Call me crazy, but this is the most artistically stylized gen yet

You've heard it.  Everyone loves to go around saying how bland graphics have become.  All games are now are shades of grey.

But to me, this is really the first generation where I see tons of new graphical styles emerging.   Last generation, you pretty much had two-- cartoony or realistic, cell shaded,  and more abstract (viewtiful joe, okamI).  But still, a realistic game looked pretty much all to one realm.  Same with all the others for the most part, with some exceptions. 

But look at this generation.  Styles are starting to emerge, perhaps because the platforms have the ability to display them.  Here's some examples of stylized graphics this gen. 

Dark and Gloomy "Gritty"

Gallery

i agree with you but i still think its a shame you forgot valkyria chronicles as it has, in my opinion some of the best stylised graphics this generation

Smug, you so crazy.






And I agree. We have some great graphics this generation.

For some reason, a few of your pics argue against your point. About 2 or 3 of them are dull, brownish FPSes; far from the artistic feel you're going for. At least Okami and Prince of Persia redeem that. Oh, and (why the hell not?) that new Fire Emblem :P.

"For some reason, a few of your pics argue against your point. About 2 or 3 of them are dull, brownish FPSes; far from the artistic feel you're going for. At least Okami and Prince of Persia redeem that. Oh, and (why the hell not?) that new Fire Emblem :P."

" @Video_Game_King said:

"For some reason, a few of your pics argue against your point. About 2 or 3 of them are dull, brownish FPSes; far from the artistic feel you're going for. At least Okami and Prince of Persia redeem that. Oh, and (why the hell not?) that new Fire Emblem :P."

Being dark and brown is a style.   Killzone and Gears of War are stylized games.  Crysis if anything lacks this.  But then it's realism.My point is that all games don't look the same, which is what people say. Artistic =/= cartoon look only, that's moronic to say. "

"@SmugDarkLoser said:
On that last one, fair enough. Let me add to that: artistic=/=graphics.I'd still like to argue that those two games are artistic. They use cel-shading to great effect, showing how an area is dead and desolate until you bring life to it.(I'm doing this completely in reverse.) But dark and brown is a bit overused, isn't it? Sort of like how anime is overused in JRPGs, or the entire rainbow is overused in platformers. My point is that I'd like a bit of variety."

I don't see any style listed above that wasn't in the previous generation. So despite overall graphics it really hasn't changed much.

With the power the new consoles have, we can take the style to another level. I think there are much more examples that you haven't listed there, but I get the point.

The arguement is that people say all games look the same, you know, have the same art direction. There's tons of games that proove otherwise. Looking at the good games coming out later this year-- Conviction, Uncharted, ODST, Borderlands, Brutal Legend and so forth, all have quite a distinct art style. "

There has never been a bigger hardware jump than this gen(obviously not counting the Wii), so yeah things look a whole lot better and you can be more inventive with what you churn out instead of scaling things down to fit the hardware which has previously been the norm.   You'd make a better point if you actually mentioned a Wii game though.

I'd say the 16-bit gen had the strongest sense of style and provided great variation. Once things went 3D, that broke down. It's definitely begun to recover greatly since that reset point though.  

" There has never been a bigger hardware jump than this gen

I'd add Braid somewhere there... no other games have that kind of artwork.

Hell just got a little chillier, because I'm actually agreeing with SDL.  Who'da thunk it?

" @freakin said:

" There has never been a bigger hardware jump than this gen

Huh? What about the jump to 3D? Or from Atari to NES? Those were pretty big. "

The technical power today allows for more variation in style.  Also widespread shader support has helped especially.

In the 2D graphics days you could have more cartoony or more realistic styled games or simple 3D.
in the early 3D days all the graphics could look similar, and it wasn't until more recent techniques were able to make something look considerably more realistic or considerably more stylistic then ever possible before.

Not that they didn't want or try to vary graphics in the past.

Well put it this way, if you added to the ps2 whatever they added to the NES from the Atari how much better would the ps3 be now.  "

" @freakin said:

Well put it this way, if you added to the ps2 whatever they added to the NES from the Atari how much better would the ps3 be now.  "

I'm not sure what you're saying. "

I'm saying those jumps weren't that big by today's standards. "

This is what describes the dreamcast and sega in the 90s.

Ecco the Dolphin

Jet Set Radio/Jet Grind Radio

Chu Chu Rocket

Comix Zone

Gunstar Heroes  -developed by Treasure

Nights into Dreams

Rent a Hero

Seaman

Skies of Arcadia

Space Channel 5

REZ

Samba de Amiga

I love the inky super expressiveness of Street Fighter 4, and the Film Grain and Motion Blur set on Mass Effect. Now I think about it, Call Of Duty 4 had a load of filters you could apply after completing the game which I never got round to trying out. I wonder if Captain Price looks even more of a badass in Sepia...?

" @freakin said:

I'm saying those jumps weren't that big by today's standards. "

How so? The leap from this:



to this:

Was pretty big. The closer you looked to arcade games, the more powerful you were. Then again, I still think SNES->N64 (generations, not consoles) was the biggest leap. "

In the end pc games always looked better though, consoles were never any kind of benchmark for graphics til this generation.   You are ignoring the fact that those upgrades involved just adding 8 bits of ram.  "

I think last gen was better in terms of artistic graphics, we had Wind Waker, Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Odin Sphere, Conker Live & Reloaded and others as proof.

"@Video_Game_King said:

" @freakin said:

I'm saying those jumps weren't that big by today's standards. "

How so? The leap from this:



to this:

Was pretty big. The closer you looked to arcade games, the more powerful you were. Then again, I still think SNES->N64 (generations, not consoles) was the biggest leap. "

In the end pc games always looked better though, consoles were never any kind of benchmark for graphics til this generation.   You are ignoring the fact that those upgrades involved just adding 8 bits of ram.  "

" I think last gen was better in terms of artistic graphics, we had Wind Waker, Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Odin Sphere, Conker Live & Reloaded and others as proof. "

Are you guys stupid?  The best looking ever is:

"How can last gen take credit for that? It was an N64 game, and it looked better there (eh, Conker looks less cartoon-y and the Mighty Poo looks less poo-y). "

" @freakin said:

In the end pc games always looked better though, consoles were never any kind of benchmark for graphics til this generation.   You are ignoring the fact that those upgrades involved just adding 8 bits of ram.  "

I'll give you the PC thing, but back then, weren't 8 bits of ram huge? Not sure you can judge the past by current standards. If that was the case, my blogs would implode :P. "

What art style would Rocket Riot be considered?

"@Black_Rose said:

" I think last gen was better in terms of artistic graphics, we had Wind Waker, Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Odin Sphere, Conker Live & Reloaded and others as proof. "

How can last gen take credit for that? It was an N64 game, and it looked better there (eh, Conker looks less cartoon-y and the Mighty Poo looks less poo-y)."

"@Black_Rose said:

" I think last gen was better in terms of artistic graphics, we had Wind Waker, Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Odin Sphere, Conker Live & Reloaded and others as proof. "

How can last gen take credit for that? It was an N64 game, and it looked better there (eh, Conker looks less cartoon-y and the Mighty Poo looks less poo-y)."

I like how you mentioned wicked styles such as 'realism', what will they think of next? :-D

" @Video_Game_King said:

"@Black_Rose said:

" I think last gen was better in terms of artistic graphics, we had Wind Waker, Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Odin Sphere, Conker Live & Reloaded and others as proof. "

How can last gen take credit for that? It was an N64 game, and it looked better there (eh, Conker looks less cartoon-y and the Mighty Poo looks less poo-y)."

  

Video Games | Conker: Reloaded | GT N64 vs XBox

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

lol wut? "

You're crazy.

I think this gen 3D has been the most stylized it ever has.  2D had a lot of cool different art styles and 3D is really getting past just trying to be real and hitting some marks artistically.  And if you look at what they're doing now it's the most impressive art in any video game I'd say.  Things are getting really deep and complex.  Mirrors Edge is an artistic achievement.

Yeah.  I remember saying 15 years ago when playing Madden: "Man it can't get any better than this, there's no way to improve these graphics"
I think I've said that every year since then, it just amazes me sometimes with how far games have come.  And when Dreamcast came out I thought we had (once again) reached the pinnacle of graphics, that nothing could ever match it.  I'm sure 10 years from now I'll be saying the same thing I just said today.  

Yes I agree with you man, I have seen some really beautiful and special looking games this gen


Mirrors Edge, call me crazy but I think its the most beautiful game ever made

Prince of Persia

Eternal Sonata

Bioshock, art deco is great

Mass Effect, amazing sci-fi artstyle

LittleBigPlanet, everything looks like toys

Ratchet and Clank, closest thing to Pixar movies

So see, amazing looking games

"@SmugDarkLoser said:

" @Video_Game_King said:

"@Black_Rose said:

" I think last gen was better in terms of artistic graphics, we had Wind Waker, Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Odin Sphere, Conker Live & Reloaded and others as proof. "

How can last gen take credit for that? It was an N64 game, and it looked better there (eh, Conker looks less cartoon-y and the Mighty Poo looks less poo-y)."

  

Video Games | Conker: Reloaded | GT N64 vs XBox

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

lol wut? "

I meant artistically, not technically. It looks great technically, but not so much artistically. Something was lost (my guess is the atmosphere of the time)."

Yea, lol wut?Conker on the N64 looks like every other N64 title graphically.  COnker on the xbox has a personality. "

"@SmugDarkLoser said:

Yea, lol wut?Conker on the N64 looks like every other N64 title graphically.  COnker on the xbox has a personality. "

I'd respond with "lol wut", but I'm better than that. Part of the charm of the original Conker was that it looked like another generic platformer, but in reality, it beat the hell out of anything platformer. That's the thing that was lost when it moved to a console considered mature and shooter-centric. It's still a good game (I imagine; I haven't played the Xbox version), but the atmosphere is not there. Besides, the Poo is less poo-y! WHAT HAPPENED TO THE POO!?"

Well Smug, this is a pretty good thread : )

We are gonna laugh when we thought this graphics were the best.

"Well Smug, this is a pretty good thread : )

I'll think that you're right, we are seeing a lot of different art styles, however I believe that the proportion of "gritty/Gears/brown" games is still bigger than the more stylized games. I think the difference is actually bigger than the last gen.

"

" @Video_Game_King said:

"@SmugDarkLoser said:

Yea, lol wut?Conker on the N64 looks like every other N64 title graphically.  COnker on the xbox has a personality. "

I'd respond with "lol wut", but I'm better than that. Part of the charm of the original Conker was that it looked like another generic platformer, but in reality, it beat the hell out of anything platformer. That's the thing that was lost when it moved to a console considered mature and shooter-centric. It's still a good game (I imagine; I haven't played the Xbox version), but the atmosphere is not there. Besides, the Poo is less poo-y! WHAT HAPPENED TO THE POO!?"

Oh, you haven't played the game?  Uhh...Conker: Live and Reloaded is designed aesthetically to be very cutesy.  The atmosphere is definately there, more so than the N64 version.You just don't like it because you haven't played it and see it as a change. You remind of the people a while back who complained about Conker xboxifying conker by giving him a gun....lol.  Idiots. --- And you realize you made a different arguement?  You admitted when I said it looked like every other platformer graphically.  So you contradicted yourself from earlier.  -------> Just asking, but why is everything xbox worse to you?  Conker: Live and Reloaded (which is really referring to the package, bad fur day is what they call the single player in game) is better than the N64 verison in every way imaginable.  What do you expect, it's a remake.  Debating about whether or not it's as good as the other when it came out is a different story and impossible to say as it's a remake--> in order to judge you'd had to experience boh first. "