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Not so much a problem on GOG.com, but in other some forums user are comlaining about shitty graphics.
I don´t think that they are right, but I think a critic review dealing with the graphics cannot be wrong at this stage. Oh, and maybe it will even help the devs to further enhance the game!

To start with positive aspects, Sir, YABH got two things right that are the lettdows in most other games.

Those two elements are fog and DepthOfField. Why that? DOF is not applied to general weapons, (which is often way to heavy) but on the bionoclulars. The Effect actually works very well, as not only the non-focused areas are blured, but also the edges of the sight of the binoculars! The fog is just necessarily to create the right athmosphere in such a britain setting---and yes, it´s simply well done, and it looks even better ingame than anything I´d able to shoot on screenshot! Oh, and thebritan setting brings us to the RAIN.
The rain is... well... some rain? It´s something, but nothing compared to good rain like seen in Omerta or Witcher II. Actually Gothic I has better one; The rain here is just containing some lines that are dropping on the ground and are instantly disappearing! It´s actually so fairly noticeable that if you´d turn of the sound you´d need a few seconds to recognize it´s actually raining...
Someting that you will definitvly recognize are the ragdoll-effects applied to the robots! They are VERY well done and it does a lot of fun shooting them with the shotgun just to see how they are flying away!
So yes, this is actually very well-done; just like the lighting. GodRays are beautiful and very nice to look at, both in movement and on screenshots. But one part of the light is not so nice, and I´m not so amused to have to say that:
The Shadows! Theiry positioning (in comparision to the sun) is computed very well, but they´ve got very low resolution and (partially linked to that) are flickering like hell in movement.
And the textures aren´t better. A door is hard to be identified as a door if you are standing next to it, and even walls are full of blur. Of course, the game tries to avoid this, as tons of grass is planted all around (the "Oblivion-Trick") and both robots and buildings got well-done objects to be covered with textures.
Oh, and their is one negative point left: The game hasn´t got any AntiAliasing and as many transparent objects are used, their is a lot of fickering.

Which leeds us to suggestions: Devs should add three things:
1. HighQualityTextures---if you cannot afford them right now, (or your textur designers are busy with AddOn-Content), outsource that task to some talented community-members. There are actually some that might be very glad if they could do some enhancements for the game, and if cannot find anybody, you could hire one from the Gothic-Community, who are well-known for their texture packs ...
2. Just offer unlimited resolutions for shadows. Do some extended menu and let users pick their own ShadowRes ;)
3. Nearly the same to fix the AA-Issue: A Resolution-Scale-Bar should do the job. OGSSAA is not very efficent, but at least effective ;)

Oh, and if you get something
I like the art direction of the game; it´s very constant what´s always a good thing. And I like mostly everything else; exept for those issues that are caused of low res. Textures are simply the graphical part that is most impressive---and the textures are not good. And beatiful lighting isn´t as beautiful as it should when there are mostly LowRes-Shadows...

To put it in a nutshell:
Complains about graphics of your game aren´t fair. It´s actually OK, with some breathtaking moments. But it could be so much more intense with a little bit of tweaking and I´m sure that would also result in even more fun! Wasteing a thought on Textures inGame that isn´t "Oh God, this is awesome" is never good. And your lighting is already capeable of causing this feeling, so please extend it ;)


Oh, and I´ve missed one thing:
I´ve done four screenshots to show the best (3 screenies) and worst (1 screeny) things of games graphic---and I don´t think that I have to say anything else!
Attachments:
morning.jpg (472 Kb)
thisitis.jpg (454 Kb)
redsun.jpg (488 Kb)
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RadonGOG: Not so much a problem on GOG.com, but in other some forums user are comlaining about shitty graphics.
I don´t think that they are right, but I think a critic review dealing with the graphics cannot be wrong at this stage. Oh, and maybe it will even help the devs to further enhance the game!

To start with positive aspects, Sir, YABH got two things right that are the lettdows in most other games.

Those two elements are fog and DepthOfField. Why that? DOF is not applied to general weapons, (which is often way to heavy) but on the bionoclulars. The Effect actually works very well, as not only the non-focused areas are blured, but also the edges of the sight of the binoculars! The fog is just necessarily to create the right athmosphere in such a britain setting---and yes, it´s simply well done, and it looks even better ingame than anything I´d able to shoot on screenshot! Oh, and thebritan setting brings us to the RAIN.
The rain is... well... some rain? It´s something, but nothing compared to good rain like seen in Omerta or Witcher II. Actually Gothic I has better one; The rain here is just containing some lines that are dropping on the ground and are instantly disappearing! It´s actually so fairly noticeable that if you´d turn of the sound you´d need a few seconds to recognize it´s actually raining...
Someting that you will definitvly recognize are the ragdoll-effects applied to the robots! They are VERY well done and it does a lot of fun shooting them with the shotgun just to see how they are flying away!
So yes, this is actually very well-done; just like the lighting. GodRays are beautiful and very nice to look at, both in movement and on screenshots. But one part of the light is not so nice, and I´m not so amused to have to say that:
The Shadows! Theiry positioning (in comparision to the sun) is computed very well, but they´ve got very low resolution and (partially linked to that) are flickering like hell in movement.
And the textures aren´t better. A door is hard to be identified as a door if you are standing next to it, and even walls are full of blur. Of course, the game tries to avoid this, as tons of grass is planted all around (the "Oblivion-Trick") and both robots and buildings got well-done objects to be covered with textures.
Oh, and their is one negative point left: The game hasn´t got any AntiAliasing and as many transparent objects are used, their is a lot of fickering.

Which leeds us to suggestions: Devs should add three things:
1. HighQualityTextures---if you cannot afford them right now, (or your textur designers are busy with AddOn-Content), outsource that task to some talented community-members. There are actually some that might be very glad if they could do some enhancements for the game, and if cannot find anybody, you could hire one from the Gothic-Community, who are well-known for their texture packs ...
2. Just offer unlimited resolutions for shadows. Do some extended menu and let users pick their own ShadowRes ;)
3. Nearly the same to fix the AA-Issue: A Resolution-Scale-Bar should do the job. OGSSAA is not very efficent, but at least effective ;)

Oh, and if you get something
I like the art direction of the game; it´s very constant what´s always a good thing. And I like mostly everything else; exept for those issues that are caused of low res. Textures are simply the graphical part that is most impressive---and the textures are not good. And beatiful lighting isn´t as beautiful as it should when there are mostly LowRes-Shadows...

To put it in a nutshell:
Complains about graphics of your game aren´t fair. It´s actually OK, with some breathtaking moments. But it could be so much more intense with a little bit of tweaking and I´m sure that would also result in even more fun! Wasteing a thought on Textures inGame that isn´t "Oh God, this is awesome" is never good. And your lighting is already capeable of causing this feeling, so please extend it ;)

Oh, and I´ve missed one thing:
I´ve done four screenshots to show the best (3 screenies) and worst (1 screeny) things of games graphic---and I don´t think that I have to say anything else!
Wow, I see what you mean from these screenshots. Some graphical elements look late-360-console era while others remind me of Half Life with the original, official High Res pack. The textures definitely could use an upgrade. Just because Eidos uses low-res textures in their PC games (cough Deus Ex HR cough) doesn't mean that everyone should ;)
I think the game looks fine for what it is. Some people are just spoilt little shits when it comes to graphics these days and expect everything to look next generation, simply because we're in the next generation. There used to be a thing called good gameplay element, and indie devs are bringing back that great part of gaming. Put simply, if you don't like a game because it may look 'sub-par' then you're going to have a sad life indeed.
The graphics could be better but, I bought this for the gameplay not eyecandy and to be honest as I'm a very average player I don't often get the opportunity to absorb the quality or not of the graphics.
Remember, this is just a 3 man dev team who have worked with the users all along.
I have been with this game since early alpha and several of the kickstarter supporters have the abilty to mod the graphics if the players should so wish.
This game is an indie from a small team at least one of whom had to continue with his day job during development and it costs between $15 and $20 it's not an EA blockbuster but, it has less bugs and is more stable than some blockbusters plus, there is still more to come, player difficulty settings, not just hard and easy but, control of how the game difficulty progresses, editing of the islands which if you go to the Big Robot site the devs have provided instructions on how to do this until that feature is functional also, there will be multiplayer.
The devs are very active on the site and always willing to discuss ideas.
No paid DLC's are intended and the game has always been DRM free, you can even start the Steam version from it's executable.
I've bought crap games with good graphics for 3 times the price, top graphics are not always the criteria.
Post edited May 03, 2014 by don2712
I think that even those three coments already got the diversity of opinions:
One states that it´s true that the textures are crappy, another one states that the graphics doesn´t matter so hard as long as gameplay is great and the last one brings in the idea of budget-relativity and of good developer behaviour!

The strange thing is that I agree on all three of them and say:
Sir, you don´t have to get a graphics update. But, remember, you deserve to get a graphics update!

Which game else should have great graphics than a game with really good gameplay and a developer that does nearly everything right?!
I have to say I like the graphics, it suits the game, I want to play a stealth game which is ominously hilarious, this is it, if the graphics were too high end and far too polished ( very much like papers please) it woudln't have that same impact on me.
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loki1969: I have to say I like the graphics, it suits the game, I want to play a stealth game which is ominously hilarious, this is it, if the graphics were too high end and far too polished ( very much like papers please) it woudln't have that same impact on me.
And you are sure that better textures, higher shadow resolutions or better antialiasing would hurt that feeling?
I simply cannot imagine this...

And it cannot like Papers, Please. That´s because 2D and 3D graphics are hard to compare AT ALL.
There is, for example NO modern 3D-PC-game that looks worse in HighResolution than in LowRes.
Of course, there are some titles that look better on 1080P-Screenshots downsampled to 360P, but that doesn´t count at all (as this is only a form of Antialaising. Native 360P always look worse than 1080P)!
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loki1969: I have to say I like the graphics, it suits the game, I want to play a stealth game which is ominously hilarious, this is it, if the graphics were too high end and far too polished ( very much like papers please) it woudln't have that same impact on me.
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RadonGOG: And you are sure that better textures, higher shadow resolutions or better antialiasing would hurt that feeling?
I simply cannot imagine this...

And it cannot like Papers, Please. That´s because 2D and 3D graphics are hard to compare AT ALL.
There is, for example NO modern 3D-PC-game that looks worse in HighResolution than in LowRes.
Of course, there are some titles that look better on 1080P-Screenshots downsampled to 360P, but that doesn´t count at all (as this is only a form of Antialaising. Native 360P always look worse than 1080P)!
yup I'm sure

It's like saying listening to a cd is always better than listening to vinyl....

.....which isn't always the case.....if you an an iota of soul :)
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RadonGOG: And you are sure that better textures, higher shadow resolutions or better antialiasing would hurt that feeling?
I simply cannot imagine this...

And it cannot like Papers, Please. That´s because 2D and 3D graphics are hard to compare AT ALL.
There is, for example NO modern 3D-PC-game that looks worse in HighResolution than in LowRes.
Of course, there are some titles that look better on 1080P-Screenshots downsampled to 360P, but that doesn´t count at all (as this is only a form of Antialaising. Native 360P always look worse than 1080P)!
avatar
loki1969: yup I'm sure

It's like saying listening to a cd is always better than listening to vinyl....

.....which isn't always the case.....if you an an iota of soul :)
I think that this vinyl-part description doesn´t total hit it. It´s more like "DVD vs. BluRay" (don´t try to speak about DRM on BluRay. Its horrible!) It´s not the step from analog to digital, it´s the step from LowResDigital to HighResDigital! And in my eyes a good movie simply DESERVES a BluRay-Edition. And yes, in my opinion a good game deserves superior, HighRes graphics!

And whats most important: Sir YABH is actually not a retro-style game. It´s a modern game, style is modern and technical approach is modern.
And for me there really isn´t any point about diskussions whether a game should have HighResTextures or not. You just cannot tell me that for you there´d be any negative aspect about the same texture details are expressed in a higher res texture. There aren´t.

A good 3D-game doesn´t have to have great textures. But it deserves it!

Oh, and for comparision: Try any modern game at 720P and 1080P---you´ll never find any scene in which the 1080P-game looks worse. Really, you won´t. DVD vs BluRayStyle, I´ve mentioned that earlier! And it´s the same about texture and shadow resolution, but only one extreme could look worse: Textures that are so high-res that they cause extreme flickering!
But I don´t think BigRobot got the resources to get to that problem... ;)
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RadonGOG: A good 3D-game doesn´t have to have great textures. But it deserves it!

Oh, and for comparision: Try any modern game at 720P and 1080P---you´ll never find any scene in which the 1080P-game looks worse. Really, you won´t. DVD vs BluRayStyle, I´ve mentioned that earlier! And it´s the same about texture and shadow resolution, but only one extreme could look worse: Textures that are so high-res that they cause extreme flickering!
I felt the game does have a retor-ish style, but that's as always is the thing about perception, everyones is different. The blue-ray comparisson is a good one, however if you have a game/ animated movie where the detail is so great it looks real ( which would be the end game for higher resolution and detail) then why bother with animation at all.

each to their own.
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RadonGOG: But I don´t think BigRobot got the resources to get to that problem... ;)
oh this....definitely this
I think the texture resolution can be improved without compromising the artstyle. I have no problem with the look of the game as it is. It would be nice to have improved textures though. Perhaps the doors could be a bit less blurry, that'd be nice. Otherwise... Completed my first playthrough yesterday as The Aristocrat and am loving the game. I am wondering how good the replayability is, but I have two new games going to find out.
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KrisViking: I think the texture resolution can be improved without compromising the artstyle. I have no problem with the look of the game as it is. It would be nice to have improved textures though. Perhaps the doors could be a bit less blurry, that'd be nice. Otherwise... Completed my first playthrough yesterday as The Aristocrat and am loving the game. I am wondering how good the replayability is, but I have two new games going to find out.
I've played it after each update, so in terms of playability this is the first time that there is the chance I'll play it and they'll be no changes after the initial game. As a result I too am intrigued. I'm a point and click junkie normally so this is a bit of a departure.But I feel that this game really needs multi-player to ensure longevity.
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KrisViking: I think the texture resolution can be improved without compromising the artstyle. I have no problem with the look of the game as it is. It would be nice to have improved textures though. Perhaps the doors could be a bit less blurry, that'd be nice. Otherwise... Completed my first playthrough yesterday as The Aristocrat and am loving the game. I am wondering how good the replayability is, but I have two new games going to find out.
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loki1969: I've played it after each update, so in terms of playability this is the first time that there is the chance I'll play it and they'll be no changes after the initial game. As a result I too am intrigued. I'm a point and click junkie normally so this is a bit of a departure.But I feel that this game really needs multi-player to ensure longevity.
Yeah, I think multiplayer could be fun. Co-op could be fun, but in the case of multiplayer I think it would also be fun with a competitive mode of some kind. I can imagine it'd be fun using rocks, empty bottles and the like to lead the robots to your competitor. There is also a possibility of maybe doing some kind of Pursuer mode where you are a robot hunting the other player.
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loki1969: I've played it after each update, so in terms of playability this is the first time that there is the chance I'll play it and they'll be no changes after the initial game. As a result I too am intrigued. I'm a point and click junkie normally so this is a bit of a departure.But I feel that this game really needs multi-player to ensure longevity.
avatar
KrisViking: Yeah, I think multiplayer could be fun. Co-op could be fun, but in the case of multiplayer I think it would also be fun with a competitive mode of some kind. I can imagine it'd be fun using rocks, empty bottles and the like to lead the robots to your competitor. There is also a possibility of maybe doing some kind of Pursuer mode where you are a robot hunting the other player.
Yup all this, especially the bottles :)
I think in general we have to stop complaining about graphics if we're expecting small teams to make niche titles. A lot of people cry about there being no games for them while ignoring everything that doesn't get an MTV ad, and I don't want to be one of those people. Also Sir! looks pretty great, I think.

That said I do wish the texture resolution was a bit better.