Graphics. The cornerstone of video games. Since the dawn of man, we have strived to achieve good graphics. Games that were once considered revolutionary now look like they were animated by fucking Tim and Eric. With this video, I want to evaluate games that look fucking stupid. Halo 5 is a good example. There is so much shit on your screen in this game. I don't even know where to begin. What am I supposed to be shooting at? Where are the enemies? Is that a bad guy or a lens flare? There's like 50 sources of light and enemies just blend right into the environment. It is a cluttered overload. Now look at Halo 1. Look at how much visual clarity you have. The enemies have these bright contrasting colors. They popped right out of the background. Player knows exactly what they're looking at. Of course, you have the Red Elite there who is more powerful than the blue one, you know and then-BOOM-you turn on the new graphics and you're instantly at a disadvantage now. A lot of modern games have this issue. Just recently, Lawbreakers, which is... fun game, right? But visually, it's just hopelessly outmatched by Overwatch. Again, you have the more complicated looking environment with a cast of characters that are practically identical versus the more simplified maps of Overwatch with these distinct obvious characters. I really hate to do this but again, DOTA 2. The screen is too busy. Too much stuff going on versus-BOP-League, which looks so much better because the background is in the background and the focus is on the characters. Arkham City has the reverse problem. A big part of this game is exploring the town and finding Riddler's trophies. Now look at Zelda, another game with a big emphasis on exploration. See how Link barely takes up any space on the screen, compared to here, where a third of the screen is dedicated entirely to Batman. Get out of the way, you fucking Batman! [Jerry Rice]: "...and I think it's a great concept." [Jerry Rice]: "The graphics are good and you can go to uh...GameStop..." Camera placement is hugely important especially when you're talking platformers. Mario 64. Sunshine. Galaxy. Odyssey. Notice how Mario was always at the center of the screen. No matter what crazy shit happens, you can always rely on Mario being at the center of the action. 3D World now... Uh oh! The camera is locked back here so when Mario goes inward, it really starts to get uncomfortable. That consistency is no longer there. For whatever reason, many games have start to replicate flaws within real life cameras such as film grain and while putting a dumbfuck film grain filter over your game is obviously the stupidest fucking idea ever, nothing really ruins a game's visuals like motion blur. From a purely technological standpoint, I'd say Uncharted 4 is the top dog right now, graphically. I don't even want to know how much time and money went into making this game look like this. But, uh oh! What's this? Some sick bastard put in this terrible motion blur effect so that every time you turn the camera, the graphics transform from crystalline perfection into some fucking eye-melting mush! Eventually, they added in the option that turned the motion blur off and the difference is just night and day. Look at how much better it looks with it turned off. Jesus Christ... The last thing I want to talk about is automated animation. This stuff has always and will always look like shit. You look at a hand-animated cutscene and it's so alive and expressive versus an automated cutscene with two stiff robots, not even trying to lip-sync their audio. I understand that with these huge 40 hour games that's impossible to go in there and make look everything incredible but when your game is largely story and dialogue driven, this robotic shit is a huge disconnect for the player. You look at an older game like Scarface and there's just a lot of subtle details that they used to get wrong back in the day, such as, you know, if you look very closely, you can see that Al Pacino's head is not actually attached to his body, which is...uh...very unrealistic. Then you look at a modern game, you know, like Uncharted, where everybody's head is attached their body, just in real life. And uh... [Dunkey]: Oh no, uh....
[Character]: You! With me. [Character]: Man the gun. And then you look back at Scarface, right? And you kinda notice how their bodies aren't actually holding the guns or walking at all, really. Just kind of moving on their own. *screaming and shooting* And then you look at the new Uncharted, right? And ye- oh... Okay, what the fuck... Aw... [Jerry Rice]: "And the graphics." [Jerry Rice]: "That's, you know, that's really what this is all about and uh..." [Outro]
What always comes to mind for me is the valve games and how they work for the user.
Left4Dead's dark night-driven game uses lights to give the player indications on where to go, so that whenever you are stuck, you can follow the light sources.
TF2 worked with the silhouette's of each character and made sure to distinguish them from the background, so you could figure out exactly who you are up against in the minimal amount of visual scanning.
Battleborn is probably the best example of absolutely garbage HUD cluttered with indistinguishable crap. Just look at this shit.
Finally, I've found other people that hate the motion blur and depth of field bullshit.
I always turn it off because I like clear, crisp, smooth visuals. Having that stuff on is a handicap in multiplayer.
This comes to my mind whenever the topic of graphics comes up.
Good video overall, but why the hell did he compared 2011 Dota2 with 2017 League of Legends (that's how League looked back then)? At least compare it to how it is today...
This has been one of my major complaints with games since the mid 2000's. I hold the opinion that this problem began back in 2003 and earlier for me. Mainly with RTS games, but the problem has only gotten worse not better.
I've been torn to pieces for saying <beloved game> isn't what I'm into because the art style gets the way of me reading the gameplay.
Replace <beloved game> with any variation of game that shoved this sort of graphical clutter in your face since the early-mid 2000's.
I've never seen anyone really talk about it before now with any seriousness - despite the fact I've tried to bring the topic up many times.
Not his best video, felt like he rambled a bit and didn't say much
I don't have the best computer so motion blur and bloom and all that shit is the first thing to go down to minimum. FPS > looks.
Anyone else not really mind that batman takes up a lot of the screen during the walking scenes?