Blizzard California -- The best art team in the West?

[November Tango]

World of Warcraft has me convinced. I have never seen a more inspired work of gaming art. I have never seen such pain-staking quality in all areas, on all levels of design, visual presentation, and execution in a Western made video game. I thought City of Heroes had excellent art, but WoW has taken the throne atleast in my mind.

So which company has your eye for best art design?

[Jusatsushi]

It's got to be Square-Enix for me. They've been creating majestic and aesthetically superb virtual environments for years!

I know this is the obvious choice, but I'm sticking to it!

[edit] Just re-read the title! no matter how hard I try to tread carefully joining a forum, I always end up doing shiznit like this!!

[SuperBeatBoy]

i agree with Tango here. The artwork is sheer beauty, also you mustn't forget the sheer amount of detail and work goes into the cinematics. for example theres a scene in warcraft 3 with the main character crumbles a petal in his glove, you could swear it was real leather. blizzard should make a full cgi movie.

[gingerj]

http://xboxmedia.ign.com/xbox/image/article/554/554336/psychonauts-20041005055415956-000.jpg

who ever does the art work for psychnoauts gets my vote right now.

[November Tango]

It's got to be Square-Enix for me. They've been creating majestic and aesthetically superb virtual environments for years!

I know this is the obvious choice, but I'm sticking to it!

[edit] Just re-read the title! no matter how hard I try to tread carefully joining a forum, I always end up doing shiznit like this!!

Nothing wrong with picking an Eastern development team. I know the title says 'in the West,' but when I asked for favorites I was thinking world-wide.

Five years ago I would have agreed with you, Jusatsushi. However, I feel like the Japanese giants are slowly being eclipsed by Korean, European, and American development houses that are finally getting their acts together in the realm of digital animation. Blizzard has always been talented in this respect, but I feel they've out done themselves with WoW.

[PeteJ]

WoW is indeed very impressive, particularly for the size of the game (12 hours, still in first area ). The CGI intro is also very cool, Blizzard have always been exellent in this area - the dwarf at the start is so nicely done.

Unfortunately for Blizzard, Starcraft Ghost has horrible design imo, the lead character is just so uninspired and the animation is awful (at least it was last time I saw it).

I'd say that Retro Studios have the most detailed and inspired art team in the world at the moment. Both Metroid Prime games are so rich with detail and imagination, it almost single handledly makes the series worth exploring.