Any of you feel like we’ve become so fixated on graphics and perfomance to the point where the actual game part of a video game is often overlooked, or at least underemphasized? I don’t know about the rest of you, but all I come across on social media regarding gaming is about resolution, ray tracing, DLSS/FSR, frame rates, frame time, CPU and GPU untilization, and all of that stuff, and I’m honestly sick of it! I mean performance markers have always been discussed when it comes to PC gaming, but now even console gaming is getting this treatment! Don’t you miss the days when you just installed the game and just played it? I know I do. What do you think?
What you’re describing is not exactly gaming, but a different hobby entirely which is sometimes referred to as benchmarking. I’ve dabbled in it myself for some games, and the goal isn’t to experience and talk about the game as it is, but to figure out how to benchmark, best settings for performance and all that jazz.
Discussions about specific games for their merits are still very much alive on the internet though, you usually have to go to reddit and look for a dedicated subreddit for the game you’re interested in or their itch/discord if it’s a small indie game.
Nope, because I don’t give one shit about those kinds of games. Nintendo and indie games have never cared about graphics and performance. I haven’t owned a PlayStation since the PS2, and I’ve never owned an Xbox. Crazy how if your only console is a Nintendo then you never really care about that stuff. I do have a gaming pc but still play mostly indie games.
Nintendo is a proper shout out.
A Breath of the Wild / Tears of the Kingdom aren’t the prettiest games but they have two very big deals about them.
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Stylization. Games with a specific art style tend to age better than ones with ultra realistic art styles. Team Fortress 2 aged better than a lot of things because it leaned into the Pixar-cartoony style. ABotW and TotK both have their own unique style that will age incredibly well.
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Instead of the focus being graphics, the gameplay is the core loop. Tears of the Kingdom especially deserves accolades for how well the entire system of combining weapons and items just works. Who cares about the graphics, the crazy shit you do in the game isn’t causing the game to crash or fall to pieces. The game expected this, it was built to handle this, and this is proof that it was way more important to the developers than the graphics.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, old games were just as fucking janky on release, and most of them took years of modders fixing all those issues for them to get better.
Fallout 1 & 2 - janky on release
Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 - janky on release
Morrowind - janky on release
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Chernobyl - janky on release
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 - janky on release
All of these were capable of being installed and “just playing” them on release. There were countless bugs and janky behavior and that’s normal and we’re now spoiled by day 1 patches. STALKER 2 has been out a month and has had three major patches for bug fixes. STALKER Call of Chernobyl probably could have used the same but in 2007 the infrastructure to push quick updates just wasn’t there yet. Steam had only released by Valve in late 2003, roughly three and a half years earlier.
there’s plenty of “ugly” games here’s some I’ve played recently that came out this year:
- UFO 50: A collection of new games in the style (mechanically and visually) of the 8bit games. 8 bit graphics
- Balatro: A GOTY nominee, it’s a roguelike that is extremely loosely based on poker. modern pixel art style static images
- Children of the sun: a puzzle game where you are a sniper that bends and deflects bullets to kill whole rooms of people with 1 bullet. Graphics are pretty imo but not advanced.
- Echo Point Nova: a movement focused shooter. games plays on a potato. There is technically a a ray tracing option, but I think it’s more of a future proofing thing/a personal interest of the dev.
What is starting to annoy me is context button prompts. One button to rule them all i mean. What is this, an elaborate power point presentation? Feels like a relic of the mouse in action.
