Have Graphics Progressed Enough?

Some of the stuff i have seen on id's new engine Tech 5 tells me there is a lot more that can be done that is not being covered.

The current graphics are of course, wonderfulm but it all depends on how they are used. I've been watching someone play Two Worlds for the 360 and it is a great looking game, but there are still glitches in it that distract from the game. Example, while you walk thorugh a luchly populated field, shrubs and flowers will pop-up in front of you. Once they pop-up they look great, but why even include them if they are going to pop-up? Leave them out.

So better tech will make it easier for inattentive developers to make games that look good.

Honestly, graphics for me have been done since the end of the N64's lifespan. I don't give a damn how real something looks or how much some polygons replicate an object. As long as I know what it is and it's pleasing to the eye, then I'm fine.

I'd much rather care about the main thing that matters in games.....THE GAME aka gameplay.

Can graphics get any better? Yes they surely can and will. Do we want and need better graphics? No, we don't. Most of us are perfectly happy with the graphics of today and would rather thedeveloping team put more emphasis into the gameplay instead of making everything look as good as it possibly can.

Graphics are going to keep progressing until you can't tell the difference from what's real and what isn't. But, this isn't at all what most gamers want. I think as these graphics continue to increase in realism, gamers will take the outing right at where they stand today or possibly even a little better.

So, as far as graphics go to a gamer, they are good enough as is, and games should really stick to them and work on other aspects of a game. But, for the regular consumer of visuals who want to see things on the internet, I believe that graphics will keep evolving until they are not far from perfect and life like.

I'm a graphics whore, I don't like to admit it, but I cringe at the Wiis graphics when I play mine (Nintendo is amazing though, i'll stick with them forever) I personally can't wait for graphics to improve, better animations, models, textures, facial expressions, explosions, physics etc. etc. as much as people don't like to admit it, that all adds to the overall gameplay. Just my opinion though.

I never want to see the point where graphics become moot and gameplay is #1, I like looking at pretty things. Gameplay isvery, very important too.

Amazing graphics + Great gameplay>>>>>>Decent graphics + Amazing gameplay.

All just my opinion though.

I find the artistic design of a game to be much more important than graphical superiority. I know some will disagree with me, but Wind Waker is the best looking Zelda game. I don't think I've seen another game make better use of cel-shading. It's also why Halo looks much better than Kill Zone 2 (even they're pretty compariable graphically).

I think shooters, real-time strategy games, racing games, and sports games will always be pushing to have the best graphics in their respective genres. (It also seems like RPGs are starting to become graphics heavy too.) As nice as the eye-candy is in these genres, it's very rare we see them do anything new. I know with the RTS genre, it often feels like the focus on graphics results in other, more important, areas of the game to be lacking in comparison to their predecessors.

Besides, if graphics stopped being such a big deal, the graphics cards companies would have to focus on something new. Like AI or physics cards. It'd be too much to ask for our consoles and PCs to have a longer life-span in regards to gaming.

No. Soon we will have photorealstic games with flawless animations. Well not soon, but soon enough.

I find the artistic design of a game to be much more important than graphical superiority. I know some will disagree with me, but Wind Waker is the best looking Zelda game. I don't think I've seen another game make better use of cel-shading. It's also why Halo looks much better than Kill Zone 2 (even they're pretty compariable graphically).

I think shooters, real-time strategy games, racing games, and sports games will always be pushing to have the best graphics in their respective genres. (It also seems like RPGs are starting to become graphics heavy too.) As nice as the eye-candy is in these genres, it's very rare we see them do anything new. I know with the RTS genre, it often feels like the focus on graphics results in other, more important, areas of the game to be lacking in comparison to their predecessors.

Besides, if graphics stopped being such a big deal, the graphics cards companies would have to focus on something new. Like AI or physics cards. It'd be too much to ask for our consoles and PCs to have a longer life-span in regards to gaming.

Skie7

Co-sign 100%.

Remember when the Ps2 came out, the graphics on the games were worser then this year. Okay here if you've played GTA 3 then you know GTA sanandreas has better graphics, and they're both on the same console just a couple of years apart. So yeah Graphics can get better.

[QUOTE="Skie7"]

I find the artistic design of a game to be much more important than graphical superiority.

Ninety-2

Co-sign 100%.

In my opinion.

>

IMO

I'm going to go against the grain and say graphics can get a lot better. Sure, the PS3 and X360 are great systems which impress today, but every generation of systems impressed in their day (I can remember when Intellivision's graphics were extremely impressive).

Of course, the importance of graphics is dependent on the types of games one is interested in. For example, minigame collections (and casual gamers are a big chunk of the market) don't need cutting edge hardware. However, hardcore games really benefit from advances like better AI, better animation, more complex architecture, better physics, better lighting, better textures, more enemies onscreen and the ability to better transmit emotion.

No. Soon we will have photorealstic games with flawless animations. Well not soon, but soon enough.

Wasdie

Honestly, I think they haven't, but I do think that violence in games is getting there. Soon we'll be seeing photorealistic people being gunned down in the name of immersive entertainment. I'm about done with that stuff.

Take a look at Id's new project, Rage, which uses their new graphics engine Tech 5. Motion may be one thing that pictures have a hard time supporting (Pics of the PS3 Ridge Racer vs the actual gameplay, you know?), but emotion is another.

Check this out.

Until you have a game where the character models are built like real humans/creatures, who breath and bleed like they should, who have organs and bones that can bust, break, collapse and rupture just like a real living organism. Until you have a game where you could magnify something by 10,000x, and still be able to be rendered exactly the way the real world is rendered before our own eyes. Until you have a game, that is more than a game, that is a real, living, breathing universe, Graphics have not progressed enough. By the look of things, it will be quite a while before that happens.

-RvL

Some of the realistic graphics are my favorites. The water in BioShock as Levine says plays a role in the story, partly because of the sheer willpower it would take for Ryan to build a city in the face of the immense pressure at the bottom of the ocean. The lighting in Halo 3 seems to have been focused on by Bungie, maybe like they focused on bump mapping earlier because that was the Xbox's strength, but it's great how it really makes it feel like this is earth and you are defending it and this is real. Valve studied, as is their wont, a university professor's life work, which is to master every possible human expression and what they signify, to make Alex in Half-Life 2 seem real.

I Think it will come to a point where the cost of producing the game will become too high too be finacially justifiable. Games do not bring in as much money as movies. period. orcbuster

No. I want shooting a person in a game to be visually indistinguishable from shooting a person in real life.

I'm being sarcastic of course, but my real point being that graphics still have a long way to go. I honestly believe that, some day, graphics in some games will be virtually indistinguishable from a movie, other than your character always being on-screen, but how long that will take is anybody's guess.