'Do players care about graphics?' - Bulletstorm dev

[wraggster]

Bulletstorm developer, People Can Fly has questioned whether players actually give a monkey's about graphics any more.

Speaking to CVG, founder Adrian Chmielarz said he doesn't really care about video game visuals that much - so it's really lucky that his shooter looks fantastically good.

"The thing is, we really do not care that much," he said of game graphics. "When you take a look at the visual quality of Gears - the density of detail, so to speak - in my opinion, it kills Modern Warfare easily. But, Modern Warfare is 60 frames-per-second, and composition of the scene in Modern Warfare is really, really good. It's excellent.

"I think right now so long as the game has a minimum level of quality, which is for us and everyone who wants to matter in this business is really high, do players really care? Seriously, if it really looks good, do we need to join race?

He added: "If people say our game looks better than another game, we will be happy, but that's not our goal. We just want to invite you on an adventure."

Bulletstorm, in case you missed it, is a Cliff Bleszinski-produced shooter in which you can impale people on giant, spike wielding plants, slide kick bizarre-looking guards, and in which a man can exclaim, "You scared the dick off me!" when he feels like it.

Cliffy B recently stuck up a six minute walkthrough video of the game in action. Watch it.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=254323?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-General-RSS

[symbal]

The only reason i bothered with this generation is FPS's can handle more on screen and have better draw distance. Gran Turismo 1&2 are more than enough racers for me and my favourite platformer is still Super Mario 3, so to me it's more about a consoles raw power getting the best of each genre than just throwing graphics at it, and if less graphics means a dev has more time for gameplay then i'm all for it.

[trigazer]

graphics dont mean a thing when the game doesnt have a decent control scheme or good camera layouts. even sloppy physics engine doesnt help even if the graphics look pretty.

[Nashxyzz]

Players do care about graphics, at least a little but basic game mechanics sometimes feels like games were rushed or they didn't care bout it. Controls should be kept as simple as possible. Storytelling, if any, should be enough to keep people wanting more and not overdrawn out and lengthy enough to put people to sleep. Music helps build atmosphere and should go well with storytelling and gameplay. Lastly gameplay should be enough for people to wanting to play more and not become stale over the course of the game. Bonuses of more loot and easter eggs help that greatly, look at borderlands as prime example of good gameplay and protecting the little sisters in bioshock2 was cool for a while but seem to get stale fast.
AI is tough one because everyone has different opinions as to what works and I feel a difficulty setting has been the best idea to appeal to casuals and hardcore players.

[Krisando]

I keep buying the lastest video cards only to be able to play all games without lag. >_<

It's darn annoying how slack these programmers are getting. Something like Oblivion for example, rather than trying to keep polygon count low while keeping the models looking the best, they have alot of spare polygons for use so they don't really care. Making older pc's and the latest at that time lag like heck, and the game does not look very good.

I've noticed people judge games on graphics, if you post a 2D mmorpg a bunch of trolls will come around doing nothing but steady trollin "geey, crapz0r gfx".

It's just funny that 2D games are generally better than 3D, 3D usually requires a more powerful pc, lags, is more complex, more room for clumsy controls and can be difficult to play casually. (unstable, huge loading times, massive file size, lag)