Graphics aren't not everything.

I was reading Insult Swordfighting the other day and noticed Mitch Krpata mentioned that he tunes graphics out quite early in games. The game becomes about mastering its mechanics and the graphics take the backseat. I agree to an extent, but then I think about some of my favorite games and they wouldn’t have been nearly as impressive without the environments and atmosphere the graphics created.


Shadow of the Colossus for example is a game with interesting gameplay mechanics and a control scheme that is deeper than meets the eye. That said, one of my strongest memories of that game has nothing to do with gameplay. I’m talking simply about the world. It is a wide open barren wasteland that adds immensely to the games overall mood. The player and his horse are the only beings in the entire area aside from the Colossi, and the feeling of isolation comes across wonderfully through this. Without the proper design of this world, with the scattered ruins and howling winds, Shadow of the Colossus would not have had anywhere near the impact it had on me.


Another great game whose graphics were essential to the experience is Bioshock. I don’t think any of its players will dispute that the city of Rapture was one of the most interesting and disturbing places they visited in 2007. 2K Boston succeeded in creating a living breathing underwater city that amazingly still felt like something from the 1950’s. Bioshock is one of those rare games that I remember for its atmosphere, characters and story before its gameplay. Sure, it had solid shooter mechanics, and the crafty player could set up elaborate Rube Goldberg contraptions for the Big Daddies to stumble through, but what really set the game apart was its environment.


One game I never would have even finished if not for its vibrant world and interesting stories is Oblivion. About 2 hours into Oblivion I realized I had made an utterly terrible character that just got weaker and weaker with every level I gained. By level 10 I was basically useless and I hated the combat system. I ended up turning the difficulty slider down and found myself spending hours just wandering around, taking in the world of Tamriel. The game still has a pretty amazing draw distance. Standing on top of certain mountains as the sun sets on the forest below is almost as breathtaking as seeing it in real life. Without the beautiful world to explore, I probably wouldn’t have made it 4 hours into Oblivion. The awesome guild quests didn’t hurt either. :)


The entire horror genre is something I feel intrinsically relies on graphics and the atmosphere it creates. Would Dead Space have been anywhere near as frightening without the humanesque looking monsters occupying a pitch black, huge, and empty, but eerily noisy space ship? Imagine playing Dead Space with stick figures in an environment consisting of white geometric shapes instead of with the highly detailed character models and ship designs. How scary would that be?

Oddly enough, one game that I feel has always greatly benefitted from its gory art style is Gears of War. Multiplayer shooters would never be anything without their solid play mechanics and sound level design, but I’ve always found something very satisfying about landing a kill in Gears. Something about blowing your opponent to pieces with a shotgun when seconds earlier he was charging at you full steam never gets old. This goes against the very basis of the article Mitch was referring too when he made his graphics comment, but I feel at least in this case the gore matters. I don’t think I’m “high on scales of aggression” either, but hey, I’m a gamer, aren’t we all violent psychopaths?

I know graphics are hardly everything. I just recently played Siren: Blood Curse, a game with an incredibly spooky atmosphere and some of the freakiest monsters I’ve ever seen, but absolutely hated it. Why? Because the game played terribly, the entire thing was tedious and frustrating, which was more than enough to ruin the overall experience. I’ve also played plenty of games for hours and hours that offer nothing in the way of interesting visuals. N+ is one such game, every level consists of gray backgrounds that the stick figure you control must navigate. The game is an absolute blast and brutally difficult. It succeeds because it has some of the most precise platforming controls ever. All the game has is its solid controls, interesting jumping mechanics and clever levels, and that is all it needs.

It’s pretty obvious that gameplay is always the most important factor when judging a game. If graphics were everything how would a game like Megaman 9 have garnered so much attention? I just find it odd when I hear people say they don’t care about graphics. So many games wouldn’t have been nearly as immersive and memorable as they are without their graphics. We should keep that in mind before the next time we yell out graphics aren’t important.