War is hell... It's gritty... You want pretty rainbows while people are being blown apart? That would not set the right kind of mood at all... It just depends on what kind of feeling the game is trying to invoke in players. I think both art directions are nice to have.
"War is hell... It's gritty... You want pretty rainbows while people are being blown apart? That would not set the right kind of mood at all... It just depends on what kind of feeling the game is trying to invoke in players."
You obviously haven't played Unreal Tournament :-P
"War is hell... It's gritty... You want pretty rainbows while people are being blown apart? That would not set the right kind of mood at all..."
No...I don't want to play war games. Why would I want to spend my free time entertaining myself with a digital replication of the horrific violence that occurs around the world every day? Why is it considered more fun the more hellish and the more blood-splattery it becomes?
Live with it my friend, war isn't full of color and rainbows, marshmallows don't come out of enemies when they get shot. It's blood, its dark, its cold, its gritty. That's war, and that's what games are trying to capture the essence of.
"Live with it my friend, war isn't full of color and rainbows, marshmallows don't come out of enemies when they get shot. It's blood, its dark, its cold, its gritty. That's war, and that's what games are trying to capture the essence of."
"You obviously haven't played Unreal Tournament :-P"
Not yet. I want to pick up UT3 someday. I have a lot of catching up to do with PS2 games right now. :P
Vaxadrin said:
"No...I don't want to play war games. Why would I want to spend my free time entertaining myself with a digital replication of the horrific violence that occurs around the world every day? Why is it considered more fun the more hellish and the more blood-splattery it becomes?"
Okay, well you have every right to not want to play war games... But in that case, why do you have a problem with their art direction? If they added color, it sounds like you wouldn't play them anyway, lol. Well, I can't speak for everyone, but using Gears as an example, I just love the gameplay. There's just something about taking down the enemies and their blood splattering... I turned off the blood just to see what it was like and found it to be incredibly lame. I guess it just depends on what you like, not everyone's the same.
Serious Sam had an option to have the enemies bleed flowers and have beach balls & fruit instead of gibs. I always kept it on because it was awesome. I would put it on in every game if it had the option.
These games capture the visual aesthetic of war, but they don't capture it in a gameplay sense at all. Call of Duty lets you regain all your health if you hide behind a rock for a few seconds. Why then have an incredibly bland visual palette if you're just making an arcade shooter with a military skin? The games just video-game-ize war violence with a patriotic Ooh-rah sentimentality. I say, either give me flower gibs or make it so the game red rings my Xbox when I get shot.
"No no no- don't pick up UT3 o.o that isn't actually an Unreal Tournament game. Nothing to see there >.>"
Aww I hear it's good... I do want to play a UT game though, but I guess I'd have to run BootCamp on my Mac to play them. Which one would you recommend?
Vaxadrin said:
"I say, either give me flower gibs or make it so the game red rings my Xbox when I get shot."
"Okay, well you have every right to not want to play war games... But in that case, why do you have a problem with their art direction? If they added color, it sounds like you wouldn't play them anyway, lol. Well, I can't speak for everyone, but using Gears as an example, I just love the gameplay. There's just something about taking down the enemies and their blood splattering... I turned off the blood just to see what it was like and found it to be incredibly lame. I guess it just depends on what you like, not everyone's the same."
If Ghost Recon had a deadly rainbow gun you'd better believe I would buy it immediately.
"No no no- don't pick up UT3 o.o that isn't actually an Unreal Tournament game. Nothing to see there >.>"
Aww I hear it's good... I do want to play a UT game though, but I guess I'd have to run BootCamp on my Mac to play them. Which one would you recommend?
Vaxadrin said:
"I say, either give me flower gibs or make it so the game red rings my Xbox when I get shot."
You want your 360 to get a RRoD? o_O"
Well, I would recommend 2004. It's got the largest community (although I don't know how big it is nowadays), more mod support than 10+ games combined, and thousands of maps o.0
UT3 is way superior graphically, but they did really stupid things to the balancing and overall game structure that just kinda killed the community a few weeks after it launched >.< by all means try it out if you're new to the experience though, lots of people seem to like it who didn't know about UT before.
I sound like one of those "Grr! 2d FF games only!" people -.-
"Well, I would recommend 2004. It's got the largest community (although I don't know how big it is nowadays), more mod support than 10+ games combined, and thousands of maps o.0
UT3 is way superior graphically, but they did really stupid things to the balancing and overall game structure that just kinda killed the community a few weeks after it launched >.< by all means try it out if you're new to the experience though, lots of people seem to like it who didn't know about UT before.
I sound like one of those "Grr! 2d FF games only!" people -.-"
Well I prefer a controller over a keyboard and mouse, main reason I wanted UT3... I guess I can rent it, try it out at least, then get UT 2004, bet it's pretty cheap by now.
Lol, thanks for your input. :)
Vaxadrin said:
"If Ghost Recon had a deadly rainbow gun you'd better believe I would buy it immediately.
How about Fallout 3's teddy bear launcher? It kills people... In a cute way... Yeah, that sounds disturbing.
I say, someone should make a "realistic" war game.
It should red ring your Xbox when you get shot. It has to be sent away to be healed for a few weeks before you can get back in the action.
If you get shot in an arm or leg, it should fry parts of the controller to disable you, so that from that point forward only the left stick or right stick works, or only the B button.
It should save replays of your game and constantly flash segments of it while you're trying to play other games.
If you get shot in the head, the console should explode & burn your house down.
"Well, I would recommend 2004. It's got the largest community (although I don't know how big it is nowadays), more mod support than 10+ games combined, and thousands of maps o.0
UT3 is way superior graphically, but they did really stupid things to the balancing and overall game structure that just kinda killed the community a few weeks after it launched >.< by all means try it out if you're new to the experience though, lots of people seem to like it who didn't know about UT before.
I sound like one of those "Grr! 2d FF games only!" people -.-"
Well I prefer a controller over a keyboard and mouse, main reason I wanted UT3... I guess I can rent it, try it out at least, then get UT 2004, bet it's pretty cheap by now.
Lol, thanks for your input. :)
Vaxadrin said:
"If Ghost Recon had a deadly rainbow gun you'd better believe I would buy it immediately.
How about Fallout 3's teddy bear launcher? It kills people... In a cute way... Yeah, that sounds disturbing."
I wouldn't say its even worth a rent, playing UT with a controller is so unnatural to begin with, then on top of that , raping it of what makes UT what it is, the mod/map community, just completely destroys the experience. Since you don't prefer mouse/kb I just wouldn't recommend it at all, its like Quake Wars for the consoles, its a terrible port of a game that only works on PC's , even though I'm not a fan of it to begin with.
I dont get why people say war is dark and gritty ergo desaturation. Sure, it's not very happy, but is every soldier ever sent to war, ever, colourblind?
"Look at the Half Life 2 games or Mirror's Edge. They take place in a gritty, desolate future that is filled with bright primary colors & blue skies."
well Half Life more so, I don't know what they is, but valve can just pull it off..still its not all rainbow like colors as you have the examples given, just would never work. Then again you can't expect to take a game like Gears of something and add a ton of color to it and have it look well, it just doesn't fit at all. But since you've stated you don't even like war games, I don't see why you would care that 9/10 of them are colorless..either way you don't seem like you would be playing them.
I think in some cases you are right, but in some games the color is largely in line with the setting and concepts involved with the game. I wouldn't want to see fluffy animals running through the streets of Liberty City or pretty flowers in my chainsaw bayonet.
"I think Gears of War is certainly overkill in the "gritty, dirty, serious" department.
Especially since, honestly, that game cannot be taken seriously.
Even in war, there is color. Grass isn't gray, it's green god damnit! Not all buildings are gray either"
It isn't supposed to be taken so literally. The theme of Gears of War is the harsh reality of war and how ugly war really is. It's represented with the gritty art style and I think it's very appropriate.
"I think Gears of War is certainly overkill in the "gritty, dirty, serious" department.
Especially since, honestly, that game cannot be taken seriously.
Even in war, there is color. Grass isn't gray, it's green god damnit! Not all buildings are gray either"
It isn't supposed to be taken so literally. The theme of Gears of War is the harsh reality of war and how ugly war really is. It's represented with the gritty art style and I think it's very appropriate."
Yeah, Gears of War did it on purpose. Plus, GeoW had loads of red. That was their main colur.
The theme of Gears of War is the harsh reality of war and how ugly war really is.
It is especially evident when you shoot someone in the head with a sniper rifle and it makes a gooey explosion, with Marcus yelling "Nice!" or when Dom cuts a guy in half with a chainsaw and shouts "Oh yeah!"
Personally, it fits the nature of some games. Look at the total differences between Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice CIty. GTAIII was dim, dingy and totally fit in with teh theme of that game and city. Vice City on the other hand was bright, vivid and exploded with a palette of bright vibrant colors. Vice City was more or less Miami, FL and in that it had the theme of being sunny, happy overtones, and very beach/vacation-esque.
But I do agree, a lot of devs have just kinda defaulted to the brown-palette when just starting out making their game without a second thought because thats whats popular and thats I guess what people see as the best graphics now.
The theme of Gears of War is the harsh reality of war and how ugly war really is.
It is especially evident when you shoot someone in the head with a sniper rifle and it makes a gooey explosion, with Marcus yelling "Nice!" or when Dom cuts a guy in half with a chainsaw and shouts "Oh yeah!""
That isn't the point. Read between the lines...or the pixels or whatever. :P
Yes the game isn't the most realistic and it does take the classic American grandiose view of battle and blood to heart. But the post-apocolyptic, wartorn, gritty, bloody, hellish, and generally depressing atmosphere is supposed to send a message. A message that says war isn't nice, it isn't pretty, and it defintely isn't a garden of glorified and superfluous color.
I still don't think it sends that message at all. When you have Da Cole Train and Baird's banter during the fights amongst all the ridiculous gibs & silly one-liners, any deeper message about war being hell is immediately negated.
"I wouldn't say its even worth a rent, playing UT with a controller is so unnatural to begin with, then on top of that , raping it of what makes UT what it is, the mod/map community, just completely destroys the experience. Since you don't prefer mouse/kb I just wouldn't recommend it at all, its like Quake Wars for the consoles, its a terrible port of a game that only works on PC's , even though I'm not a fan of it to begin with."
While I do prefer a controller, I can tolerate a mouse and keyboard. All the footage I've seen from past Unreal Tournament videogames look interesting to me, so I do think I would enjoy playing them. I have heard of a peripheral available to Macs and PCs that let you use a 360 controller to play PC games, but I'm not sure how compatible they are with older games.
Unless they are all psycopathic lunatics that enjoy killing far TOO much That wouldnt make it past the censors at all xD"
A lot of soldiers in the US army joined to shoot up Iraq, you know that right? Don't get me wrong, I have unlimited respect for the soldiers fighting this war. But don't try to say that the characters in Gears of War are unrealistic because of their love of battle.
No, I'm not one to make that judgement at all. I was merely trying to illustrate the disconnect between the real thing and the games trying to emulate the experience. I'm just asking questions.
"No, I'm not one to make that judgement at all. I was merely trying to illustrate the disconnect between the real thing and the games trying to emulate the experience. I'm just asking questions."
Fair enough, but this applies to every video game with violence in it. It is fun because the consequences are virtual and in no way affect you in real life.
You can't just pin that on one video game that you don't care for.
Well the reason I isolate this particular genre is because realism is its aim. All the previews and reviews for CoD4 were touting its merits saying "It's just like real war!" while Infinity Ward said their goal was to create the most realistic military shooter ever made. However, in real war you cannot get shot 20 times and hide behind a rock for 5 seconds and be perfectly fine. You also can't sprint full speed up stairs with an LGM, Ak-47, RPG, grenades, claymores, and flashbangs. The game almost feels like something like Serious Sam at times.
The original purpose of this thread, however, is that I am sick of the visual aesthetic of desaturated palettes popularized by Gears. It was a neat idea when gears did it 2 years ago. Now it's simply a creatively bankrupt approach, regardless of a supposed overarching "war is hell" theme to the game.
I really don't mind the brown tone. It brings atmosphere to the game.
I mean, I can't imagine playing MGS or Gears with pretty multi-colored flowers everywhere throughout the entire game, with pretty blue skies and rainbows stretching out. Snake in a colorful stealth suit and Marcus Phoenix in a multi-colored suit of pink, purple, and yellow.
Each game is different and with different shades of colors brings different kinds of atmosphere.
I fully agree that games should ditch the bland color schemes so common now. It simply works better if everything is colorful and has a good amount of contrast. I find that shooters where you can actually see the enemy, like Team Fortress 2, are way more fun than one where people blend with the environment because everything looks gray and brown. Also, don't even try to claim that the desaturated look is more realistic. Look outside and you will see a ton of colors unless it is cloudy of course. If the lack of color actually has a reason, like portraying a mood, then it's fine, but something like Gears? There is no reason at all that it can't be more bright and colorful.
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