Am on the phone. Anyways, I shouldn’t be forced to install some third party software just to get to read some article.

your loss if you are this stubborn
btw I have ad blockers on my phone so even that is not an excuse

It’s not a loss, it’s just pcgamer. And that is the only site I have troubles with (although all of them do have advertising, it’s not as complete as that one).

I can still play games from the early 3D era, but they definitely have the worst graphics in all of gaming history. Give me pixels any day, even early ones.

I think you can take that general aesthetic and make it look okay for an indie game though, with minor upgrades and adjustments. Minecraft is sort of an obvious one, but there's also stuff like Eldritch. I bet if some made a Resident Evil style game with similar graphics a bit touched up a lot of people would love it.

One thing one needs to consider, especially when looking at games you loved back in the day, is how powerful the "rose-tinted glasses" really are.

For example, one of the first 3D games i played back in the day was Final Fantasy 7. Just a week ago i saw parts of a Let's Play of that game. And my good, i remember the graphics way better looking *g*

Other examples for me are Might&Magic 6 and 7. I loved those games. But they have aged horribly.
Funny though that FF7 uses drawn background and 3D sprites, whereas M&M uses drawn spites in a 3D environment. An interesting contrast.

Ultima 9 might have been the first fully 3D game that i played. Back then it looked awesome, but my machine could not handle it. I never played it properly since then.

And then there is the game that was my ultimate vice back in the day. Everquest. Even back then i thought it was ugly in many places... One interesting effect was that you could really see the graphical evolutions. The original zones from release and the first two addons looked really bad. But the third addon brought a big upgrade to the graphics. It had new, optional, character models, and the landscapes in the new zones was a lot smoother.

Graphics start to become more reasonable a couple of years later. Morrowind can still look good nowadays with mods. Even though it's strange to be able to see Vivec from the starting location ;) Another example that holds up well enough in my opinion is Gothic 2.

But even for pixel art, i like at least some basic fidelity. I am not a fan of the "8-bit" style. Shovelknight for example is borderline, to be honest. But give me proper "16-bit" style any day.

Yes, but it depends on the game. The main issues I find are limited draw distance, low resolution and framerate drops.

In general, the more stylized and/or abstract it is, the better.

From that article I like the look of Dead Delusion, and the GTA demake would look good if it wasn't so pixelated. Dusk and Ion Storm look good as well.

Oh, I clicked on the thread thinking it was going to be about the really old stuff like I, Robot and 4D Boxing. PS1-era games had their moments, I guess.

No thank you. Usually I don't care about graphics. Gameplay always comes first. But many of these awkward 3D-craze games unfortunately sacrificed playability just to be 3D for 3D sake. And it looked ugly! Mortal Kombat was already mentioned. The transition to 3D really hurt. Lots of adventure game series ditched all 2D point and click virtues for ugly 3D graphics, wooden animations and broken controls. That was really a bad time for gaming!

I hated them in the '90s but they've grown on me in the last 15 years or so. Once normal mapping took off all the modern games started to look so similar.

Much like classic pixel art, early 3D can't give you anything approaching photo-realism. The artist is limited in what they can present and audience has to play along, filtering everything with their imagination. If you have the mental energy, this can have great results.

I think early-3D graphics can work well in a new game if the gameplay and aesthetics are well combined.
To this day I consider Silent Hill 1 one of the best games I ever played (finished it a couple of years ago). And I think the crudeness of its graphics (despite an excellent level of detail on the textures) helped a lot in setting a grim, unpleasant and decadent atmosphere.

I'd gladly buy it in an instant if they decided to port it to PC, even if they kept the graphics intact.

This. I absolutely hated early 3D games back when they were new. I felt like everyone must be insane for the industry to go from beautiful, smooth, detailed 2D to those ugly, blocky, jagged polygons. It's why I originally missed most of the classic shooters from the late 90s. I'm actually much more forgiving of those graphics now, but only in old games. Intentionally mimicking those graphics now is nothing but an update (from all those "love letters" to pixelated graphics) of the indie low-effort strategy of cashing in on nostalgia.

Now, I'm sure some indie games with those kind of graphics will turn out all right, just as some pixelated indie titles were good, but "new frontier of indie style"? Give me a fucking break.

Here are some that come to mind:

PSX ports/ multiplats:
* Urban Chaos
* Soul Reaver
* Deathtrap Dungeon
* Shadow Man
* Darkstone
* Rayman 2
* early Tomb Raider series

Early PC 3D:
* Dark Forces 2, also Shadows of the Empire
* POD
* Extreme Assault
* Moto Racer
* Screamer/ Screamer 2

I still like the way Anachronox looks.

It's low poly but pretty damn stylish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfBXXriU54s

One of my favorite games of all time.

Bruh, Soul Reaver is unbelievably good. Could Crash Bandicoot and Spyro both be considered 3D games?