How much do graphics mean to you?

I'm always baffled when I see people say "I loved the game in the past/the game looks good but it is too dated for me to play". Or what someone gives a game a 2/10 in a review for gameplay, but the graphics bring the total rating up to a 8.5/10.

This is coming from someone who sets up his N64 every few months to go and play Perfect Dark again.

Art style is much more important. I can't stand the Guitar Hero games because of their disgusting art style and yet Okami is a last gen game and so by all rights should look worse, but the art style makes it pop.

Playing an old game with outdated graphics is all fine and good, but if a modern game comes out with subpar visuals, it can really detract from the overall experience.But it definatley shouldnt be the only factor in a game. Look at Lair: it looked beautiful, but played like shit. 

Graphics don't mean that much to me...especially nowadays when a team really has to go out of their way to make a game look like shit. I personally hope that the next generation of consoles doesn't fuel the "better graphics, better game" fire. A game like GTAIV...I want GTAV to look exactly the same, but give me more to do...more interiors etc. I will die of an orgasm the day a GTA game allows me to go into any(and every) building in the "world". I would also love to see advancement in the destructable environment aspect as well.

Graphics are important to me if I am spending 50 or 60 dollars buying a new game. I am fine going back to a game with extremely dated graphics and am able to enjoy it regardless, provided it is a really good game. A game can have excellent graphics and be a bad game, but I think that most of the time awful games coincidentally look like shit as well as playing badly.

It means nothing really, when ever you play a game after a while you dont even notice the quality of the graphics.

While a game to be great looking is nice, I'm more interested in it playing well, rather than it being a technical masterpiece. I have no problems playing with older games like GTA: San Andreas and ignoring how disdain it looks (several years ago and now).

I think graphics play a big part in most cases, but there are always other ways to make a game awesome. It's easier to get immersed in the game when the graphics look great.

"I think graphics play a big part in most cases, but there are always other ways to make a game awesome. It's easier to get immersed in the game when the graphics look great."

Graphics are very important, it help's create atmosphere and adds realism to games - It's easier to feel connected to a character if it actually looks like a real person. A lot of people will argue that gameplay only matters, but I believe you need both qualities to create a great game.

"Bennyishere said:

"I think graphics play a big part in most cases, but there are always other ways to make a game awesome. It's easier to get immersed in the game when the graphics look great."

Is it not the artstyle that causes immersion?"

It all hinges on what game I'm playing and what my expectations are for that game. If I did my research, I should know what's coming and where my enjoyment will come from.

If a game has bad graphics, I won't buy it.

I think it's about the context, like you all said. Castle Crashers looked amazing, as did Braid, albeit being 2D games.

"If a game has bad graphics, I won't buy it."

Graphics can make an awesome game FRIGGIN awesome and a mediocre game passable.

I think graphics should be at least functional... a game doesn't have to look absolutely stunning to be good.  However, art style is more important.  Okami, Braid, and World of Goo aren't really technically impressive, but the art direction is phenomenal in those games.

To be honest, graphics are really important to me and I think it's a vital part to hook me in, but this is mostly to do with the game's quality art style.

Graphics aren't that important to me, people say good graphics immerse you in the game but imo that isn't true, Graphics are never the deciding factor when I'm purchasing a game and if the graphics aren't as good as i would've liked then that sucks but it wouldn't put me off buying the game.

I must say the results of this topic have surprised me...

They are important, not the most important. For example, I can still play KOTOR; not because I have a high tolerance for aged graphics, but because I love the gameplay. If the gameplay is good enough I can play a current game that does not have the best graphics, on the other hand, they can't be too terrible.

/shrug & 2c

Depends how they compliment the gameplay
In an epic shooter you have to expect the alien apocalypse to look damn awesome
But in an RPG I think 2D sprites can be equally intimidating

I don't mind if the graphics show their age, but when both graphics AND gameplay do i can't enjoy the game.

"Art style is much more important. I can't stand the Guitar Hero games because of their disgusting art style and yet Okami is a last gen game and so by all rights should look worse, but the art style makes it pop."

as said above i prefer art styles like the new pop is really clean and nice  but its where the gameplay is really. i play disgaea 3 idc what it looks like its a amazing game with a great story. sure grapics are nice but all i care for is that i can tell where everything is and what it is.

They mean something to me but not that much. I still play Micro Machines and Perfect Dark. A little Uniracers every once in a while or Marble Madness.

Jack and shit.  My evidence:  Katamari Damacy.

Graphics don't really matter much to me if I like the gameplay and story. The only games that put me off by their graphics are the early 3D-era titles where suddenly everything in the game had to be rendered in 3D with blocky characters and horrible textures. Ugh, I'd rather have a "static" environment beautifully rendered in 2D any day of the week. For instance, I still very much enjoy the old point-and-click PC adventures games (especially LucasArts games) with their pixelated graphics.

Except for the earliest PSX-era games(I'm looking at you, FFVII), graphics don't matter. Art style and atmosphere are much more important.

Proof that graphics don't mean anything (at least to me) ...I love Earth Defense Force 2017 and Culdcept Saga is one of my favorite games of the entire year and it looks like an average PS2 game.

"It all hinges on what game I'm playing and what my expectations are for that game. If I did my research, I should know what's coming and where my enjoyment will come from."

If you are playing a last gen or dated game, i know that graphics are not going to be awesome, but if a i play a current gen game and graphics are not good, that disappoints you because you are specting something that is not achieved. For example if you are playing a Wii game, you know that the graphics that an enhanced Gamecube hardware is capable of, so you are not specting it to have pc/360/ps3 graphics, you are specting at least the best of what the Gamecube could manage in Widescreen and 480p. If you are playing Ps3/360, you want 2x AA at least, awesome shadows, hdr, motion blur/lens blur, high quality textures, stable framerate, 720p/1080i/1080p, a game like Socom:Confrontation for ps3 is an example of a current gen game with horrible graphics. So.. yeah, graphics mean a lot to me, depending which platform i am playing the game, that's it, i am a graphics whore, i admit it xD

Good graphics doesn't hurt in contrast to bad graphics

Graphics dont mean a lot to me (the amount of time ive spent in Zork in the past weeks...) but I like that when a game is released its graphics at least average for the time and have enough detail so I can see what im doing and interacting with. I dont really expect much more.

Good graphics mean a lot to me - they enhance the "immersion" of the game.

graphics matter heaps
but gameplay matters more

Ooooooooold topic.

Ehh, an interesting question to answer. I play a lot of retro games, but it wouldn't be accurate to say that graphics aren't important to me. I'm including art here, more so than polygon count. I can appreciate good art, drawn, modeled, or textured. That doesn't make visual art necessary (mmm, Zork), it just depends on what the game is trying to do. Oftentimes the game relies on the player to fill in the blanks; sometimes there are no blanks. I think there is room in the industry for a near-infinite number of methods. I can appreciate any approach, as long as whatever the game tries to do is done well.

They play an important role, but I think the your question is skewed. If you asked how important graphics are in a game, my answer would be it depends entirely on the aims of the game.

yeah....right..

half the people here wouldn't be playing KZ2 and GeoW if those games had quake 3 graphics.

Man has a point.

Minimal, often the problem with older games is less functional systems. Or like the way they represent things is not as clear  as it is now.

Technically? Almost not at all. However 2d art holds up MUCH better than 3d.

It really depends on the type of game. If, for instance, Crysis did not look as good as it does, I doubt I would've enjoyed it as much. The visuals simply added an extra dimension to the whole experience, making the game that much more enjoyable. And by graphics I'm not just looking at how pretty it looks when standing still, but also how things react to your actions. The act of using one of the machine guns mounted on jeeps throughout the game is made that much more exciting by the fact that you can mow down the trees and the houses.

On the other side of the line there are games such as Castle Crashers or Braid which aren't graphical powerhouses but the art style makes it so that you won't even notice this. The game looks great thanks to its art style, and therefore manages to draw you in even more. Would CC have been as enjoyable to me if it looked like a early 90's 2D platformer? I don't think it would have, simply for the fact that I would constantly be thinking in the back of my head, "they could have done so much more with the art."

So yes, I would say that overall graphics do matter to me. A game does not always have to look as realistic as possible, but I do feel that if it has to look like something from this time. The exception to this are the small indie developers that simply don't have the budget to create such games. With those kind of games I would urge people to focus on the gameplay alone, and try to judge the merits of said game without paying too much attention to the graphics.

I like good looking graphics. If they don't look good, they are bad in my opinion.

they don't matter becasue you wil simply end up getting accustomed to  even the most amazing of graqphics anyway

This is coming from someone who sets up his N64 every few months to go and play Perfect Dark again.

I feel the quality of the artwork and the atmosphere is much more important to me than awesome technical graphics. If a game has both, that would of course be a plus, but not a necessity. There are a lot of really old games that I love even if their graphics are outdated, and wouldn't want to see them remade.

Graphics are great but gameplay is king. Every now and then I go back to the first Dragon Warrior/Quest and it is as good as ever.