Support NeoGAF

[TGO]

Games have way more microscopic details now. Alot of older games are very empty and sparse.

I think alot of times people just glorify past technology (not just gaming).

Texture detail or actual details?
If the latter, go play MGS2 and play any modern game and come back.

 

[XXL]

Texture detail or actual details?
If the latter, go play MGS2 and play any modern game and come back.

I play older games all the time on PC. I recently played Deus Ex Human Revolution and it was honestly kind of shocking how little details there are in that world vs what I remembered. Doesn't mean it's a bad game or anything, but alot of older games are extremely sparse on fine details in the world. Where now the world's generally feel more lived in, if that makes sense.

 

[TGO]

I play older games all the time on PC. I recently played Deus Ex Human Revolution and it was honestly kind of shocking how little details there are in that world vs what I remembered. Doesn't mean it's a bad game or anything, but alot of older games are extremely sparse on fine details in the world. Where now the world's generally feel more lived in, if that makes sense.

Yeah I actually agree with that title, but that's because the dial down on actual details vs visual details started about then.

 

[XXL]

Yeah I actually agree with that title, but that's because the dial down on actual details vs visual details started about then.

Another recent example and I played them both within weeks of each other was Half Life 2 VR and Half Life Alyx.

I'll get this out of the way first, I love them both and I'm not sure which one I like more.

But Half Life 2 is again very sparse with fine details in the environment compared to Alyx. Alyx has like 10× the amount of stuff going on in that department.

All and all I think games are advancing and I'm not sold on diminishing returns entirely. But I also agree with your post above my original post about RT and things kind of wasting resources now vs the more thought out visual tricks of before.

 

[jason10mm]

We are waaaaaaaaaaay past the point of diminishing returns for graphics. And with all the stuff we can do today, we still have plenty of games without fully destructible environments, good enemy AI, or proper movement. It's why backwards compatibility is such a big thing now, in the older generations the leap from one to the next was so huge you never wanted to look back!

 

[TGO]

Another recent example and I played them both within weeks of each other was Half Life 2 VR and Half Life Alyx.

I'll get this out of the way first, I love them both and I'm not sure which one I like more.

But Half Life 2 is again very sparse with fine details in the environment compared to Alyx. Alyx has like 10× the amount of stuff going on in that department.

All and all I think games are advancing and I'm not sold on diminishing returns entirely. But I also agree with your post above my original post about RT and things kind of wasting resources now vs the more thought out visual tricks of before.

I think that's actually a bad and good example simply because Half Life Alyx is built around showing off details and interactions in VR.
It's kinda the whole point of it.
Now if they make a Half Life 3 and it has those, you've got something.
But in general that sort of stuff has been on the decline for over a decade
Nobody is saying that games now can't match or surpass those levels of details, it's just that they don't unless that is the whole point of it or it's part of a game mechanic and can be rather static in a photo realistic world with indestructible/immoveable items everywhere.
But it looks pretty right?
Kojima didn't have to have Ice Cubes melt if you knocked them out of the glass and so forth.
And devs were pushing that stuff back then
But now devs don't have to put that attention to detail in their games that not everyone will notice as long as it looks realistic and nobody attempts to touch it.
But for every Half Life Alyx, you have 50 games with the interactivity of a PSX title.
And that's what I mean.

And I don't think diminishing returns is a thing.
I just think the tools are in the wrong hands

 

[Sooner]

Is the really [X] or is it [X described with different words]?

 

[ReBurn]

I think it's just driven by the constraints developers have to work within. Even if the tech allows them to go farther and do better there's only so much time and money they can put into building something before they have to release it and start earning money from it.

 

[digdug2]

There have been few to actually zero AAAA PC games made since the 360 era tbh. I think Half Life 2 / Crysis era was about the very end of that. Maybe StarCraft 2. But nowadays my interest in the platform is the past. Must be close to 70% of my game time is spent playing games release before this year. In a proper world The Witcher IV would be PC only and they'd hire a port house to figure out a console version a year later. But the hardware is so close to each other now it just doesn't make sense to wait if you plan on releasing it on other platforms.

I miss the days of games being developed with PC in mind, and then devs would port it to Playstation/Xbox after the fact... instead of the other way around. I saw that CDPR is considering releasing on PC first and then consoles later. I think that would be a wise move, really. If you REALLY want the game immediately, build/buy a higher end PC and then you can play it. Otherwise, you can wait until they optimize it for the lowest common denominator. And XSS is getting less and less capable by the day, so it may be a while.

 

[digdug2]

Games have way more microscopic details now. Alot of older games are very empty and sparse.

I think alot of times people just glorify past technology (not just gaming).

Nostalgia and rose-tinted glasses can be a motherfucker. I miss the days of having to tune the rabbit-ear antenna just right in order to get Fox 42 to not be a blurry mess... but that does not mean that I want to revisit them. Some people want to live in those glory days though, and they'll spend hundreds (if not upward to thousands) of dollars on a 1993 Sony CRT TV just so that they can get the "optimal" retro gaming experience.