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Offline Karlos

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Re: Retro is better
« Reply #14 on: April 17, 2010, 12:37:39 AM »
Is  there a reason this has  to be an either/or type thing? Personally I love hand-pixelled 2D graphics in games, but I equally enjoy some of the phenomenal detail that has found it's way into modern 3D offerings too. Remember that many of the textures used in these titles have also been created by hand by talented artists.
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Offline save2600

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Re: Retro is better
« Reply #15 on: April 17, 2010, 03:03:54 AM »
Quote from: Karlos;553962
Is  there a reason this has  to be an either/or type thing?

Well, the thread is about 'retro' gaming and 3D pretty much qualifies itself right there, so yeah.... lol

I do agree that there are some 3D landscapes and characters that are pretty damn impressive. But when you spend all or most your energy on creating that type of eye candy, what often takes a hit is the actually gameplay. Poor 3D camera angles are very common still too, but not as bad as they were in the late 90's. Is modern gaming as compelling as retro? Not in my world. And not in most peoples that subscribe to classic gaming forums.

Oh and what's with that exaggerated chest heaving thing all about in modern games? That's as stupid looking as it is disturbing. lol  Just stand still already, you big brute! :lol:
 

Offline ElPolloDiablTopic starter

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Re: Retro is better
« Reply #16 on: April 17, 2010, 04:04:38 AM »
Quote from: Karlos;553962
Is  there a reason this has  to be an either/or type thing? Personally I love hand-pixelled 2D graphics in games, but I equally enjoy some of the phenomenal detail that has found it's way into modern 3D offerings too. Remember that many of the textures used in these titles have also been created by hand by talented artists.


I'm not knocking modern artists, I'm just saying older titles seem to have more warmth.
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Offline runequester

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Re: Retro is better
« Reply #17 on: April 17, 2010, 05:35:32 AM »
Quote from: save2600;553977
Well, the thread is about 'retro' gaming and 3D pretty much qualifies itself right there, so yeah.... lol

I do agree that there are some 3D landscapes and characters that are pretty damn impressive. But when you spend all or most your energy on creating that type of eye candy, what often takes a hit is the actually gameplay. Poor 3D camera angles are very common still too, but not as bad as they were in the late 90's. Is modern gaming as compelling as retro? Not in my world. And not in most peoples that subscribe to classic gaming forums.

Oh and what's with that exaggerated chest heaving thing all about in modern games? That's as stupid looking as it is disturbing. lol  Just stand still already, you big brute! :lol:


In 10 years, will people still talk about Call of Duty or Crysis ? Propably not.

People are still talking about games like XCOM today.
 

Offline Cammy

Re: Retro is better
« Reply #18 on: April 17, 2010, 05:53:55 AM »
The only game genre I think that was really improved with 3D is racing games. I find I have more fun with a true 3D racing game than a fake 3D one most of the time, although 3D racing games aren't only modern. Stunt Car Racer is still the most fun racing game I have ever played, it's fully 3D but it's as retro as you can get. All they'd need is to remake the game with the exact same playability but with nicer, modern graphics and I think it'd be an instant hit (add online multiplayer too perhaps).

Apart from that though, I'm much more a fan of retro games. I really love looking at cell-based animation and pixel art, especially when it's been designed for the palette being used, and not just colour-reduced and remapped like most Amiga adventure games (although when they touched them up by hand like in Kings Quest VI it shows they cared more and the results are better). I don't like 2D games that are made up of vectors and simple hand-drawn characters that are scanned in and moved around the screen and rotated in real time. These things look like South Park characters or puppets or something.

Unfortunately the main reason we see less good 2D pixelled artwork in games these days is because it's a lot more time-consuming than regular game art (especially when a limited palette is involved) and it's more expensive to pay the artists, who generally have more experience in the industry and have been around since the days when pixel art was used more. There are still a lot of good pixel artists around, and plenty of younger people are still interested in the art form, so provided someone can get a full game finished and not give up half way through, we might see some new games in the future using that classic, intricate pixel art once again.
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Offline mingle

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Re: Retro is better
« Reply #19 on: April 17, 2010, 06:46:03 AM »
Gee, I'm behind the times - the last 'modern' video games I played were Tekken 3, OddWorld and Spiro the Dragon on the PS...

And that was many years ago...

Have they improved much since then? :-)

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Offline tasmanian guy

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Re: Retro is better
« Reply #20 on: April 17, 2010, 07:39:44 AM »
Braid could easily be done on the Amiga and the colour cycling effects would make great use of the copper.
 
A very 2D game in a 3D "me too" world.
 
Would love to see Peggle ported to the Amiga as well.......wasted so many hours on that game!
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Offline Lurch

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Re: Retro is better
« Reply #21 on: April 17, 2010, 07:47:47 AM »
Dont get me wrong I like retro gaming, I go back as far as BBS Door games. But to say there are no good modern/recent 2D platforms isn't correct.

http://maxandthemagicmarker.com/

Have been playing this alot on my PC, it's a fantastic game and very nice to look at and very addictive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGFo5m5anVE

The other awesome game of last year on the PS3 was little big planet, not really a 2d platform game but still fantastic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcp6G4JQEpc

Other fav's of mine are earth worm jim (I'm nuuuude!) and of course from the Amiga Shadow of the beast.
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Offline pVC

Re: Retro is better
« Reply #22 on: April 17, 2010, 07:54:51 AM »
I mostly prefer 2D games and I'm huge fan of good pixeling, but of course there's place for 3D in simulators (flight, racing, etc). But what I really hate is the overwhelming use of 3D in today's platformers. I just can't stand those bad camera angles and difficulties to estimate directions properly etc. I'm more happy to play good old Amiga games any time. And what I really would like to see today on modern equipment is good top down 2D racing games... like ATR, Nitro, SuperCars2 etc with modern network options etc, but unfortunately everything released is the same boring clones with 3D all the time nowadays.
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Offline ElPolloDiablTopic starter

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Re: Retro is better
« Reply #23 on: April 17, 2010, 08:34:52 AM »
I suppose cinematics can draw you in, but better is attention to detail in the game environment.  Who needs Resident Evil when we had Dungeon Master giving you chills?
FPSs are usually the worst example because you can go in for closer inspections and they're usually all function.
« Last Edit: April 17, 2010, 09:18:32 AM by ElPolloDiabl »
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Offline ikaruga

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Re: Retro is better
« Reply #24 on: April 17, 2010, 08:51:01 AM »
Flight sims too. :)  Texture-mapped, well-lighted models and scenes as opposite to retro wireframe/flat polygon engines of the past:
http://pc.ign.com/objects/042/042775.html
http://simhq.com/_air13/air_439d.html
http://pc.ign.com/articles/100/1002055p1.html
http://www.thunder-works.com/news.htm

And of course, Space Sims:
http://pc.ign.com/articles/815/815449p1.html
http://www.infinity-universe.com

Although I remember foundly playing Elite 2: Frontier on Amiga on the flat poligon graphics (cutting edge in 1993 for the game's necessity/massive procedural universe) but still leaving up for a lot of imagination to fill the blanks in the graphical department.

But apart from racing, flight and spacey sims, I'd prefer 2D as well. Specially fighting games and platformers!  And of course the shmups. Although one of my favourite shmups ever is 3D (Ikaruga) although - here's the deal - *it plays like 2D*.



Quote from: Cammy;553998
The only game genre I think that was really improved with 3D is racing games. I find I have more fun with a true 3D racing game than a fake 3D one most of the time, although 3D racing games aren't only modern. Stunt Car Racer is still the most fun racing game I have ever played, it's fully 3D but it's as retro as you can get. All they'd need is to remake the game with the exact same playability but with nicer, modern graphics and I think it'd be an instant hit (add online multiplayer too perhaps).

Apart from that though, I'm much more a fan of retro games. I really love looking at cell-based animation and pixel art, especially when it's been designed for the palette being used, and not just colour-reduced and remapped like most Amiga adventure games (although when they touched them up by hand like in Kings Quest VI it shows they cared more and the results are better). I don't like 2D games that are made up of vectors and simple hand-drawn characters that are scanned in and moved around the screen and rotated in real time. These things look like South Park characters or puppets or something.

Unfortunately the main reason we see less good 2D pixelled artwork in games these days is because it's a lot more time-consuming than regular game art (especially when a limited palette is involved) and it's more expensive to pay the artists, who generally have more experience in the industry and have been around since the days when pixel art was used more. There are still a lot of good pixel artists around, and plenty of younger people are still interested in the art form, so provided someone can get a full game finished and not give up half way through, we might see some new games in the future using that classic, intricate pixel art once again.
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Offline Karlos

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Re: Retro is better
« Reply #25 on: April 17, 2010, 01:21:21 PM »
Quote from: save2600;553977
Well, the thread is about 'retro' gaming and 3D pretty much qualifies itself right there, so yeah.... lol


I thought the thread was intended to be a "which is better and why?" question, otherwise why ask what we think at the end of a post praising 2D and criticising 3D?
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Offline Karlos

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Re: Retro is better
« Reply #26 on: April 17, 2010, 01:24:55 PM »
I'm a bit curious, actually. I've experimented with a 2D tiling stuff in the past that used 3D hardware to render tiles, in 32-bit depth with simple (read gouraud) lighting effects and antialiased "sprites" (32-bit images moving over the top). I can easily imagine some retro style games doing that on modern hardware with pixel-shaded sprites and tiles for highly realistic lighting effects.

Where does that sit in the spectrum of 2D versus 3D ?
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Offline stefcep2

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Re: Retro is better
« Reply #27 on: April 17, 2010, 02:18:57 PM »
Quote from: pVC;554008
I mostly prefer 2D games and I'm huge fan of good pixeling, but of course there's place for 3D in simulators (flight, racing, etc). But what I really hate is the overwhelming use of 3D in today's platformers. I just can't stand those bad camera angles and difficulties to estimate directions properly etc. I'm more happy to play good old Amiga games any time. And what I really would like to see today on modern equipment is good top down 2D racing games... like ATR, Nitro, SuperCars2 etc with modern network options etc, but unfortunately everything released is the same boring clones with 3D all the time nowadays.

Dunno.   I still have fun playing Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot.

And I love 3D racing games, especially the futuristic ones like F-Zero GX-IMO THE best racing experience on any platform, ever.  Played in 16:9 480p widescreen, it looks amazing with its 60fps frame rate, fantastic  background artwork.
 

Offline save2600

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Re: Retro is better
« Reply #28 on: April 17, 2010, 03:44:44 PM »
Quote from: Cammy;553998
The only game genre I think that was really improved with 3D is racing games. I find I have more fun with a true 3D racing game than a fake 3D one most of the time, although 3D racing games aren't only modern. Stunt Car Racer is still the most fun racing game I have ever played, it's fully 3D but it's as retro as you can get. All they'd need is to remake the game with the exact same playability but with nicer, modern graphics and I think it'd be an instant hit (add online multiplayer too perhaps).


Totally agree. When "bashing" 3D, I often forget the racing genre. Excellent points and I'd bet almost all us would be in agreement: 3D racers rock.
 

Offline Cammy

Re: Retro is better
« Reply #29 from previous page: April 17, 2010, 04:09:19 PM »
I've always wanted to try out this theoretical real-time antialiasing trick with Amigas. You have the game set in EHB mode, all your BOBs and background graphics would use the first 32 colours, and all the BOBs have a EHB mask behind them which slightly overlaps the BOB its under (the pixel artist would determine the best mask). This would give the illusion of an outline around the characters which is semi-transparent and would help blur jagged edges, and could also be used for shadows below the characters. Or shadow character bad guys!
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