Best Game Graphics to date!

Crowley wrote: And I'm only 23 years old... Honestly there comes out maybe one game every two months that really grabs my attention (being a pure PC gamer of course narrows that down a bit) and the latest one was Space Rangers 2.

Well, you see; to us adventure game lovers and Tex Murphy fans, our taste is fairly similar and so I agree it is hard to find good games floating around... but we cannot forget that for the majority of gamers out there (and no that's not us) it is a highly competitive market and there are plenty of good games floating around and being released all the time.

Even though to us there are not that many good games as often as there used to be, for the market's majority there are plenty... and that is partly responsible for he demise of the adventure game.

-Cub. =o)

I suppose it all depends how you define good. There are plenty of games out there that are well made in many ways. Games I might even consider good, even though the story is lacking (the recent Call of Duty 2 is a good example). But it is rare to see a game with a really well written story. The story in most games would make a Van Damme movie seem deep.

They do come along every once in a while though (the 2004 game of the year story-wise was The Moment of Silence in my opinion). It seems to me as if story, dialogue and characters is slowly but steadily being more and more focused upon in games. Perhaps people finally realized that there is no need for the game industry to be light-years behind the movie industry.

What about the RPG genre? Usually storylines have to be pretty weighty to carry the long play time I think. 40 hours of play time and a dull plot just can't cut it. They do seem to be ranting about graphics still (last I heard, with Final Fantasy XII they want to try and make real time and FMV sequences as seamless as they can) but the plots still have to be heavily developed as a 'goes without saying' mainstay perhaps.
I think also if more Adventure games were released, there'd be more plot-centric games too.
Perhaps its just a matter of the genres. You might be able to give a racing or shooting game a huge 40 hour plot but most gamers would probably overlook it and just want to know how much the gameplay system had been developed, so the developers would probably focus more on gameplay and looks.

(As for PC only, I wouldn't know, I just buy whatever I fancy for whateevr system I have. Which is currently mainly a PS2 and a PC)

What about the rpg genre? There happen to be far too many rpg's that focus on the battle system (Tales of Symphonia, Star Ocean) while maintaining a very weak story, abundant in cliche. Then there are the dungean crawlers where leveling up and getting uber weapons are all it's about.

So yeah, the RPG genre may log the most hours, but even they deal with some shoddy stories and voice acting that would make Wesley Snapes an Oscar winner in comparison.

The appeal of RPGs like Final Fantasy is definitely the story. A huge exemple of this is the Xenosaga series, where some gamers complained of looooooooong cutscenes. Hey! I like cutscenes!


I gotta say, though, that the greatest graphics I've seen are from this game that is about to be released: The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. You have to see it to believe it. Espescially the forests. WOW! Some will say that, if Oblivion is anything like its predecessor Morrowind, the story will be deficient. My answer to that is that's the wrong way to take it. The Elder Scrolls games have great stories but very loose plots. You see, the philosophy behind the TES games is that the player makes up the story they want. In other words, the games are like huge sandboxes where the player have humongus freedom to make up his own adventure within the boundaries of the game story.

My brother is going to go out and buy an Xbox 360 when it comes out and he will be getting Oblivion with it... needless to say, I will be hanging around him for a little while.

The day has come my friends when the console overtakes the PC platform in terms of performance.

-Cub. =o)

The day has come my friends when the console overtakes the PC platform in terms of performance.

That's been happening since the start of consoles. It never takes long for PCs to catch up.

Vracar wrote:Star Ocean) while maintaining a very weak story, abundant in cliche.

Aww I like Star Ocean: The Second Story. One of my favourite games
But there certainly is a big appeal in the inventive gameplay system, both for the character attributes and battle system. However I still enjoy the characters and story
I've not played the first game in the series but I'd like to play the latest one.
I haven't played Tales of Symphonia yet though.

But you're right, all genres have their fair share of duds. But I think a lot of the time, just in comparison to some other genres, the plots in RPGs are more heavily developed simply due to the different audience/gameplay etc.Whether you like whatever plot a given RPG has developed though can sometimes be another hurdle, there are a couple of games that are hugely popular where the story just didn't strike the right chord for me perhaps just due to personal preference

I just find it funny how back in the mid 90's when Tex Murphy flourished we saw a lot of cinematic games and cames with cinematic influences. Then in the late 90's till now games have become just games.

Now we are slowly beginning to see a push towards more cinematic gaming. Probably thanks to the advancements of technology. Now that we have caught up to the points where we can have cinematic CGI without the need for expensive FMV the bandwagon is picking up speed and we can expect some really amazing titles coming up... whih has me looking forward to the three Spielberg has in mind for Electronic Arts.

Speaking of Spielberg (and a bit off-topic)... how do you like my new sig? I think Taken is one of the best shows/miniseires' I have seen. Now if it were a game that would be something... the 3 paths (like Tex Murphy) would be the three families the story follows.

-Cub. =o)