Would You Play A Game That Has Atari Graphics? Options

[fawful]

From my point of view(who is what i would say a half decent spriter).
Realism gets old,sure it's impressive but it gets boring fast,i much prefer the graphics in Windwaker to that of Twilight Princess.
Quite a few people would call me moron for saying that,how on earth can that rubbish "cartoon" graphic style beat generic boring realism?
Because it's a breath of fresh air,the celshaded graphics,bright colours and unrealistic but well thought out anatomy give it a charm and style that somehow manages to make me like it more than almost ever other Zelda game i've played.

I base good graphics on personal apeal,in my eyes LocoRoco looks far superior to Halo.

And the same goes for Old graphics.Colour restrictions with low-res graphics and overall Retroyness have a mighty appeal,you might not like it,but other people certainly do.

[Limming Michael]

If the game is good and it has a good graphic style.

[razourik]

For some reason I like sprites better than 3D Thats why I actually prefer wolfenstein and doom better than halo in terms of graphics, they just seem to have an appeal. If the gameplay sounded like it would be fun I would play the game
EDIT: Trevaur, in your first post you posted in here you asked whether you would buy a game with those graphics... well i would if it was really really cheap

This post has been edited by razourik: Mar 18 2009, 02:55 PM

[wiiowner]

I agree with fawful that new art styles in games are a welcome change to the old grey and brown filters in today's mainstream games. Things like LocoRoco and Patapon have unique visual styles that are great and I love them. I am also obsessed with technical aspects of games but I do appreciate to art direction of many modern games, even 3d ones (ie. Valkyria Chronicles).

Edit: Wow spell checker doesn't recognize grey as a word.

This post has been edited by wiiowner: Mar 18 2009, 04:49 PM

[jomo24]

Try gray.

[mrperson]

The game play and story would have to be absolutely great for me to play it. Well, at least ok, I like old-school style.

[wiiowner]

Ahh. It's the old England/Canada versus U.S. spelling. I didn't know that you guys spelled it differently than us.

[Robert3DG+]

Which Atari?

[jomo24]

Here is a good question, if you'll play GM Games for a good amount of time, what would you have against Atari graphics?

[Yal]

If it had gotten good critisism, or somebody had asked me to review it, I would play any game (without too much brazen violence like e.g. the Madness series). Gameplay matters, not graphics.

Also, I think good graphics are most important in the beginning of the game. Once one gets into the gaming wind (like 'second wind'), one only care about interactability in objects in the game world, not that much about how it looks.

[Smarty]

I'm joining 9_6 here in his request to define "Atari Graphics".

Do you mean this? Or this? Both are Atari games.

Or do you mean the hardware? The visual capabilities of the 2600 and the Jaguar are miles apart. They're also heavily dependent on the game developer's expertise to make the best of it.

It seems rather unfair to me that one console and game development company is associated with primitive graphics, only because they've been around for a long time. It's not as if their contemporaries were any different.

[lewa]

Ha, true. But most of us think of the 8-bit days when Atari is mentioned (your second link is broke, btw).

I like pixelated games if they are done well. In fact, there are/were some very good and professional games here on the GMC done in 320x240.

[icuurd12b42]

Ha, true. But most of us think of the 8-bit days when Atari is mentioned (your second link is broke, btw).

Not really... Unless it's preceeded with the... The Atari. And the Atari graphics are actually 7 bits according to wikepedia (Talking graphics of course, not CPU.). But if I remember right, other factors actually limited the color palette to 8 colors (3 bits). I never had a game that had more than 8 colors... Coleco vision had 16 colors (4 bits if you are a bit freak)... A breakthough at the time...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_2600 (Check the SECAM reference in the Color and graphics section)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video...nsoles_palettes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColecoVision

And the second link smarty posted, it's the latest game from Atari, the software branch of the company which managed to live on. Just get rid of the garbage in the url...

This post has been edited by icuurd12b42: Mar 20 2009, 11:09 PM

[Smarty]

Ugh. It was a direct image link, but the swear filter took out a word. Here's another genuine 'Atari Graphics' picture:

http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/images/20...0_screen003.jpg

Would I play a game looking like that? Well, no. First Person Shooters started to bore the hell out of me some time ago.

[S-Chuck]

Assuming that you are speaking of old ATARI games where graphics and sound are limited due back then to hardware limitations whereas games now do not have to have the same limitations, would I still play a game created with those minimal graphics?

Absolutely!

In fact, many of my favorite games created with Game Maker over the years use simplistic graphics, and some of them (like Jumper) have been considered (by vote of the community) some of the best games ever created with Game Maker despite some other games with better graphics because the gameplay for many of those was not as good. Now, of course, those votes were alongside of other games with amazing graphics and sound as well, so I am not turning away the idea that games with superior graphics and sounds do have a lot going for them, but if you were to turn away from a game only because the graphics are limited, you could be missing out on a lot of great games! What's the point of amazing graphics if the game is horrible and unenjoyable on the gameplay level?

I'm sure it is just a sign of the changing times. Older generations (such as mine) grew up on ATARI back when, at the same time, fairly basic-graphics arcade games were also booming. Many people my age still pay the same retro games for nostalgic reasons and because not everyone thinks that a game has to be 3D with high-res graphics to be "a good game". In fact, Pac-Man is still considered one of the greatest games of all time despite the massive number of 3Dish games that are on the market today.

However, newer generations did not grow up with these games in the same way. While you have access to games of much higher image and sound quality for purchase, clones of the classic games have become freely available for download where you play for a few minutes and move onto to the next one. The collective interest just isn't there like it was for my generation.

[Games]

I would personally love to see someone emulate the physical limitations put on the Atari developers, and still try to create something with somewhat recognizable sprites. Limiting yourself to, say, a single 1d array with 126 indexes (storing only values between 0 and 255). Emulating the "scanner" effect of drawing on to the screen, trying to pick the right color at the right time, etc. If you made a game with these actual limitations, it would be well worth a play. I say this because most Atari emulations run at 30 fps, use a screen buffer and lots of variables and sprites, etc. To truly emulate the Atari you need to be limited in the same ways.

[Smarty]

I would personally love to see someone emulate the physical limitations put on the Atari developers, and still try to create something with somewhat recognizable sprites. Limiting yourself to, say, a single 1d array with 126 indexes (storing only values between 0 and 255).

8-bit games were small, but they weren't that small.

Emulating the "scanner" effect of drawing on to the screen, trying to pick the right color at the right time, etc. If you made a game with these actual limitations, it would be well worth a play. I say this because most Atari emulations run at 30 fps, use a screen buffer and lots of variables and sprites, etc. To truly emulate the Atari you need to be limited in the same ways.

Should they also write this in machine code? By the way, the original console matched screen updates with that of the TV, which was either 50 or 60 frames, depending, mostly, on where you lived.

[Games]

I know Smarty, I wasn't getting into specifics too much. Also, I do not recommend you try to write a game in machine code.

I simply suggested he should try to emulate Atari's limitations before attempting to work inside them.

Also, I believe the Atari 2600 did only have 120 something bytes of memory. If I'm not wrong, that means 126 values up to 255 each (or -122 to 123 for unsigned), hence my 126-index array limit.

[d.man]

3d allows for artistic design 2d will never even touch.

to use your words:

Hell no.

[9_6]

2d allows for artistic design 3d will never even touch.