| Baldur's Gate 2 is on my list of things to try, I'll add Pillars of Eternity. That said, I've got reservations: > I find a lot of modern gaming to be incredibly shallow. Sturgeon's Law. > Good for a single play session but I put the game down and never return. You seem awfully quick to ascribe this to game quality even though there are significant confounding factors: growing up and having more demands on your time, the opportunity cost of abundant digitally downloadable games, youtube's ability to let you explore alternative choices without spending many hours on a replay, etc. Just so we're on the same page, though, have you played modern BioWare or CD Projekt Red titles? It's not uncommon for them to gate entire alternative chunks of the game behind player choices. 10x so with low-production-value assets. If someone can look at Witcher 3 and call it shallow and not replayable then I'm pretty sure that we're never going to see eye to eye on the subject of game quality. > It's a bit of a shame really; these companies spend a fortune on fancy graphics and it just doesn't matter one bit to me. That is a shame. Are you sure you're actually trying to appreciate the artwork, though? Being dismissive of graphics is certainly the "hip" position in most nerd circles I've been in -- something I became keenly aware of back when I was doing CG in academia and considering it as a career path. I can still picture the sneers on my friends' faces and hear their dismissive snorts when I would start to go on about the artistic accomplishments in this or that title. It sucked, although it wasn't what drove me away (the shit wages and working conditions did that on their own). There's nothing wrong with appreciating other facets of a game more than graphics, but if someone gives graphics 0 or negative weight then I tend to suspect they're primarily trying to build "nerd cred" rather than trying to enjoy games. Like the kid after a movie who can talk about nothing but loopholes. > I'd rather play Dwarf Fortress in all its ASCII glory than play Destiny or The Division. Are these unbiased samples or are you comparing your favorite from one era to a mediocre pick from another? How many of the games on my favorite list (addendum: I forgot Spec Ops: The Line) have you played and found wanting compared to your favorites from previous eras? In particular, would you apply the word "shallow" to any (in the facets I marked as strengths)? I'm genuinely curious as to whether our difference of opinion is due to different tastes or having played different titles. |
Well, it depends on your point of view. Some people don't play games to appreciate the art at all. For some, the art is purely a functional part of the puzzle that allows for immersion (such as in my case).
For example, I recently started playing Dark Souls (which I'm head-over-heels for, by the way), and while the visuals could be described as "gorgeous", even at the low-res and detail I'm playing at to keep it responsive. But when I see amazing vistas in the game which include castles and bridges and turrets, those are places I actually get to visit in the game, and not through some weird warp, but by slowly working my way there, usually in a very circuitous route.
Are there games which advance the state-of-the-art with regard to graphics and art? Undoubtedly. Could I point them out to you? Not a chance. I don't have the prerequisite knowledge or experience to even notice in most cases, much less know where to begin in a task such as that. But I do appreciate that there is good art in the games, to the degree that it helps my immersion in the game. Sometimes that means lovingly crafted pixel art, sometimes it means detailed models and textures. It really depends on how it's integrated.