Forgive my ignorance here—I don't know too much about current games—but what are some examples to good "visceral experience games"? That actually sounds like the sort of thing I'd really enjoy.

Dear Esther and Heavy Rain are two games that seem to get talked about a lot. I actually haven't played either, but just know some general info on them. Both got positive reviews though.

It received some great feedback on EGM and a few other magazines. I think more games are going the route of being visually stunning rather then extremely fun gameplay, The HD age is taking over.

In terms of graphics I think more game devs should be looking towards an exaggerated and cartoony style, because that can age incredibly well. I mean take Okami for example. This 6 year old game from the last console generation (which is debatable considering it did come out on the Wii) still looks better than many of the games from this console generation that attempted to do a grim and gritty realistic look by shunning colors that weren't brown or grey. I know it's a tired statement that people have been repeating for half a decade now, but the fact of the matter is that in 5 years time, Battlefield 3 will probably not be looking all that great when compared next to whatever game is using top range graphical power, but games like Okami, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, and Journey will still look as great, and even better if they get HD-rereleases like so many PS2 era games have had.

It's interesting that most of the examples you gave are from last gen. I can't really think of any games from the current consoles that were great artistically. You go even further back-jet grind radio and that still looks great.

However, I do think half life 2 still looks good even if you don't consider it a realistic look, it was still very close. The original crysis as well. Granted both those games were 5 years ahead of their time.

I think Half-Life 2 still holds up graphically because of the way the characters gesture with their hands and faces like an actual person would. It also helps that Valve go to the effort of hiring good voice actors and they make you empathize with all the main characters, so it kind of helps to cover up the dated Source graphics engine. Compare that to any game Bethesda has done where the all the characters feel like they're in the uncanny valley in terms of their interactions and just... awkward. I'm also a little biased because the pinnacle of my gaming experience came in the last generation, whereas with the 7th I've felt more alienated as the focus has shifted to an online focus and continued story with DLC. I've also only played current gen games on consoles so that will definitely skew my perception, I'm sure Skyrim looks pretty amazing on a PC, especially if you grab fan-made texture pack mods.

Even though I can't come close to running it properly Skyrim on PC with maxed out resolution, 2k (or higher) texture packs, ENB lighting effects and all the other shebang is absolutely stunning to see. Best thing about it is it forgoes realism in areas like lighting for the sake of just looking beautiful, which is what I feel a lot of "realistic" modern games get wrong. I know what the real world looks like when replicated in a 3D graphics engine and that's ugly. Give me something to see that I can't view by looking out of my window.

Thanks! Dear Esther looks pretty cool!

evanb333

Great :yeah:

All of my steam friends play TF2 and L4D2 so it'll be nice to start building a CS friendbase again

http://borderhouseblog.com/wp-conten...02/mother3.jpg
apparently better than earthbound. i'm still in the beginning, but this games seems to have some cool features.