first of all, i find no shame in a triple post,

and secondly, graphics are neat and all but what really drives a game should go deeper then that. Take for example, Avernum. great game horrible graphics, but if you like it you don't care about that becuase the game sucks you in with its great gameplay.


my next point: great graphics are awsome. sounds like i'm contridicting my last point, but i'm not. gameplay is MORE important, but great graphics are freaking sweet.

thusly, I'd probably rather play the new grand theft auto over the older ones AS LONG AS the gameplay holds up. nostalgia comes into play as well.

I know, I meant how it's possible that nobody else posted before I posted the next entry or that it took me more than 10 minutes each time. :P

Yes. Daggerfall's game world is simple the only one that's to scale. Of course they cheated by randomly generating most of it.

Then again, Arena let you travel through the entirety of Tamriel.

Just to be clear, my intent of making this thread was never to make a case that graphics are more important than gameplay.

I simply was intrigued by the comparison of 3D graphics in two major releases, 10 years apart. While neither game necessarily represents the absolute best, most advanced graphics of their time, the relative difference between the two is an interesting indicator of the advances made over 10 years.

Check this out then bro. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKSA3mJqmNE&feature=related

Another unlucky comparison. I haven't played the anniversary edition yet but the thing is that the "remake" wasn't allowed to include really big changes - they could switch textures, include higher poly models and add lots of effects but (at least according to an article I read) there's not a single change that may alter the gameplay - most notably the level geometry remains unchanged and I think same is true for the character animation. Well, at least the changes are far more noticeable than in case of Doom 3 and the BFG Edition. :P

Recently I tried Crysis 1 for the first time on full details and then the original Far Cry (which blew my mind upon its release). The amount of progress that Crytek made in three years makes most of these 10 year comparisons look laughable.

Isn't it the same problem as Darksider 2 ???

Never played Darksiders 2 so I would not know.

For me, the only big jump in the game´s world was the 2D to 3D passage. Improvments inside the 3D graphs don´t look that much to deserve some attention.

So say 2004 with Far Cry, Doom 3, Riddick and Half-Life 2 was not a mindblowing year to you? For me it was a year where I really felt a sudden switch in generations, got introduced to lots of new technologies etc..

when you look at things, at the onset of 3D the 2D development had better tech and quality.

2004 was when people started using the 3D tech as a tool to create real three dimensional game environments because that was the point when quality of 3D tech caught up to 2D and people recognized it's potential to create actual three dimensional environments, prior to that it was just playing with polygons to make the same old 2D designs.

back in the mid to late 90's the 3D stuff looked (and performed) like total ass, the only things from the early 3D era that I can remember being "good" instead of gimicky are Quake, Thief, and Freespace (probably forgetting some) while everything else was just "we are using cutting edge turknology!"

Can't agree here, early 3D looks god damn terrible. Even later 3D like Morrowind and Deus Ex looks a LOT worse than modern stuff, though tolerable.

I do think somewhere around Crysis we reached a point of diminishing return though.

2012 is equally bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtt0ZezljHk

There's more to good graphics than texture resolution and polygon counts. Vice City still looks great to my eyes. I'm playing Treasure Adventure Game right now and I think its beautiful.

Judging graphics based solely on the amount of detail and realism is simple-minded and shallow, imo. It's like saying Ansel Adams sucked because his pictures didn't have a lot of colour. Doesn't make much sense to me.