives you an idea of what the developer was trying to convey. Thus, in order for you to understand their vision, they need to feed you the proper imagery. This also applies to simple games as well as current complex ones. For you to understand that Mario is dying in Donkey Kong, Nintendo makes Mario laying down holding a flower. He is made of only a handful of pixels yet you get a firm idea of what the on-screen events are. When you save the damsel in distress, a heart appears between her and our hero symbolizing their happiness and love.
These simple gestures have obviously been refined and heightened through the use of current technology. Now instead of a flat two-dimensional display, we have state-of-the-art three-dimensional worlds to explore. Yet somehow over these years, people began thinking that technology changed the rules in which we define visual communication.
The beginning of the three-dimensional game movement was very rough. Games were made with flat-shaded shapes rather than hand drawn (or painted) art. In essence, the movement to 3-D was almost a step back from the consistency of 2-D games. Of course there was now freedom of movement and a way to peer at things from all angles, but we lost a precious amount of flair that was so prevalent in older generations. To combat this, many sought to create greater technology and find developers who could squeeze every ounce of processing power from the hardware. It is here where the problem began. People who were rightfully disappointed by the cold movement in 3-D (even if they were unaware of their own feelings) began begging for developers to show an increasingly impressive scope of worlds to explore. By having such a need for more power, people became dependant on how far developers could push something technically. They gained knowledge of such things as frames per second, texture buffers, draw distance, and more.
Today, gamers have become adjusted to hearing numbers instead of gameplay features. Armchair experts claim to know all there is about technical benchmarks in videogames. The warmth and charm of games has been cast aside in trade for the cold world of silicon and technical specifications. Think you know what graphics are? Forget it. Forget everything you know about them at this very moment, and begin with a clean slate. Forget those numbers, specifications, benchmarks, and screenshots of your favorite looking games. We are about to usher a new definition for what graphics truly are.
Taking the Plunge
I want you to imagine a white canvas right now in your head. Go on and do it. Now imagine picking up a paint brush with your favorite color and stroking the canvas with it. Draw something that you would like to see. Now concentrate on what you were drawing. If youll notice, your brush strokes were not perfect, and neither was the application of paint. Instead of drawing a straight line, it is mostly straight with slight curves and paint splotches on the sides. Youre probably wondering what Im getting at, but remarkably this is the first step in understanding game graphics.
Like your canvas with a splotch of color, games are also a canvas waiting to be painted on (as discussed earlier). Graphics are, as many have rallied against, every element in a game that adds to the visuals. These different elements are combined to give you, the player, a specific feeling or emotion.
One of the first things one notices in a game's look is the textures. A common misconception is that a game is better with higher resolution textures. This is false. A games texture style is far more important than the clarity of the image. In fact, the style is sometimes deliberately blurry in an artistic fashion. A case in point is Starfox Adventures vs. Super Mario Sunshine. While Starfox sports higher resolution textures, Mario uses textures that appear to be painted. Marios textures could be said to be more artistically impressive on the grounds that they have been deliberately used to make a fresh look. In the same token, the textures in Starfox could be said to be clear but less imaginative.
Also, in these worlds you need to have cues that make it truly immersive. Enter the little details that are sprinkled generously through the great titles of our generations. These can include things like the plane that flies way up in the sky in Super Mario Sunshine, or the little embers that fly out of the lava in Metroid Prime. If you spray something in Mario, you will see that the ground changes color, and you even see drops of water fly everywhere. These are not tied in with technical specifications per say, as they could be very crude in nature. The little details add flavor to the visuals by creating a vibrant world out of a lifeless one.
Like your imperfect painting, in-game models have a warm glow about them when done correctly. The important aspect here is the style used in the creation of the model. Whether the character is made of a hundred polygons ore one million, it does not matter. What is crucial is the design and animation of the character. Right now you could open your front door and see humans everywhere, and then boot up a game and see humans mimicked almost flawlessly. Is this incredibly artistic in nature? Not necessarily. What is artistic is the use of polygons (or just images) to create something you have never seen. The canvas in my head looks different from yours, and thus, to you it may look beautiful. In fact, this whole idea stems from the Japanese aesthetic concept of Wabi-Sabi. It is the beauty of imperfection and incompletion. Oddly enough, this directly applies to videogames. The reason is that you may admire my imperfections, or how when I draw a face the ears look big and strange. We apply this to game graphics. In Luigis Mansion, candlesticks were curved, doors were warped, and the paintings were stretched. This look was artistic because of its different approach to reality. Link in the new Zelda for GameCube also has a fresh look. His eyebrows can be seen through his hair, and he has huge eyes that are curved in an abnormal way. Embrace these ideas and deliberate imperfections, for they may be beautiful as well.
Yet even more important than the model is the way it is animated. A good looking game has models that animate fluidly at all times. If Mario jumps off of a wall, he animates fluidly. There is hardly a time where he looks to be suspended in static animation. It is this type of fluid animation that must be rewarded, as it will make an experience more aesthetically alive. Some games have amazing amounts of curved surfaces on a character but are wasted on par animation sequences. Once again, it does not matter if the character is animated to look like a picture-perfect walking human.
All these elements can now be bound together by special effects. Things like the heat waves and water distortion in Super Mario Sunshine compliment the visuals nicely. Like the movie industry, special effects need to be cautiously rationed throughout the experience. If it is used too gratuitously it spoils the mood. Instead, special effects need to be a spice to compliment the on-screen happenings instead of the meat and potatoes themselves.
Putting the Pieces Together
If we are to take games seriously, we must let our tastes mature. Games have been slotted into an unfair standard by the very gamers who play them. Instead of having a wide variety of artistic visions embraced, we have essentially become the Grand Theft Auto gaming generation. Artistic flair goes unnoticed most of the time in this industry, and it is only by rewarding artistic input that we will let the medium mature.
It has been said countless times in the past, but it is true: Image is the cause of much of the problem. Instead of thinking how cool things look (as in the standard cool of MTV) try thinking of how cool things look artistically. Forget about how you will look when you play a game that has a different style. If all gamers are concerned about is image, we would never reach the same standard that movies have reached. That is, we will never have a healthy library of ideas to feed the different tastes of gamers. After all, variety is the spice of life.
So knowing what we know, lets look at Zelda versus Starfox Adventures. Zelda has an unquestionable amount of artistic input. The graphics consist of cartoon shaded characters and worlds that have been stylistically exaggerated. Everything from the water to the grass has been polished to look fresh, and be vibrant with detail. Starfox on the other hand looks great as a realistic game, but seems to come up short in the art department. Everything is created to look real, and in doing so, things that are unrealistic stand out too much. Also, the textures have a much more artistic approach in Zelda. A tree might be two colors, but have been hand painted to swirl about and look like anything but what you would see in real life. Starfox Adventures essentially uses textures you could imagine for a tree if you closed your eyes. Once again, it could be said that realism actually lowers the amazement of the game. Both games have good character animation, and is not really an issue in either. Does Zelda look realistic? Not even close. Is this a good thing? Absolutely. And thats exactly what you should be thinking when you see something new. The amazement from seeing something new should come naturally, but if it doesnt, try to stop and think about the Wabi-Sabi of the game sometimes. Find the beauty in the deliberately imperfect brush-strokes of the games visuals.
Sure this is all subjective (since beauty is in the eyes of the beholder), but the point is to open your mind. Embrace visual ideas you once thought were foreign. Pick up a game in the future that looks artistically different, and soak it all in. Remember, too much of anything is a bad thing. And there certainly are too many artistically dull games selling today. So dont fall into the trap that many magazines and jaded gamers have fallen into. After all, unlike technology, art can be timeless.
And now a word from Brenden about color relating to self-image, amongst other things.
To quote Gabe from Penny-Arcade: I think I've had enough of the "kids games", "adult games" thing. It completely misses the point. Are they afraid that playing a game with colors in it will make them a dork? Well, that boat already sailed. You play videogames? Welcome to Dorksville. You want to know how cool your videogames are? Ask your fucking girlfriend how cool. And if you don't have a girlfriend? That's part of the test. Source: Penny-Arcade And it's true. Ever had a conversation with your girlfriend after playing a great game of, say perhaps, FIFA 2003? No doubt you're still excited about your amazing victory and as a male (not trying to leave you out ladies, but the story just plays out better like this), you feel inclined to tell the very next person about it. In great detail. No matter whether they care or not. Let me just say from personal experience that you will indeed sound like a dork. You could've made the most incredible come-back in video game sports history, but she still isn't going to care. At the most, you'll get a polite response that quickly changes the topic. Video games just aren't cool for an eighteen year old. I learned to deal with it and I advise you to do the same. The age old (in terms of the gaming industry) debate of "mature" and "kiddy" has spanned a couple of console generations. It's mostly the difference between "cool" and "uncool" that qualifies the two titles respectively. I can remember back in my younger days being a huge Mario fan (still am, of course) and being badgered by the Sonic loving kids. Now, I had nothing against Sonic or the Sega Genesis. A couple of friends of mine had Master Systems and Genesis' and we played them a lot. Fun times were had by all. Unfortunately, kids are cruel. You'd be surprised how many times you could be called a "doody-head" for sporting a very snazzy Super Mario Bros. t-shirt. But hey, that was only the school yard. Nowadays we're dealing with a much broader problem. The internet. A haven for completely mindless drivel at times, the internet has spawned countless arguements between people who act like they know everything, but who in actuality, have no idea what they're talking about. I've seen it first hand too. Remember, I'm an administrator at our forums and while I consider ours to be incredibly intelligent, we still see our share of idiocy. What truly amazes me amidst all that idiocy is how insecure gamers are about what games they play. In my opinion, if you feel the need to raise your own ego in the eyes of your peers because you don't want to seem "immature", you've got priority problems. Your choice of game should not be dependent on what other gamers might think of you if you play it just because it looks a little fruity. So, does Nintendo have a "kiddy" image? If so, can it be changed? Well, if it looks like an orange, smells like a orange, tastes like a orange and acts like an orange, it's probably not an apple. Most likely, it is indeed an orange. There's a chance it could be a variety of orange that tries to be a little bit different (such as a mandarin perhaps), but at it's core, it's still an orange. Now that you're sufficiently hungry, think about what really qualifies the "kiddy" image. It's not simply gameplay that does it, nor does it have anything to do with inferior hardware. Nintendo's never had a serious problem with gameplay or inferior hardware and these points are therefore rarely looked at while discussing the image in question. There's really only one thing that defines it. The colour. The general perception is that if you play anything that might resemble something that a child might be interested in, it makes you immature. This, oddly enough, is a fairly immature view in itself, but it ultimately resulted in the "kiddy" image. This doesn't mean that change is necessarily a good thing. While Nintendo might be trying to broaden it's horizons and reach out to the "mature" gamer, it's not their core audience. Hence, it's probably a bad business decision to go head-on into territory that not only are they not familiar with, but has also been claimed by competing consoles. Yes, I'd love to see more games like GTA 3 and Halo on the GCN. The more variety and selection, the better. Unfortunately, it has to be a natural business progression. I don't think the image should be changed, but if Nintendo really wanted to, they probably could. Unfortunately, it would be ridicuously costly and therefore not in the best interests of the company. As I was saying earlier, it's been a fairly common thing for Xbox and PS2 owners to make fun of GCN owners for being "kiddy". But what's really scaring me though, it's not just the Xbox and PS2 owners taking stabs at the Nintendo "kiddy" image; GCN owners out there do it in droves. Most of them claim that Nintendo isn't being forceful enough in it's push for 3rd party developer support. Is it really that big of a deal? Do we really need to have a game loaded with blood, gore and sex to dissolve our insecurity? If that's what you enjoy, then fine, go ahead and play it, but it isn't going to help your social status in any way in the real world.The Adolescent Fear of Colour
Jason Nuyens
Brenden Petracek