The Gamer's Quarter

kirkjerk · . Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227

Dunno how old ground this is, but... it seems like some games transcend their era, just from a visual design sense.

Pac-Man I think is a good examples... the blue on black electric look, the ghost w/ their leading eyes, the quality sound, the abstract elegance of the Pac- form...

Jet Set Radio might also be like that, with its tremendous sense of style. But maybe the leaping out of the way pedestrians will date it too much...

Star Fox 64 has held up well, for my money... you need more polygons than a beefed up SNES but fewer than a GC to make a really pretty game if most everything is in space.

Ico might, but is so stylized... or rather its washed out style has been so co-opted.

Out of this World comes to mind as well... 2D Polygon graphics were tragically underused in gaming history.

So what comes to mind when you think of Visual TImelessness in games?
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fish · . Joined: 13 Jun 2007 Posts: 113 Location: montreal

WIPEOUT!

the first 3, back when they had designer's republic doing all the visual indentity and graohic design stuff. absolitely timeless stuff. still beign ripped of to this day.
the actual gameplay graphics might have not aged that well, but everything from the menus, loading screen, corporate indentities, ship designs, even color palettes is absolutely genius and still modern and futuristic.

the new wipeouts, tho very good and fun and all that (except fusion) are lacking that je ne sais quoi that only DR could bring. oh how i wish they'd get them back onboard for wipeout PS3. it would be a strong argument for me to dish out the cash for that ridiculous machine.

im that big of a design sucker.
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simplicio · . Joined: 03 May 2005 Posts: 1091

I played Qix on the Taito 2 collection the other day and was totally impressed by its psychedelia; apparently it just slightly predates Jeff Minter's first releases.

I guess that's something you could say about a huge portion of the Taito catalog, though.
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Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

Parappa and Rez.

Easy suggestions, of course, because they use bare-bones graphics to get the point across. In general the photo-realism type stuff doesn't last too long and surreal stuff does.
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kirkjerk · . Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227

So right on about Wipeout ! I went Nintendo instead of Sony, and don't dig the gameplay enough to make another go of it, but have the soundtrack, and the styling is so great.

big <3 for designers given free reign to make up their own branding.
You can see that in the damndest places. There's an easy to overlook strategy combat game (kind of like pokemon meets Intellivision Snafu) online Lego-branded game Spybotic: the nightfall incident : http://www.lego.com/eng/spybotics/game.asp (i wrote the gamefaqs faq for that)
Sometimes sports games do it well, like Blitz: the League. (hell, I tried my hand at it: http://kisrael.com/viewblog.cgi?date=2004.02.09 )

Also...

I'm not sure if it's "surreal" (without getting into a discussion about exactly what that means) so much as... well, having a style. But most photorealistic things will age more poorly, unless they tightly limit what they attempt to show, which is in itself a style. (What was that cockroach game, Bad Mojo ? That is some phtorealism that probably ages pretty well, but again it develops its own style.
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Mr Mustache · . Joined: 26 Oct 2006 Posts: 167 Location: Queens

Really this comes down to smart innovative design, both in terms of aesthetics and game mechanics. A game designed by intelligent, tasteful people, aware of hardware limitations, and how to push them, will invariably stand the test of time, while one that relies on technological prowess to force mediocre ideas, will quickly show it's age.

Out of this World is an excellent example. Another that comes to mind is Metal Storm.
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kirkjerk · . Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227

Other old school canidates:

I think Joust looks great, the pixel work is superb.

Also, Solar Jetman, maybe. Though maybe a bit too flat in how it colors things.
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elvis.shrugged · . Joined: 10 Jan 2006 Posts: 108 Location: Stratford, CT

Tempest 2000.

dessgeega · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 6:34 pm Post subject:

i am really the first person in this thread to say killer7.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Leisure Suit Larry 1 still looks great!

The others, not so much.

dhex · Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 8:39 am Post subject:

yar's revenge?

man even as a 12 year old leisure suit larry just seemed too damn juvenile.
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helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

Yoshi's Island and Katamari Damacy. I would also argue Ikaruga.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

The first two, sure, but Ikaruga is one of those games that's going to date quite quickly, I'd say. It's a bit much to look at.

table_and_chair · . Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 30 Location: mississippi

ikaruga, by making color coordination an issue within the game itself, transcends.

muds. text-based adventures.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Yeah, but all that dramatic orchestral music and over-busy visuals... I still don't think it's a look that'll stand the test of time. I think it'll look quite silly in years to come, if it doesn't already. Not that it isn't infinitely preferable to the likes of Psyvariar or Radiant Silvergun (my mate's girlfriend watched us playing Radiant Silvergun and couldn't actually make out there was a game being played at all).

For example, the ultimate in early 2000's design excess has got to be F-Zero GX. When you go from the super-clean aesthetic of Wii Sports to F-Zero GX, it's almost a shock to the system that games ever looked that horrible. Nothing has dated quicker than F-Zero GX in the history of anything. I maintain that Ikaruga will eventually look pretty weird too, even if it takes a while longer.

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

I thought GX was intentionally dated, it's a viciously fast 3D game that somehow manages to look exactly like you'd expect that type of game to look on the Genesis, if you understand my meaning.

In that context, I thought the design was quite good.

I like the way SotC looks a lot. Lots of slightly-different grays, muted tones, slight fuzziness, beautiful.

FortNinety · Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 3:32 pm Post subject:

Vib Ribbon anyone?

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Yes please

Can't believe no-one's mentioned Katamari Damacy yet.

Also, this is weird, and I can't quite place why it is, but I really like the look of Super Mario World but only when you play it emulated on a PC. I

Slonie · . Joined: 28 Nov 2006 Posts: 141

I don't know if it qualifies as timeless, but the amazingly ahead-of-their-time 60fps Model-3 graphics of Sega Super GT still look good to me eleven years later.

(then again, I could say that about the clean, high-framerate Model 2 games as well, but I might have less of a leg to stand on there)

I always thought Colony Wars could stand alongside WipeEout on that Psygnosis neatness front, but I haven't played it since it was new so I can't really say for sure. I do remember it being remarkably sharp and clean (and with good design), as well as running at 60fps – things that certainly don't hurt a game's chances of standing the test of time.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Sometimes it's just about colours. Super Mario Bros is ugly, unless you're in the blue and black underground section with the red and white dungarees, Then it looks good.

FortNinety · Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:04 am Post subject:

Slonie · . Joined: 28 Nov 2006 Posts: 141

Well, sometimes I _do_ try and make that case with Model 2 games like Daytona. The texture filtering of the Model 2 just looks so "clean," never mind it being ahead of the game in a timeframe where its contemporaries didn't even have filtered textures (Looking at you, Namco). I think it's just the way it never really looked blurry, even with low-resolution textures.

I guess that's the intersection of hardware design and graphic design.

(Actually I just didn't want to mention Daytona because I tend to mention Daytona in reply to almost any topic if you give me enough time...)[/quote]
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FortNinety · Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 11:56 am Post subject:

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Sometimes I don't mind being on videogame marketing spam lists:

Something like that will never look dated!

Slonie · . Joined: 28 Nov 2006 Posts: 141

dessgeega · Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 8:32 pm Post subject:

thread title has been bugging me for a while. i finally got around to changing it.

unless you were actually talking about games with terminal visual design?
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ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great has a great look to it. The units are made to look like miniatures, and the battlefields are made of astroturf and model foliage. A hand also comes down to move the units about.

The cutscenes are also composed of semi animated paintings. It has the charm of a small title but a bunch of elegant touches as well.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

That's ass-ugly.

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

Nu uh!
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

If only every debate on here was like that.

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

I hate to break out the big guns so early, but sometimes you just have to go all out.
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FortNinety · Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 8:28 am Post subject:

ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

It does look good!

It replicates tabletop gaming better than any other game I've played. It doesn't seem as if you're playing a tabletop game on a PC but that you're actually playing one. There's a sense of atmosphere there that's outstanding. And the cutscenes, which I can't find decent pictures of anywhere, are very unique and uniformly excellent.
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kirkjerk · . Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227

Maybe the typo correction shook off the auto-notify for this thread, nice to see it kicking around still.

I led off with Pac-Man, and now there's Pac-Man CE. Interesting and respectful update... I'm a little amazed at how long it took me notice that the board layout was being adjusted, not just given new pellets.

Re: F-Zero GX-- I didn't get that into it (I thought the difficulty curve was just insane, it really is a hard core gamer shoutout). On the N64, I thought it made some interesting choices in design and music, turning to 80s metal and comics as a reaction to the Wipeout "90s Future" aesthetic. So I think the the idea of a Sega Genesis vision of the future of gaming is apt.
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