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1eyedking 1eyedking's List of Games Full of Tasteful Art Direction

DraQ

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It'll probably be The Witcher 2 on steroids, which means we'll get some bits of good stuff, but the folkish feeling of the first has been lost completely.
Ok, this is a valid criticism of 2's art direction.

FFA166C9B76C1189EE4A909DC8442F208B474A5B

Some art direction. Actually someone should capture certain areas from first chapters in 2500+ resolution.
kag5cx.png
 
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dnf

Pedophile
Dumbfuck Shitposter
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Messages
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Three new entries were added to my glorious list:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Call of Pripyat
Silent Hill 4: The Room


All hail Art Direction!
Another jap game? Why not the other entries?
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
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Messages
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It'll probably be The Witcher 2 on steroids, which means we'll get some bits of good stuff, but the folkish feeling of the first has been lost completely.
Ok, this is a valid criticism of 2's art direction.

FFA166C9B76C1189EE4A909DC8442F208B474A5B

Some art direction. Actually someone should capture certain areas from first chapters in 2500+ resolution.
kag5cx.png
I know you prefer this image:

Y345wLJ.png


But we also prefer nature like this:
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1024x0.resizedimage

1024x0.resizedimage

1024x0.resizedimage

1024x0.resizedimage

1024x0.resizedimage
 

1eyedking

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Another jap game? Why not the other entries?
Because japanese games generally suck. Particularly, in the art direction department, they suck hard.

To be honest I added Tactics Ogre out of pitty, the game has no mood or atmosphere whatsoever, at least not the kind that gets under your skin.

Silent Hill 4, on the other hand, actually manages to deliver feelings of desperation, isolation and opression. It didn't make it into the top list because the plot is complete utter crap - 80% of the text in the game is shit, though some descriptions are actually good; the game is a disjointed mess of good images, ideas and concepts but they don't make much sense as a whole (like anything from Japan, really). Voice-acting is cringeworthy; and I guess the music is OK, but nothing great.

Amnesia and Penumbra, on the other hand, have very coherent lore and setting, and the writing is top-notch. Voice-acting in Amnesia is good (non-existent in Penumbra, which is preferable to bad). Music is 10/10. Thus, both games are top caliber stuff. I'm eagerly awaiting SOMA's release, albeit the voice-acting in the trailer was a definite red flag.
 

Roguey

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You didn't really explain why you didn't add any of the other Silent Hills.

SH2 is a "fucking masterpiece" imo.
 

1eyedking

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I don't expect people to really give a fuck about this list (given how shitty times are nowadays, I would say nobody does), but I kinda like giving it a little check every once in a while, so I'll keep it updated mainly just for myself.

This time I've added two games:

Darkest Dungeon
Darkwood


They're both Steam early access games, but they're pretty immersive stuff. Give them a try if you can, you won't be disappointed; expect half-assed mechanics on the first one though (and shortness in the second).

You didn't really explain why you didn't add any of the other Silent Hills.

SH2 is a "fucking masterpiece" imo.
SH2 has the best music, I'll give you that.

Visually it's good, too, but the whole symbolic/psychological lore stuff is severe dumbfuckery and detracts from the game as you feel cheated by some very cheap and underhanded explanations. Also, the game's plot sucks and is left intentionally vague at points so that fanboys would go all "oh my God it's so deep", and you really never get that oppressive feeling SH4 manages to achieve. It does have it's good moments, the hotel in particular, but it's a game with too much walking and too little happening.

Would have also preferred if the devs had just made creepy-looking stuff without caring if it meant anything. E.g.: Pyramid head looks downright retarded and the psychological justification of its visual appearance is very foggy or sketchy at best.
 
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1eyedking

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Added Path of Exile.

They should quickly rename the game to Path of Corpses.


Edit:
Deleted assorted games that were there mostly there out of nostalgia.
Added three more honorary mentions: Diablo II, Alien: Isolation, and SOMA.
 
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Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Diablo II

Never actually liked it. The first one had a superior gothic aesthetics, where sounds and musics would enhance that art direction. Everything felt like it was carefully placed, not by a poor chance but by long process of merging smaller elements. Diablo II looks simply ugly with those pixelated characters. The chapters aren't so interesting, and they are too big for their own good, making it boring, even when you just try to sprint through them. I loved the music though, plus the Lord Of Destruction had some nice Conan-like compositions.
 

1eyedking

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Never actually liked it. The first one had a superior gothic aesthetics, where sounds and musics would enhance that art direction. Everything felt like it was carefully placed, not by a poor chance but by long process of merging smaller elements. Diablo II looks simply ugly with those pixelated characters. The chapters aren't so interesting, and they are too big for their own good, making it boring, even when you just try to sprint through them. I loved the music though, plus the Lord Of Destruction had some nice Conan-like compositions.
I agree with everything you just said. I hadn't added it in the first place because of all that, but recently I... umm... acquired Diablo III, and it's made me look its prequel in new light —that is, in comparison. I've added it as a cautionary mention; I'll probably delete it once the whole "Am I playing StarCraft II? World of Warcraft? Who knows" syndrome goes away.

That said, I'm adding HATRED to the list. Beyond the controversy, I was pleasantly surprised with the dark atmosphere the game has, particularly the music. I checked on that, and it turns out the composer is Adam Skorupa, the guy who did the first Witcher's music. My fondest memories of that —now old— game come from the Temple Quarter, and it was in great part due to that area's music. Guess that should make me feel a little less bad about adding a game where you go around satisfying a basement dweller's wettest dream.
 
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Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Beyond the controversy, I was pleasantly surprised with the dark atmosphere the game has, particularly the music. I checked on that, and it turns out the composer is Adam Skorupa, the guy who did the first Witcher's music

He is really talented guy, he made some nice albums with Aural Planet. It's a completely diffrent subgenre of electronic music, but it shows how eclectic he really is. I've played until the train station and I agree with you. The soundtrack is putting the capital N into the nihilistic viewpoint of the whole game. Really surprised by this, I was expecting simple pseudo ambient that tries to feel creepy and fails.



As for the Diablo III - didn't played, don't care really. It looks like someone set up the bomb in the candyshop and called it an art direction. Also it's always online so no, thank you. I'd rather play more Path of Exile than this.
 
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Superuser

Educated
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1eyedking Almost no Japanese games? Killer7, Jet Set Radio Future, Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2, the Final Fantasy series (VI, VII and XII in particular), Persona 3 and 4 (the upcoming 5 also looks way cool), Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker...

Seems odd that there are just about none on your list when there are so many aesthetically amazing candidates. I don't think it's fair at all to dismiss them on their country of origin alone when you claim to make objective list of the 'the greatest'.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Bully and the Halo series (esp. the first 3 including ODST) also deserve a spot on the list.
 

Blowhard

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OP's list reminds me of one of those 4chan troll images where the maker intentionally puts classic games right next to garbage ones and ones literally no one would pick to get people to argue.
 
Unwanted
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Dude, the list in the OP is probably the most pathetic list of all times. I believe even clickbaits like IGN would come up with more fitting games.
 

tormund

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OP's list reminds me of one of those 4chan troll images where the maker intentionally puts classic games right next to garbage ones and ones literally no one would pick to get people to argue.
Presence of BlanDoom 3, in a thread about games with good art direction, and also bolded as a "classic" that needs to be played more than once, tells you all you need to know.
 
Unwanted
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Dude, the list in the OP is probably the most pathetic list of all times. I believe even clickbaits like IGN would come up with more fitting games.

Typical not artistically aware manboon detected.

Dude................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... i still don't know what to say. It's harder for me to come up with a game that is actually uglier (in terms of artistic design) than most of the games on that list.
 

1eyedking

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Update:
- Added The Witcher 3
- Added GTA V

I upgraded my toaster to a future-proof rig, so I got to play a lot of new next-gen games!

Sadly, they mostly sucked; only three of them were truly good games --GTA V, MGS V, and TW3--, yet only one of them had truly amazing artistic stuff in it, so it's just one that goes to the top o' the chart.
 

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