games that have an ugly 'early 3D' look

[Twiglard]

Graphics and eyecandy aren't that important in games. Games that used 16 or 4 colors remain tasteful to this day. Fallout used 256 colors (many wasted on the UI) and despite that, its graphics are still deemed tasteful and appropriate.

Nowadays games use advanced 3D graphics. But the complaint with newer games is that they don't run well except on a top-of-the-line rig. They look good or at least decent on high detail settings.

There was also another period in game design, the so-called 'early 3D' days. To say that they didn't age well is quite an understatement.

KOTOR 2

Deus Ex

At least they used 3D environment interactions and physics to the game's benefit.

Quake 2

 

[schru]

Deus Ex can look sort of interesting when rendered in 16-bit colour, with dithering, Voodoo-cards-specific effects, and some manner of C.R.T. shader (the screenshots are a mixture of 32-bit mode without dithering and 16-bit with it):

Spoiler

Generally, it seems that the impression which early hardware-accelerated 3-D graphics make depends a lot on the interfering factors in how the final image was produced. Apart from the obvious problem with older graphics looking better on C.R.T. screens, there's probably also the video signal and how Voodoo graphics cards would dither down the image internally to adjust it for the available bandwidth.

 

[Maxie]

 

[schru]

Quake II also had an interestingly soft and low-fidelity quality to its image on Voodoo cards: https://www.marky.ca/3d/quake2/compare/content.html

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=318612#p318612

 

[Wunderbar]

Shogo Mobile Armor Division

 

[Bester]

Deus Ex still looks great. Quake 2 always looked like shit. Weird thing to put them both in the same category.

 

[tritosine2k]

Good thing mobile gets to midpoly sooner than consolePC delivers hipoly.

Voodoo graphics cards would dither down the image internally to adjust it for the available bandwidth.

riva128 also had crappy IQ vs TNT but that was just it, crap.

 

[Falksi]

Deus Ex & Quake 2 look fucking lush. A few polgygonic edges don't take much away from the overall vibe which the devs created.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Early 3D games should be played at low res & 16bit dithering. Maybe, if you insist, you could add subsampling for anti-alias, or some CRT shader.

 

[Butter]

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Deus Ex was kinda wonky on its implementation. Quake 2 was nice, but the palette was too limited and they also tried to put a big emphasis in lightning effects which meant a lot of the locations are too dark.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

 

[Ash]

What the fuck is the point of this thread? Haha point and laugh at the old game, cause it's old!? ALL early 3D games looked a bit shitty. A few slightly more than others (Goldeneye is irredeemably ugly), but the late 90s still produced most of the best games ever made, and many were also cutting-edge at the time, including numerous already posted.

to retardoland with this dumb thread, or at least clarify what we are supposed to be discussing. Is this the "point and laugh at ALL early 3D games because they are ugly" in which case, dumb thread, or "early 3D games that looked shit even for the time" which makes a bit more sense. The OP and the title makes it sound like the former, along with a number of retarded examples e.g Quake 2 looked above average when it came out and was one of the first TRUE 3D games, no use of sprites. Certainly is not a looker, but it was above average for 90s 3D so using it as an example doesn't make sense.

Anyway, I would trade the entire past 23 years of gaming, including the good aspects and games rare as they may be, to go back to that glorious time...take a chance on a new timeline that isn't tainted by retards and sellouts.

 

[Valestein]

The first person model of the hand and gun look pretty decent. ^

 

[randir14]

EverQuest before all the expansions

 

[General Disarray]

This fucking game. I remember my younger self hating the graphic with a fury and identifying it as massive decline. The third game was nice and they could make big changes in the scenes easily sense it was not this ugly 3d tank control games. Decline!

 

[potatojohn]

Deus Ex looks perfectly modern. I don't get the problem with it.

Software rendered 3D games are a bit hard to stomach though.

System Shock 1, Daggerfall, etc. A combination of low resolution and low FPS mostly.

 

[Dhaze]

The Myth series.



I can't deny it's ugly as hell, yet 25 years ago I thought it looked gorgeous and deep down I still do. Arrows that are actual, physical projectiles; dwarven cocktails that shake the earth; chunks of flesh blown everywhither. I just love the look and feel of it.

/e: second video, at 4:48. How gorgeous is that?

 

[yellowcake]

Deus Ex was kinda wonky on its implementation. Quake 2 was nice, but the palette was too limited and they also tried to put a big emphasis in lightning effects which meant a lot of the locations are too dark.

They are perfectly OK on a CRT. Try it, it will blow your mind.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Of the different styles, early 3D is probably my least favorite....but...Deus Ex still looks and feels cool. It's more about the art direction in its case, the blocky still screenshots don't quite capture that entirely.

 

[Aemar]

Goldeneye 007. /thread

 

[Twiglard]

to retardoland with this dumb thread, or at least clarify what we are supposed to be discussing. Is this the "point and laugh at ALL early 3D games because they are ugly" in which case, dumb thread, or "early 3D games that looked shit even for the time" which makes a bit more sense. The OP and the title makes it sound like the former, along with a number of retarded examples e.g Quake 2 looked above average when it came out and was one of the first TRUE 3D games, no use of sprites. Certainly is not a looker, but it was above average for 90s 3D so using it as an example doesn't make sense.

The "early 3D" mentality is how adding slightly better effects sacrifices art direction. It's making the game not stylized enough, with no soul when realistic look isn't attainable on the hardware. It's forgetting that the work is 'art', not a GPU showcase.

Quake 2 aged a lot worse than Quake 1, even if you add tons of texture mods. Quake 1 has aged excellently. Why? It's something that can be analyzed, discussed. Hence a thread. But you're right, the title was too judgemental and I've edited it.

The SHOGO/Goldeneye examples are priceless though.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Deus Ex was kinda wonky on its implementation. Quake 2 was nice, but the palette was too limited and they also tried to put a big emphasis in lightning effects which meant a lot of the locations are too dark.

They are perfectly OK on a CRT. Try it, it will blow your mind.

i did, that's what i was talking about.

 

[AW8]

Like Ash said:

What the fuck is the point of this thread? Haha point and laugh at the old game, cause it's old!?

I'm not sure what the point of this thread is. "These 20 years old graphics are dated now" is both an obvious and pointless statement. More interesting thread subjects would have been "Games that looked awful even when they were released" or "Games that held up graphically long after they were released".

And those KotOR 2 environments aren't even ugly. The big problem from a modern standpoint is how empty they are. But if you had propped them and added details to the extent of a modern game, the consoles and even computers at the time would have struggled to render any frames at all.

Something that does bother me though, is the awful texture alignment of the landing platform walkway in the second screenshot. Compare the left side to the right. Would that particular UV map have been fixed if the game hadn't been as rushed, or would we have to slog through a droid planet instead? A question for the philosophers...

 

[toughasnails]

Shogo Mobile Armor Division

The mech sections in Shogo - and here I specifically mean the cityscape ones - actually looked p good. Great even.
But yeah the on foot part could be p simplistic and ugly looking.

Honestly I think it a better idea talk about early 3D games that can still look appealing. One can post pics of early King's Field games with The Simpsons ha-ha but remember, those were fully 3D first person games with real time combat, in early 90s, on a console. Ground breaking stuff. Many of these games were breaking new grounds, introducing innovative new engines, doing unexpected things with existing ones. Feels p much cringe Zoomery laughing at le funneh polygons and Teh Jank here.