Graphic by Astrid Hernandez
Why graphics are crucial to video games
What makes a video game good? Entertaining?
Memorable? One might say “Well, duh, Ben it’s the gameplay that makes a game
good,” and while this is correct, with this series of articles I want to focus
on all of the aspects that go into a video game that can make it a good game.
How does the soundtrack of a game elevate its quality, or the plot or the
graphics? On the opposite end, how can these elements make a game bad? In this
article, we’ll look at how graphics affect the quality of a game, and how
graphics are paradoxically both important and unimportant.
Over the years, graphics have served as both
content delivery and marketing fodder. They’ve been a key marketing tool for
various companies throughout the decades, with the latest and greatest game (or
game console) looking better than anything that came before. Our first
encounter with graphics evolving was the innovation of 16-bit consoles after
the reign of the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System, a key selling point of
the Sega Genesis. After joining in with the 16-bit Super Nintendo Entertainment
System, Nintendo followed with the 3D innovation of the Nintendo 64. After
these early years of battles over bits, publishers and companies fought to have
better, more realistic looking games year after year. Even now, the
long-running Playstation and Xbox console lines that started in 1994 and 2003
respectively have pushed 4K graphics as a selling point of both the Playstation
5 and the Xbox Series X. By now, it’s become the standard in the triple-A
industry to have motion capture actors for characters and life-like flora and
fauna in the surrounding environments. One of my favorite clips can still be
found of YouTube video game reviewer Joe “AngryJoe” Vargas marveling at the
graphical quality of a light lamp in “The Order: 1886.”
But as Vargas would go on to remark, “The
Order: 1886” is like a $60 movie. It looks amazing, but ultimately the gameplay
doesn’t hold up. That’s the problem with chasing the latest and greatest
graphical fidelity in video games: the focus on graphics can be all-consuming.
“The Order: 1886,” “Ryse: Son of Rome” and many more games may as well be tech
demos. While it’s true that amazing graphics can enhance a game to put it one
step beyond, ultimately, if you polish a turd, it’ll just be a shiny turd.
Nowadays, “realistic graphics” doesn’t
necessarily mean good graphics either. Recent examples like “Timespinner,”
“Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” and the recently reviewed “Disco Elysium”
have wonderful looking graphics without necessarily imitating life.
“Timespinner” and a variety of other indie games throwback to the 16-bit era
with painstaking pixel art that inspires nostalgia of a by-gone era. The
cell-shaded graphics of “Breath of the Wild” are both visually pleasing and
clear, making gameplay both a spectacle as well as relatively easy to follow.
“Disco Elysium” and some of the other more inspired indie games can take a
unique approach to their art style, potentially making interaction with the
graphics a part of the gameplay.
Chasing “realistic graphics” can also land the
aspiring game developer in the dreaded “uncanny valley,” where the graphics are
just barely realistic enough to look good, but close enough to unrealistic to
elicit a creepy, uncanny feeling from anyone who sees it. While a large number
of games from the early 2000s to 2010s fall into the uncanny valley such as
“Mass Effect Andromeda” and “Beyond: Two Souls,” by now most developers have
either developed techniques to make their graphics less uncanny or go the route
of 16-bit or cartoon graphics to avoid the problem altogether.
Ultimately, graphics are unimportant until
they break the experience. If the graphics are serviceable, then they
complement the gameplay delivered to the eyes. If the graphics are exceptional,
then they elevate the gameplay by providing clear and pleasing eye candy. But
if the graphics are terrible, then already bad gameplay is even more prominent,
and good gameplay can turn into a chore to play through. While graphics don’t
have to make a game, they can definitely break one.