The idea to thes realism part of this thread came to my while posting in the Games that resonated with you-Thread. anandxxx made a similiar thread earlier this year about how modern games are to clustered graphically which lead to the brown part.

So first things first. There seem to be two major trends in modern gaming. A graphical push towards more realism and a spin of the colourpalette towards brown/grey. This is further strengthened by the common consensus that colourful and non-realistic graphics (be it cel-shaded, cartoony or something completely different) are only for kiddy games.
What irkes me about this trends is that, to me videogames always were great because they were NOT like real life.

Running around as a neanderthal man riding dinosaurs that spit energy balls to defeat a huge one eyed brain/plant thing after riding a skateboard seems perfectly normal in a videogame despite the sheer absurdity of it all.

Running around as a soldier shooting terrorist/evil guys/civilians in a realistic setting seems more like watching the news than playing a videogame. (this is even moreso due to the trend of making video games movie like which sucks by itself)

Sometimes this fad with realism is taken quit a bit too far. Some may have heard of Morgan Webb and her problems with Super Mario Galaxy. She said it is too cartoony. And I really don't know what to say to that because, it is a MARIO game. Does she really want Mario to go all out on realistic graphics with a nice touch of brown on everything?
But I'm jumping to conclusions I cannot really draw so let's start from another point of view.

I think the only reason you can play Mario games without being disgusted is because they are in a comic style. Mario would be one of the most visually brutal games ever created if you put it in realistic graphics.
Mario games only work in cartoony graphics (deBlob, the Katamari series or the Kirby series are also such games). Furthermore cartoony/cel-shaded graphics allow for much more absurd gameplay ideas because the developer can create everything he wants without the fear of it looking weird or out of place(like the scene in Heavy Rain where you climb through the maze of electroluted cables or the scene where you can cut of your fingers, or where you crawl through the tunnel full of broken glass. Also the "hey I almost was electrified and have severe burnings but no problem I can always have sex with you idiotic codependent woman!"-scene. A wolf with a burning wheel on his back who also happens to poop flowers would be kind of weird in a realistic setting.

So to some extent I think the trend towards realism holds back the creative possibilities of developers while on the other side open a window for new stuff. For example the (now canceled) game "Six Days In Fallujah". It was set in a real war situation and maybe could have been able to transport the terrors of war without looking kind of goofy over the top like the Call Of Duty Series.

So to tackle the topic of brown greyness. This trend that brought us beautiful views like Killzone 2, Resident Evil 4, Gears Of War and many more.
This trend is not necessarily a bad thing. It's just bad for the diversity in games. Maybe it's just me but when I see random pics/gameplay footage of modern ego-shooters I have problems to seperate one from another. Maybe a slide turn of the colour palette once in a while would make it easier to actually make your game stand out. Crysis and Far Cry2 did this with greeniness (if that is even a word). So maybe to change up the look that has been sticking with first-person shooters especially try out some other colours (there are quiet a few of them!) Mr.Gamedeveloper!



I don't know if this is a somewhat structured entry but nonetheless. What do you think about the focus on realism and brown stuff in the gaming world today?

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El Shadai's art makes me think of how Final Fantasy's visual direction should go for a title or two... basically to look like Amano's concept art.

Oldmanwinter said:

Honestly I don't even notice it and I personally don't think it's nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. I mean look at the mother of all console games Halo... that game has all sort of bright colors going off everywhere. Many popular games do, though I don't disagree the general trend towards more "realistic" games leads to generally darker color palates.

I agree with this and add that saying brown is bad in games based on realistic settings is ridiculous. It's like knocking Silent Hill for being too brown when that's what the game is deliberately going for. I mean, should Silent Hill be covered in hot pink?

"Brown and Grey HD/FPS games" is one of the most eye-roll inducing things someone can say. ESPECIALLY when it's barely even true.

@Simbabbad

You are missing some notable colorful games in the genre including the Halo games, Team Fortress 2, and Borderlands. I guess you technically have BioShock 1 and Mirror's Edge.

Being colorful just for the sake of being colorful is just as bad as being forcibly brown. It comes down to what the artists want to make and how they wish to project it. It isn't "bad," just because you say it is or because you like eye-popping colors.

No certainly not a trend there aren't any brown shooters out there... (these are games from the first 2 pages of IGN reviews of shooters on the 360)

Call Of Duty Black Ops
Medal Of Honor
Quantum Theory
Cackdown 2
Bioshock
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Gears Of War 2
Gears Of War
Call Of Duty Modern Warfare
Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter 2
F.E.A.R
Transformers: War For Cybertron
Prey
Unreal Tournament 3
Army Of Two
Quake 4

@Simbabbad

Right it'S about the balancing of the two styles. Not every game has to look like Team Fortress of Far Cry. But neither do the all need to look like, well see the list above. (gosh I really sunk to the level of making a list-.-)

@Feierabend
That list is ridiculous.

Also, BioShock?

A brown FPS?

I think we are done here.

@Simbabbad

When you say that the movie Tangled impressed you, please tell me you were referring to the graphics. Because that movie was terrible, and I'd be surprised if you actually liked it.

If you are referring to the graphics, then I have to agree. I was absolutely floored with the CG in that movie, and it was all in 3D, no less! The textures, the lighting, the scene composition...everything was spot on.

@stephen08

I fully know that, hell I even WROTE that. And yeah Bioshock isn't really all that brown it's just there to "get the idea" of what I mean.

@Simbabbad

Ahh, so you liked the movie, yes?? Interesting. I thought the movie was chock-full of cliches, the musical numbers were parodical, the story predictable, etc. It just seemed like one big joke to me. But I saw it in 3D, and for that, I really enjoyed the visual experience. But I would never watch that movie for its story.

I'm glad you enjoyed the film. I did too, if only for the visual experience.

@Feierabend
Where do basically ALL those games take place? Do any of them take place in rainbow land? Most of these take place in urban areas or sterile environments. You CAN'T have colorful games that take place in these locations unless you completely change the mood or saturate the shit out of your game like Uncharted tends to do. Uncharted is also going for a different look from say, Call Of Duty. Uncharted is supposed to be a lush series, and you can clearly tell by concept art what look they're going for. Over saturation can look just as bad in my opinion. See Enslaved and Heavenly Sword. Same team, same pukey colors all over the screen. Uncharted's retina burning colors is a slight turn off sometimes as well, but the game has great art to make up for most of it.

And many of those don't even belong on the supposedly brown list to begin with. Prey wasn't bursting with rainbow colors but I wouldn't call it brown either. FEAR and UT3 don't belong there either.

I don't understand what these games are supposed to do to please you guys. I never said there wasn't any truth to it either, but that it's a silly argument, like saying Mario games are too colorful. I mean, the games are going for these tones for a reason.

@Simbabbad
You were probably playing crappy games to begin with, which have zero art style as it is so colors should be the least of your concerns.

I'm going to watch the trailer of Tangled again cuz I fail to see what's so special about the visuals. Looked like just another CG movie from what I've seen in commercials n stuff.

Edit: K I guess it looks good but...not any more special than the other 10,000 CG movies out there. Also, I ignored it cuz what the HELL seperates this movie from Shrek? Obnoxious hero saves girl in a tower who what, is able to kick his ass? Shrek? The fucking horse even looks like Donkey when he was a horse in Shrek 2. Same location, also based on damsel in distress in a tower. I'm not saying they're the same movie but the trailer sure makes it look like that.

@Simbabbad

I agree that it is a great leap in terms of visual composition for a CG movie. I was also surprised with how well it worked in 3D. Most of the effect was 'into' the screen using depth instead of the 'pop-out' effect, which was less-straining to watch.

I think the reason why they were so successful with the visuals in this film is because they took their cues from an actual real-world environment that was constructed to look a like a 2D Disney film come-to-life; Disney Land. I watched some behind-the-scenes videos and it looks like they lifted the environments straight out of Disney Land. Combine that with good scene composition, colors, and lighting, and you have a recipe for success.

Anyway, if this is the new roadmap for stylized CG, then I can't wait to see what lies ahead.

@Simbabbad You just played every single 360 FPS demo? You must have unlimited HD space and time on your hands. And yes, I'm sure most of the games you played suck since I can only name a few worth mentioning. COD games, FEAR games, Condemned, annnnnd that's it? Those games don't suck and I don't even feel comfortable calling them all brown either.

And yes, these games ALL take place in urban areas. FEAR games take place in fucking small corridors, from office buildings to schools to hospitals. Where are these rainbow colors you crave so much going to come from? I fail to see how a series (COD) which has taken place in War-time France, Iraq, Russia, etc are going to be loaded with colors. So yes, them taking place in primarily urban and sterile environments is a damn good point. Bioshock takes place at the bottom of the damn sea and focuses on a larger than life idea inspired by the 1960s and Deco art. Of course that game's gonna be more colorful than a game that takes place during a dusty old war in the middle east.

Should Silent Hill be knocked for taking place in similar environments and lacking color? Silent Hill is literally black, brown, and grey. The colors are based on their environment, I fail to see the problem with what these games are doing. Or is it okay for the Silent Hill team to do it cuz they're going for an atmosphere much like COD or any of the other supposedly brown games?

@carlosrox

So for games to be colourful they have to take place in happy rainbow land? I don't think that Enslaved is set there and neither is Uncharted. Heck Enslaved takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. The could have designed it like Fallout but the choose not to which is exactly what I mean by "more diversity". This could be done in shooters to. I just looked at the top scored (and probably sold very often) games. If many of these are set in "urban areas" or "sterile environments" then there you have the lack of diversity I was talking about. And even "urban areas" aren't restricted to the brown sheme, urban slums in Brazil are an example of that (using them as a background would even create a nice juxstaposition between gang violence and colourful houses. You could picture the slums as run down with faded colours, they would still be colourful just not eye-popping colourful like they are now) Halo differed from that and I don't think the mood in Halo is "ruined". You can have sad/dangerous moods with coloured environments. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories' dangerous environments were set in a rather soothing blue/black combination and worked well.

And there is a middle ground between Mario colours and Gears Of War colours.

Simbabbad said:

carlosrox said:

You were probably playing crappy games to begin with, which have zero art style as it is so colors should be the least of your concerns.

Every single FPS demo on 360 is the demo of a crappy game?

Apparently so

@carlosrox

Well, I don't think the story for Tangled was very good, but it's a new take on the Rapunzel story. Visually, there is a big difference between Tangled and Shrek. Tangled looks like a CG version of the art from 2D animated films, and Shrek is just a CG movie that looks like a CG movie.

@Feierabend
Enslaved and Uncharted just jacked the saturation up and imo it looks bad. There's also such thing as too colorful. Enslaved is a perfect example of that. I found the colors to be a massive turn-off. I played the demo and I felt like someone threw up on my screen. Uncharted is a much better example and basically the one everyone runs to. That game had many of the same tones found in a COD game though, so it's hypocritical to even say UC fares much better. COD MW2 has Brazilian slums in them.... but what colors do you hope to see in War-Torn Iraq, or WW2 Normandy? What colors are we supposed to find in an office building? In a hospital?

RE4 and Dead Space weren't all that colorful and neither was RE5. Those games were fucking beautiful.

@carlosrox

Well since I work at a Hospital I can safltey say it's not brown here! Except when some patients kind of..."loose it". A whole lot of white is seen here of course. Than there are nice touches of red (no not blood). The emergancy ward is held in a green tone and than you have beige for doors, tables and handrails and a nice nuance of blue for the glass doors.
And the office building I worked in before starting to work in a hosptital wasn't that brown either...green carpets white or red walls, green elevators. But maybe I just tend to work at colourful places.
And aside from working there I haven't even been to a place that's so much filled with brown and grey colours in my life... ok the cavern with the stalactites looked veeeery brown.

But I agree with you on RE4 and Dead Space looking amazing! On it's own Gears Of War looks awesome, so does Killzone. It's just the density in which this artstyle/coloursheme tends to be used in shooters that is sad. If every game looked like RE4 than RE4 wouldn't look so great.

Feierabend said:

No certainly not a trend there aren't any brown shooters out there... (these are games from the first 2 pages of IGN reviews of shooters on the 360)

Call Of Duty Black Ops
Medal Of Honor
Quantum Theory
Cackdown 2
Bioshock
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Gears Of War 2
Gears Of War
Call Of Duty Modern Warfare
Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter 2
F.E.A.R
Transformers: War For Cybertron
Prey
Unreal Tournament 3
Army Of Two
Quake 4

@Simbabbad

Right it'S about the balancing of the two styles. Not every game has to look like Team Fortress of Far Cry. But neither do the all need to look like, well see the list above. (gosh I really sunk to the level of making a list-.-)

If you are going to make a list, don't bend over backwards to make it so ridiculously biased.

Secondly a lot of those games juxtapose very dark with incredibly bright for dramatic effect. Unreal Tournament 3 and Bioshock are prime examples. Go play a game of Unreal 3 on pretty much any map and there are colorful florescent explosions and arcs going off in seizure inducing quantity constantly. Sure you can take a picture of staring at a wall in a poorly lit hallway, however it's kind of missing the point.

Anyhow like I said before I'm not going to argue that generally the entire color palates are darker for most fps, however I don't see why that is really an issue. Generally fps games deal with killing, warfare, apocalyptic settings, death, etc. Artistically when you have such a morbid setting, you aren't going to color your game with pastels, just like it would be equally ridiculous for Miyamoto to copy Call of Duty's color scheme for the next Mario game... it simply doesn't fit. Further utilizing darker tones and colors to enhance the games ambiance and "zomg they are all brown, lol" are also two different things. I'm not saying people here are doing that however the "brown game" argument is rarely if ever flattering towards the subject material as a whole.

@Feierabend
The hospital level in FEAR isn't brown either. It has just as many of the colors you mentioned if not more. You're just helping to prove my point that the colors used in these games are indeed correct. You mentioned a hospital, and FEAR's hospital gets it right. Tell me what Kandahar looks like and I think COD got it right as well. Same goes for the brazilian slum in MW2 as well as any other locations in any of these games. The thing you mentioned about Shattered Memories is a given. Of course a snow area is gonna be cool and blueish. It's not like the snow areas in the COD games are brown, right?

@Oldmanwinter
I doubt many people here have played as many FPS as people like us have so don't be shocked if many are surprised when you tell them UT3 actually has a very good color palette. Again, I agree with your post. I'm glad you agree with mine Gimme some backup.

@Simbabbad

I don't recall ever disagreeing with a general trend toward "darker" games, I've said as much twice I was more commenting on the comments, some of which I don't agree with.

Further many of the games people are calling "brown" are anything but if you actually happen to play them. Like I said they juxtapose very dark with incredibly bright, vivid, florescent colors. Bioshock, Unreal... hell many games using the U3 engine do. Then you have absolute blockbuster games like Halo and the most popular shooter on PC Team Fortress 2 that defy this trend.

Actually the run away success of Team Fortress 2 is a good counterpoint. It's one of the longest running success stories on the PC and it looks more like World of Warcraft than Gears of War... and WoW is another great example though it's obviously not a fps.

Simbabbad said:

@Oldmanwinter

My reply didn't disagree as much as building from what you said.

That's the points: like I said in my previous (edited while you typed yours) post, there are many individual counter-examples, but sadly, not enough in percentage on HD systems. There should be more because tons of art styles and palettes are possible.

That's true. Still if you look at some of the most popular games around right now, specifically World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, Team Fortress 2, Halo... they are very colorful, bright games. They may be a minority in sheer percentage of releases (an extreme minority, 2 of those came out over half of a decade ago), however in terms of players and activity they are incredibly popular.

I think there is just a general lack of people willing to take a risk compounded by a lack of talent. Of the games I listed one was made by Valve, two by Blizzard and one by Bungie. Those guys could make a game with nothing but the color yellow and it would probably kick ass and sell millions.