See, I'm a nasty ol' two-dollar slut when it comes to graphics. I give in easier than Ru Paul at a dick-sucking contest when I see a new game advertised with all sorts of fancy effects in glorious hi-res, regardless if it's a CRPG or not.
Why? Because I appreciate graphical excellence. I do feel that it adds significantly to the enjoyment of any type of game, and when combined with even a decent RPG experience, well, suffice it to say in that case my shorts are quite in danger.
Does that make me less of a role-player? Is it wrong to regard purely aesthetic value at an approaching or even same level as that of gameplay? I wonder how valid the argument is that those who judge a game by its cover, so to speak, might be cheapening and diluting the CRPG industry by encouraging (forcing?) developers to focus not on story and deeper gameplay elements but more on flashy, bloom-enhanced DirectX goodness instead.
Using examples is always fun. There's the ubiquitous Oblivion. Clearly, its graphical appeal is its strongest point and is responsible primarily for the high volume of sales it enjoyed. Only after relying on dozens or more complex mods, fairly radically altering its core gameplay mechanics, does it begin to appeal to the more traditional CRPG fanatic. What about Fallout, though? Wouldn't you agree that at the time, its graphics were actually quite good, maybe even cutting edge? How much of a difference did the game's designers make when they decided to spend as much time as they did polishing the visuals, giving it its distinctive "gritty" style, and making sure that the character walked just right, that each gun was rendered the way they wanted, etc? In other words, would Fallout have been as good a game if it employed graphics only as good as, say, some shareware game or any other game with much lower production costs, concentrating instead on its great story, characters, and ambience? Heck, could those elements have even been better, considering that more time and resources would have been spent on them?
I guess I'm arguing my own point here, but to me that's where the crux of the matter lies. The graphics of any game, and I'll go a step further to emphasize any contemporary CRPG game, are part of the story and need to be on par with the quality of its other aspects in order to be complete and thus truly good. When any one important aspect of it, from its character creation to its combat engine to its graphical detail, are missing on quality or otherwise lacking, as is (severely) the case with Oblivion, then you've got an inferior product. Games like Fallout and BG are considered classics because they pretty much got all of their constituent parts right, without any one area seriously neglected for whatever reason. The Fallouts were such tight packages that you couldn't really look at any aspects of them and wonder, "Man, why did they do that?" (well, other than having some pretty nasty bugs at first) That including their graphical quality, which was quite pleasing, IMO.
So Fallout 3 looks very good graphically. Will its other constituent parts be likewise so beautiful?
*zip*
Where's my wallet?
Why? Because I appreciate graphical excellence. I do feel that it adds significantly to the enjoyment of any type of game, and when combined with even a decent RPG experience, well, suffice it to say in that case my shorts are quite in danger.
Does that make me less of a role-player? Is it wrong to regard purely aesthetic value at an approaching or even same level as that of gameplay? I wonder how valid the argument is that those who judge a game by its cover, so to speak, might be cheapening and diluting the CRPG industry by encouraging (forcing?) developers to focus not on story and deeper gameplay elements but more on flashy, bloom-enhanced DirectX goodness instead.
Using examples is always fun. There's the ubiquitous Oblivion. Clearly, its graphical appeal is its strongest point and is responsible primarily for the high volume of sales it enjoyed. Only after relying on dozens or more complex mods, fairly radically altering its core gameplay mechanics, does it begin to appeal to the more traditional CRPG fanatic. What about Fallout, though? Wouldn't you agree that at the time, its graphics were actually quite good, maybe even cutting edge? How much of a difference did the game's designers make when they decided to spend as much time as they did polishing the visuals, giving it its distinctive "gritty" style, and making sure that the character walked just right, that each gun was rendered the way they wanted, etc? In other words, would Fallout have been as good a game if it employed graphics only as good as, say, some shareware game or any other game with much lower production costs, concentrating instead on its great story, characters, and ambience? Heck, could those elements have even been better, considering that more time and resources would have been spent on them?
I guess I'm arguing my own point here, but to me that's where the crux of the matter lies. The graphics of any game, and I'll go a step further to emphasize any contemporary CRPG game, are part of the story and need to be on par with the quality of its other aspects in order to be complete and thus truly good. When any one important aspect of it, from its character creation to its combat engine to its graphical detail, are missing on quality or otherwise lacking, as is (severely) the case with Oblivion, then you've got an inferior product. Games like Fallout and BG are considered classics because they pretty much got all of their constituent parts right, without any one area seriously neglected for whatever reason. The Fallouts were such tight packages that you couldn't really look at any aspects of them and wonder, "Man, why did they do that?" (well, other than having some pretty nasty bugs at first) That including their graphical quality, which was quite pleasing, IMO.
So Fallout 3 looks very good graphically. Will its other constituent parts be likewise so beautiful?
*zip*
Where's my wallet?
