[philwelch]

I think contemporary videogames are too complicated to do this with. Older, simpler games have a minimalistic beauty all of their own; newer, complex games are more of a spectacle but lose a lot of the simple elegance. It's similar to the difference between the deliberate, minimalistic, kendo-style lightsaber battle in Empire Strikes Back and the hyperactive, flashy lightsaber battles in the Star Wars prequels.

[spiralganglion]

We already have things like this mod of Half Life: http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/about/

But perhaps you're right. There does seem to be a sweet spot in the balance of 16-bit era games, where the technical complexity wasn't so constrained as to force a boring outcome (as with 8-bit and earlier), nor so complex as to require a herculean amount of effort.

Time will tell. I would rather err on the side of being hopeful.

[philwelch]

I think it's possible to use newer technology more tastefully and minimalistically. I was going to add a huge analogy to the end of my comment about the subdued use of color in recent films, comparing that with earlier color films which were more vivid and gaudy, but I don't think I have enough of a grasp of film history to really tell whether that was the case.