I, like most people who consider themselves “true gamers” like to say that it is gameplay that counts, not graphics. To a certain extent I still hold that to be true, but lets not kid ourselves, graphics are important to the game.
It is very much like women (or indeed men) when looked at from the perspective of someone you might like to date. We all know that fundamentally it is the personality that will be the ultimate decider on whether or not you want to see that person again, but it is the initial way that person presents themselves visually that will be what catches your attention. It is the same for video games.
However, this isn’t to say that I believe the game with the most polygons is the game that makes best use of visual presentation just like the woman with the largest breasts isn’t necessarily the best looking woman around. The infamous beads of sweat in Fight Night Round 3 are all well and good from a reality standpoint, but it doesn’t take a great art director to come up with that idea. And this is quite frankly what is wrong with 90% of games that try and sell themselves initially on graphics.
Games like Fight Night or Gears of War definately try and sell you their graphics from the get go. These games are rich with infinite detail and hipoly meshes and dynamic lights casting raytraced shadows over the highly detailed landscapes. But for me this is visually in the same arena as a big summer blockbuster like Spider-Man 2 or worse, Pearl Harbour. There is simply very little creativity in the way the games are presented. While Fight Night tries and succeeds ultra realism, Gears is something very different. This will probably cause a lot of controversy, but if you take away all the ingame technicalities, the art direction you are left with is essentially the same as any other sci-fi game over the past 20 years. Nothing new is being done here other than make things shiny and glistening.
This has caused a lot of criticism being thrown towards the Xbox 360 in it’s early life, with developers relying on the hardware to do the work for them, but really, has anything changed now? Even games such as Mass Effect doesn’t feel very different artistically than something like Anarchy Online. If we as an industry ever hope to gain respect from other media industries (which really seems to be strived for many times) then art directors need to take bold approaches. Indeed, games companies need to look to other areas of design to draw their creative directions. Over the last ten years games are still being produced with the same lack of creativity in their art direction as they were when games like Contra first came out. Games are bigger and more expansive, with higher definition clouding the eyes of those looking in.
There is a real need for art directors without previous game experience, without that preconceived notion of what a game should look like, free to explore everything a game can be. More expression in the art. Wipeout was one such example that pushed the boundaries by having The Designer’s Republic art direct the game. This was a revolution in terms of visuals in artistic direction for games but all these years later other companies aren’t catching on despite Wipeout Pure pushing the limits with design companies like 123Klan designing tracks for the game.
This industry desperately needs more art directors with an original voice and publishers and developers that are willing to listen. Games don’t need to be over the top and over designed with the latest trends in order to stand out. Subltety seen in Half-Life 2 or the beautiful Shadow of the Colossus is enough when companies don’t want to take the risk of an Okami or Killer 7. Luckily, sometimes good art direction and great technical systems can come together at times with games like Bioshock on the way, but unfortunately these are still the exception. Entering into the sixth generation of gaming, this really needs to become the rule.
Where do I get that track from wipeout pure where do I go to download it?