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Comment by sageabilly | Hacker News Reader

At some point it comes down to what gamers want, and that's always going to be "different things to different people." Papathanasis illustrates it himself when he shares the reasons his wife prefers Sims Social over Sims 3.

Also a great game with less than cutting edge graphics will probably always win over an average game with amazing graphics- think Minecraft as the most obvious example. I see games like The Long Dark or Don't Starve or even something like Fez, all coming from smaller studios and all about 180 degrees away from an AAA game being more embraced by gamers in the long run than whatever the latest Call of Duty is. Of course if we break it down that far then we start getting into arguments between "serious gamers" and "casuals" and "console vs PC" and on and on and on...

Again, circling us back around to "different people like different things and that's OK".

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> Again, circling us back around to "different people like different things and that's OK".

Sure, there's always that. However, just commenting on game graphics for a moment, many people have a clear bias towards graphics that are strong aesthetically vs. those which are only technically impressive.

Consider, Sonic the Hedgehog was released in 1991. In my eyes, that game still looks good today, and I don't think that's purely nostalgia, I believe it has a striking, cohesive aesthetic style. Compare that with something like Doom 3, which was released about 10 years ago. Graphically, it's not awful, but it doesn't quite have the same timeless appeal.

Gameplay matters above everything else, but in terms of presentation the aesthetics are IMO more important than the strength of the graphics engine.

Just look at Hotline Miami or Gunpoint for other examples. I'll note that it's partly a question of genre, IMHO. While Eldritch got some success, I think FPS are a genre where it's a lot more difficult to go for a minimalistic look.

Thanks for the examples, I agree Hotline Miami and Gunpoint have strong visual styles, never knew about them before today. Gunpoint in particular looks like a great game too, would happily play that. Hotline Miami visually looks like a trippy neon Alien Breed to me, I like trippy visuals, Rez is a good example of that IMO.

I agree FPSes traditionally have been hard to make stylish, but that's not to say it can't be done. Whilst it's not a shooter, Mirror's Edge is a decent example. Eldritch isn't to my taste but I agree it's an attempt to craft something memorable. I also think the makers of Timesplitters were onto something, perhaps it could do with some cleaner lines (easily achievable now), but it could have become something iconic. There was also a FPS game (I forget the name) where bullets only moved fast when you moved, you can probably still find it somewhere, I thought that was stylish too.

The last example you cite is called Superhot, fyi

Yeah, that's the one.

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