Guest piece from Matt Maddock
Muttering self-indulgently about gaming, pretending like anyone out there gives a damn about anything I have to say, is just one of my pass times. I also self-indulgently scribble pictures and show them around on the fridge-door that is Facebook, looking for validation from people I sort-of know. In the dim and distant past, I self-indulgently studied physics at university and had a pretence towards being a scientist. I still like science, engineering and technology, but I have self-indulgently admitted that I don’t have the disposition to make the world a better place through the application of the greatest of human developments to the understanding of the universe.
No, now I just use my education to complain about sci-fi movies and get overly excited about arcane technology. One technology I was excited about was the new generation of console hardware. With the exception of Ryse, which genuinely looked freaking awesome, and the load times when fast travelling through Infamous: Second Son, I’ve been kind of…underwhelmed by the games as yet. Sure, Black Flag is gorgeous, but it was gorgeous on last gen machines too. Thicker smoke and bluer water are nice and all, but they’re barely a reason to have shelled out for a new machine.
Then I took an actual look at some of those games that haven’t really impressed me much. Watch Dogs, for example. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s a great game; the mechanics and interactivity of the city are a pleasure to play with, but to look at, it really doesn’t shine much. Except that it kind of does. There are high res textures all over the shop. It’s smooth and fluid and shiny, but when it’s moving, there simply isn’t time to appreciate that. It looks exactly like a last-gen game, but with some bigger numbers written down in the specs. That’s fair enough, but I don’t feel like I’d have been missing much to play it on my 360 instead.
But today I read something that gives me hope: http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/06/03/a-sunday-drive-with-forza-horizon-2-ign-first?page=1 ]
Ralph Fulton, the creative director on Forza Horizon 2, said some wonderful things about their intentions for the game. Let me quote a headline for you:
“We believe next gen beauty isn’t about poly counts,” says Fulton. “It’s not about texture resolution. Those are last-gen concepts. Next-gen beauty is about light.”
As an aspiring arty type, that statement along brings me great joy. See; light isn’t like detail. The light of a scene affect every single thing seen within, but it does so in broad strokes, with niceties of colour and tone, with movement and shadow. It suffuses a thing with emotion without worrying about lines and dots per inch and anti-aliasing. The first time I remember really seeing light play its part in a game world was in GTA IV, when the entire feel of the city could be switched just by changing the angle of the sun. GTA V didn’t work nearly so well for me. Sure, the models were sharper and those all-important polygon numbers were higher, but the near constant Californian sun was a flat, uninteresting player.
So, you see, I don’t believe that poly-counts and render resolutions alone will make the new gen sing. As demonstrated by Watch Dogs, that gets lost when things are whizzing past you. Light, though, doesn’t need you to look at it, because you can’t look without it. It’s everywhere and it is a thing of beauty and dazzling emotional power.
When the original Xbox and PS2 gave way to the 360 and PS3, it was like the game designers were suddenly free to build the game mechanics they wanted to. There were so many flops leaking out of the processors that they could combine mechanics like never before, weave game types together seamlessly and refine control schemes into the slick, intuitive interfaces we all expect today.
With this latest generation change, perhaps, I hope, I wish, the artists will start to get the same freedom. The shadows and the glints, the dust and the darkness that speak out of any great artist’s work will find a way to translate into practical models for game designers to use. I urge you to read the second section on page 2 of that article above, because the things they are trying to do with the graphics engine are astounding. As an artist and a scientist, I would happily pay just to get the lighting and atmosphere simulation in my sweaty hands, even without a driving game tacked on the end.
Game quality, as the old adage says, is about a lot more than graphics – and that’s true…but graphical beauty is about so much more than poly counts and resolution. If developers keep thinking like this, then maybe this generation will beget something truly beautiful, in every sense of that word.
Can’t agree more with this thanks Matt for another great article
The Abject Gamer Emporium 