Graphics: who cares?

I was re-reading my masterful blog entries the other day and I realised that whenever I use the word 'graphics' there's a good chance that it's followed by a compliment, and it reminded me of my own growth into power and coming to accept and, in time, get bored with power that's readily available.

As you should all know, my Dragon Punch technique is so powerful that when Hitler heard that it's might was capable of going through time to destroy peoples noots he ran into a bunker and shot himself.

But now it's only a mild fear (depending on how close you are to the actual event). Before people only whispered of the Dragon Punch whilst now fourteen year olds will fill thread upon thread whether my Dragon Punch could beat Sephiroth or Vegeta (which it could).

What does my ultimate ending technique and new-gen graphics have to do with eachother?

There is no longer a point in mentioning a games graphic capabilities...unless it's awful.

Ever since the release of the current gaming systems I honestly haven't noticed much change in graphics or their capabilities. The games look amazing, even the bad ones. Hell, even FFXIII, the worst game EVER, looks amazing. But who gives a shit?

No-one...unless the graphics are bad. We're at a point now in gaming technology where taking even a minor step back will cause people to check their HDMI cable hasn't fallen out and then question why they've just paid a hundred or so dollars for a game that could have easily been played on the Ps2 (or the Wii {and I'm looking at YOU, DRAGON AGE}).

So knowing now that people see great graphics as the norm, what should people expect? How do we judge games on look now?

The answer?

STYLE.

Now that developers can make games look as clear cut as my pectoral definition, the door to STYLE should be flung open. But it's not...not really.

Out of the last 20 or so games that I reviewed the ones that primarily come to mind when I think of style is Shank and Deathspank. Shank because of its great cartoon-like feel and Deathspank for having the balls to make a game that looks like it could have been on the Nintendo 64 and still being fun to play.

Many of you are probably thinking;

'But Viking Gamer! What about Bioshock and Fallout and Demon's souls!?'

Well noobs, the great things about those games are the ENVIRONMENTS, which is completely different to style, and here's why:

STYLE is about what the graphics are based around. In Shank the graphics are based around a cartoon/comic book look, while in deathspank it looks like someone accidentally created a purple 3d blob and put him in a diorama. This gives us the sense of THE TONE OF PLAY.

EVIRONMENT is about the landscape. Bioshock gives us the sense of claustraphobia and fear with things using shadows and walls to kill you from, leaking pipes and areas of business to show that you are REALLY UNDERWATER in what was once a thriving economy and posters and messages written in blood to help us understand what happened here. This gives us a sense of WHERE WE ARE.

Lost Planet and Demon's Souls look just as good as eachother, but the styles are only marginally different and that's purely for gameplay purposes rather than aesthetics.

There are a few reasons as to why this is, but I'm only going to mention the important one:

Gaming developers are massive, massive pussies. Folklore (which is awesome) switched between the gameplay which was the usual awesome visuals we've come to expect, and some fairly sketchy comic book like interaction which, as a STYLE, worked really well.

But along came the haters who couldn't understand why they would add this in, and I can only suspect they had come down with a severe case of George Lucas-itis in which they couldnt get an erection unless EVERYTHING was done in cgi.

So, after reading lots and lots of bad reviews on a game that was generally a lot better than the fifteen thousand Mario remakes that get made and recieve good reviews EVERY TIME ONE OF THOSE SOULLESS LEECHES IS PRODUCED, I decided (again) that the general public could go and fuck themselves with their 'we don't understand any game that isnt Mario' flags.

So, to keep the unoriginal appeased, it's only fair that they produce games that consistenly look samey (albeit excellent).

The sense of style and difference was one of my main motivators to get back on the PsP. I needed a break from the flawless to get back into the flawed, the original, the games we loved despite their inferiority.

I'm giving graphics and any score based system around them 1/5, because I realise now that some reviewers only talk about graphics to have more to write about.

Til next time, the gamer with horns on his hat.