Good graphics = lack of atmosphere?

[Ady]

I wouldn't go as far as to say that good graphics equates to no atmosphere, but photorealism does have its disadvantages.

Ultimately, it depends entirely on what the game is trying to do. For example, with a game like Heavy Rain, photorealism works; similarly, something like Killer7 is better suited to a more stylised aesthetic.

The biggest problem with the holy grail of photorealism though is that the more realistic games look, the greater the disconnect if the game world and game physics do not share the same measure of real world authenticity.

[MarioMark]

Good thread and I see what you mean. Crackdown 1&2 vs GTA4 is a good example. Crackdown's simple cell shaded graphics is easy on the eyes and runs perfectly but GTA4 where everything is orange and brown isn't really all that nice to look at with the trails effect and doesn't run very consistent.

Edit: And the MRC game looks ace! I missed out on that back in the day!

[Roddie]

MRC was a bag of rubbish.

[Kit]

Great post, Ady.

This is also what I argue to the hordes of people begging for a FFVII remake, please don't go there - it could never be as good as what I had in my mind when playing it the first time. Believe it or not I was actually imagining in my mind a style very similar to Advent Children to accompany my play, and this is what I try telling people who are new to games but won't touch the old stuff because of "****" graphics - which to me is like not reading books that don't have pretty pictures in. For classics like this the graphics are only to be used as an aide and not to be taken for granted like they are now.

Even though it was just done to save time, one of the things I liked about Final Fantasy VII was the way they used different art styles for combat and cut-scenes. Changing from cartoon Cloud to real looking Cloud helped set the tone for those parts of the game quite well I thought. I think that was the last and only time they switched up the art styles? - not a huge follower of FF.

[dataDave]

Even though it was just done to save time, one of the things I liked about Final Fantasy VII was the way they used different art styles for combat and cut-scenes. Changing from cartoon Cloud to real looking Cloud helped set the tone for those parts of the game quite well I thought.

Exactly. And on a third tier, this probably subliminally provoked my imaginations of what the characters and environments would be like if they were real. Roleplaying games in a traditional sense have always required the participants to bring as much to the table for a fulfiling experience - Nowadays though the developer, much like a bad Game Master, brings too much of one asset whilst lacking at the core (ie: Setting/Story). For the record I've never done any AD&D roleplay or anything like that.