Anyone else unironically enjoy a particular low budget, dated or jank feel of games? I don't mean games that are straight up broken or awful, just kind of stuff that reminds you that what you're playing was made by human beings and they did the best with what they had.
Meanwhile, modern seamless AAA titles that want to make you forget you're looking at a video game makes me super critical when something isn't quite right and breaking my immersion. Since the bar is so high my standards are also way higher.
There's something innately human that a painting can capture that a photograph could never.
Dylan Gutierrez
soul
Connor Collins
the polygon feel of ps1/early ps2 games still gives me that "im playing a video game, this is a video game" feel compared to something like death stranding, ghostwire tokyo, or stranger of paradise
Robert Collins
i play games unpatched
Wyatt Kelly
>There's something innately human that a painting can capture that a photograph could never.
I feel this is a great point. Old or lower budget games deal more in abstraction, since they can't afford to create something more realistic. That in turn makes it so that the devs put more of themselves in the game.
Liam Rivera
spbp
Sebastian Cooper
My favourite vidya are eurojank and nipponese indie games. You can just feel the passion that went into those, even with all the jank
I feel really impressive graphics tend to make game design lazier.
If you have a game that looks like shit, the devs have to work harder to make the game immersive through game design, like old Resident Evil is goofy as fuck, but the game mechanics aid with the horror, the make gameplay more intense. But if a horror game say has incredibly well made disgusting enemy design, then it's fine if the game mechanics are generic and boring, because the horror is the visuals and nothing else.
A triple-A game goes "here is a walking animation" and you see it perfectly - mo-cap done by real actors, professional animation work, simulated cloth physics, a lifelike rhythm and feel, countless different variables... everything. It leaves no room for interpretation.
A low-budget game goes "here is a walking animation" and it's a stiff, wonky waddle. You get that moment of "ah, I kind of see it". That lack of information makes you think and/or inject your own interpretation of what's happening. You're putting in effort to process things, and that is inherently engaging.
You're not just listening to the developer, you're actively involved in a conversation.
i feel this way about neverwinter nights. might play it again lads
Hudson Cruz
This is why I prefer more traditional RPG's over Action RPG's. I like the "interpetation" and to me it just makes more sense. Landing a random critical hit in an RPG makes sense, luck made it so you hit their weakpoint. What does getting a random crit in an ARPG even mean? If you perfectly hit them in the weakpoint, shouldn't it always crit? What does it mean to get "better" at using guns in an ARPG? Lots of stuff like that I feel doesn't make sense.
Elijah Powell
are we talking about low-budget 16-bit games where you die of touching envoirment pixels? cause thats the only kind where i really cant see the animation
Would you be as forgiving of a movie or a book that you needed to fill on the gaps yourself? You should not hold lower standards for the video game industry. If we don't expect more out of devs they will not either.
Jeremiah Powell
>Would you be as forgiving of a movie or a book that you needed to fill on the gaps yourself?
That's a terrible comparison to make since lots of movies and books deliberately leave things unclear to invite speculation. Should have used a food analogy instead.
Thomas Sullivan
>just kind of stuff that reminds you that what you're playing was made by human beings and they did the best with what they had i don't get it honestly >seamless AAA titles that want to make you forget you're looking at a video game this does not happen, wtf >my standards are also way high fuck no they aren't
Jordan Hill
Did the games intentionally make things bad to engage the players imagination? I can't think of a single studio that had the design philisophy of "Let's halfass (X) and let the player imagine what we meant ."
Not one that suceeded anyway. Do you know of one that supports your theory of the case?
Gabriel Price
>I can't think of a single studio that had the design philisophy of "Let's halfass (X) and let the player imagine what we meant ." >Do you know of one that supports your theory of the case?
Don't know how you define "half-ass". But there's lots of examples of devs taking what is essentially a "flaw" and making it an iconic element instead.
The iconic silent hill fog was never intended originally, it was added because the PS1 couldn't handle the draw distance. The iconic red hat and mustache of Mario was because rendering a mouth and hair was too difficult. Shadow of the Colossus was originally meant to have regular enemies and not just boss fights, the devs cut them because it suited the game. Max Payne 1's iconic graphic novel cutscenes was because the devs didn't have time and money to make in-engine/cgi ones. Max Payne 1 also used friends and family of coworkers for characters, Max being the director of the game Sam Lake himself.
Where does the player interaction you cherish come in? I do see studios being clever working around shortcomings.
Lucas Lee
Not him but many people read some book than watch the movie made based on that book and the directors vision of the book just isnt what they imagined. The scene they imagined is some blue sky with cherry trees blossoming but the director filmed on a grey cloudy day with just some cherry orchard, the romantic interest imagined is some young hot woman, but the director chosen some ugly big nosed old maid during casting, etc.
Logan Lewis
When I want to hook up with a young woman way out of my league I never lie with words. I tell small truths but the lies are in the clothes, accessories, behavior, body talk, drinks, setting.. She fills in the rest with her imagination.
My standards depend on what kind of game it is. I can forgive awkward controls in an indie game, in an AAA game like RDR2 with thousands of devs and 8 years of development its unacceptable.
Grayson Gray
Look at remakes of games. Like the Diablo 2 and its remaster or Warcraft 3 and reforged. People playing the games have their perspective on what the in game objects, icons and characters represent. then you see something in the new remake/remaster/ rework and you think >thats not it >is this fag that remade this blind did he even play the game Sometimes you are right, sometimes your personal perception of what the icon for Blademasters clone ability looks like is not what majority of people see. The more the technique of the medium approaches maturity the less room is left for imagination of the user. Hitchcock talked about that a lot.
When you watched porn on vhs you didnt really see the germans hairy balls, you see the balls but if they are really hairy and what the individual hairs look like only came into light with high definition video.
Blake Ortiz
Standards are standards. If they change depending on the situation they are not standards. High or otherwise.
Kayden Gutierrez
Not sure of the point you are trying to make. Are you the OP because you are arguing something different.
Nathan Davis
A walking animation being way too janky can be immersion breaking, same for NPCs standing frozen in place 24/7 and repeating the same voice lines every time you approach them. There's only so many gaps you can fill in with your imagination unless you're extremely fond of that game in particular (aka nostalgia or autism).
I'll take a fluid walking animation over a janky one everytime. A beautifully crafted world with characters that move, behave and talk like actual humans is always going to be more immersive than some low poly mess with low quality assets, which you probably enjoy because simplicity appeals to you on a personal level Nothing wrong with that, but not everyone's the same. You're the minority actually.
Ian Thomas
I made a thread about this but for old textures a few days ago, and the same thing happened: a bunch of paypigs crawled out of the woodwork to claim I was weak and had low standards. Maybe choosing to enjoy things and experience them for what they are and who made them is worth more than most people realize.
I remember when I played Stalker SoC last year and had a blast.
Used ZRT and did the manual script cleanup, not a single crash. Kino experience.
Thomas Jackson
Take the animations from Morrowind. They are awful. I couldn't play in third person because all I could think is how bad the animations are. Given the pic in the OP I think that is the game user was talking about.
If they were trying to justify liking okder games there is no need. People like what they like. If they were trying to claim it was better than later games then that is a tougher hill to climb.
Christopher Kelly
Reminds me of the old joke about the mom watching her son march in a parade.
The punchline is " I know it must be emvarrassing my Johnny is the only one in step."
You are not the only one in step.
Grayson Bailey
It happens to anyone that played Oblivion back in the day on toaster or xbox at low resolution and shitty graphics settings. So you see some pimped out 4K screenshot with graphics mods, high res textures, and it just looks the same as you remember it.
I know it didnt look like that in reality but in my memory its the imaginary better looking version.
Being in step is easily observable and measurable by objective measures like time and distance. Whether or not something is enjoyable or worth your time is completely subjective. No matter how much you faggots go on about it, you can't make me stop enjoying whatever I want. You've let critics and journalists convince you there is an objective measure, and I pity that worldview.
Nicholas Perry
As I stated earlier you don't have to justify what you like. No man does. If you are trying to claim the old ways was the best ways then you are verifiably out of step .
Josiah Hill
Pretty much this. Every videogame naturally looked like shit back then due to hardware limitations and devs couldn't rely on "muh graphics", so they actually had to put in thought and effort on how to make something look appealing and presentable, leading to a good looking product even with low poly count and 240p textures. Its the reason those shitty "unreal engine remake" fan demos of older games look so shit, despite having objectively much more detail. Its why pixelshit indies from the 2010s didn't look appealing, since they used every tool available to them to touch it up like more colors and bigger sprites unlike true retro games which had significant limitations which ultimately caused it's original robust charm to begin with. Limitations literally demand creativity to make something work well.
I enjoy a lot of older games more than modern ones due to less streamlining. They attempt complex mechanics, some work, others don't, but I want complexity, engagement is important. I might get filtered by some but I'll take that over a fever dream of mindlessly checking off icons on a map doing one of five copy paste activities over and over again.
Mason Scott
i dont think i do. If a game has better quality I usually prefer that. Jank is tolerable and I'm glad the game was finished and released but it does detract from being immersive. I think small teams don't suffer from the issues that AAA big budget corporate games do so its a trade off.
Julian Fisher
Also, why does falling in line with other people's opinions have to be commendable? It's value-neutral unless you're a Confucianist.
Josiah Powell
You don't have to justify liking things.
Kayden Moore
Weirdly enough, I think animation quality makes things less immersive for me because of uncanny valley effect. Minecraft is infinitely more immersive than Assassin's Creed for me.
Mason Phillips
When did a make a value judgement on being part of the majority? The question at hand was whether your opinion was an outlier. It is.
Logan Reed
The anecdote you used was a joke about someone's values being contrary to the expected/correct. You know what it implied, and I never said my opinion was objectively better or popular.
Nolan Cox
I can get immersed with minecraft but only because I turn off my brain about what I'm looking at and just focus on the gameplay. If I actually focus on something its very obvious I'm playing a low budget game.
Luke Morales
Bad animations make me painfully aware I am playing a game with bad animations. Mass Effect Andromeda is the latest example. They were horrible by any standard and took me right out of the game .
Jeremiah Lopez
Neither did I. In fact I have stated over and over you never have to justify what you like If you are trying to claim the old ways are the best ways then we have something to debate. If you are not we have no contentious issue in front of us.
Ryan Jackson
>Weirdly enough, I think animation quality makes things less immersive for me because of uncanny valley effect.
Another thing to consider is that realistic does not equal satisfying animations.
Sprint animations are the perfect example. A lot of people run in a really goofy way. So even if the animation is technically "well made" it can still look bad. Sometimes being unrealistic but satisfying is often preferable.
Alexander Harris
I play this from time to time and it still holds up (2004) >animations are jank >controls are shit (and not changeable) >graphics? I hope you like 1280 by 720, cause that's all you get still a great game
>be jew in the 1900 >hear that a goy died >*bussines oportunity* Oy vey!! >Bougth his old things >dead goy was a deadbeat artist >is really bad, but you get like 200 free paintings >tell goyim he was a great great, trust me goy, you dont understand, GREAT for real Great artist >sell bad art for millions I cant believe people still fall for this one
Gavin Phillips
I like low poly 3D with high quality textures displayed at high resolutions with no effects or filters other than AA.
