I've always been a bit of a graphics tart. I remember getting 3D Seiddab Attack on my Spectrum, and being so unable to comprehend the first-person perspective that I got overly flustered, and died.
Knight Lore. Castle Master. Sonic the Hedgehog. F-Zero. Virtua Fighter. These are all games that I remember causing me to take a moment to just stop and catch my breath.
Of course, look back on all of them now and - while we might be able to appreciate some of the design elements - they don't exactly compare. They might've been acceptable at the time - like, say, The Black and White Minstrel Show or forcing human children to drink the milk of another species - but people would cluck and tut if you came out with a Virtua Fighter now.
And that's the thing, see... with every generation, it reaches a point where graphical achievements become sort of taken for granted. Whereas Knight Lore impressed everyone so much that they erected a statue of Sabreman in Hyde Park, by the time of Head Over Heels - just three years later - everyone had kind of accepted isometric graphics as a thing, and just saw them as incidental to the gameplay.
Knight Lore. Castle Master. Sonic the Hedgehog. F-Zero. Virtua Fighter. These are all games that I remember causing me to take a moment to just stop and catch my breath.
Of course, look back on all of them now and - while we might be able to appreciate some of the design elements - they don't exactly compare. They might've been acceptable at the time - like, say, The Black and White Minstrel Show or forcing human children to drink the milk of another species - but people would cluck and tut if you came out with a Virtua Fighter now.
And that's the thing, see... with every generation, it reaches a point where graphical achievements become sort of taken for granted. Whereas Knight Lore impressed everyone so much that they erected a statue of Sabreman in Hyde Park, by the time of Head Over Heels - just three years later - everyone had kind of accepted isometric graphics as a thing, and just saw them as incidental to the gameplay.
THE GENERATION GAMES
Something noticeable in the switch from the last generation of consoles to the current one is that the leap in graphics is much more subtle than in previous generational jumps.
The stride from the Super NES to the Nintendo 64 was obvious - everything went crazily 3D. The jump from, say, Xbox to Xbox 360 was similarly noticeable - everything became very obviously HD, and far crisper.
This time around - certainly at launch - it was harder to point to any one game and go "That's why I've bought a PS4/Xbox One".
Now, though, I'm starting to notice it. Particularly, it has to be said, in games from Ubisoft. You can mock them for their endlessly recycled map-mopping model, but if you don't look at something like Assassin's Creed Syndicate and appreciate what an achievement it is, then you have, quite literally, "the badman eyes". The subtle lighting, the litter-strewn streets of London, the sheer scale of detail... it blew me away, and was far and away the best thing about an otherwise slightly tedious game.
What I found weird though - and it's happening even more with The Division - is how few reviews I read bothered pointing out how good it looked. All the talk in The Division's write-ups is of the gameplay, as if graphics are no longer a big deal.
And this is despite the fact there's more effort going into how games look than ever before, yet we appear to be accepting a certain level of realism as standard now. However, I'm not sure I'm ready to take things for granted. Not yet.
Something noticeable in the switch from the last generation of consoles to the current one is that the leap in graphics is much more subtle than in previous generational jumps.
The stride from the Super NES to the Nintendo 64 was obvious - everything went crazily 3D. The jump from, say, Xbox to Xbox 360 was similarly noticeable - everything became very obviously HD, and far crisper.
This time around - certainly at launch - it was harder to point to any one game and go "That's why I've bought a PS4/Xbox One".
Now, though, I'm starting to notice it. Particularly, it has to be said, in games from Ubisoft. You can mock them for their endlessly recycled map-mopping model, but if you don't look at something like Assassin's Creed Syndicate and appreciate what an achievement it is, then you have, quite literally, "the badman eyes". The subtle lighting, the litter-strewn streets of London, the sheer scale of detail... it blew me away, and was far and away the best thing about an otherwise slightly tedious game.
What I found weird though - and it's happening even more with The Division - is how few reviews I read bothered pointing out how good it looked. All the talk in The Division's write-ups is of the gameplay, as if graphics are no longer a big deal.
And this is despite the fact there's more effort going into how games look than ever before, yet we appear to be accepting a certain level of realism as standard now. However, I'm not sure I'm ready to take things for granted. Not yet.
WHATEVER ELSE
I suppose I just wanted to dedicate a moment to going "Wow - game graphics are really good these days", instead of ignoring the fact.
Because, you see, The Division - and I'll get into the real good and bad of it elsewhere - is a stunning looking game, and nobody is talking about it.
I became a gamer in the days when a couple of flickering pixels jittering around a screen was enough to send people fleeing computer fairs in terror. I could never conceive that we'd reach a point where games would look this incredible.
There have been moments while playing The Division where I've just had to stop and look around. I mean... how do they do it? It must've cost a fortune; the level of detail is insane. It's a version of New York, recreated down to the most minute detail - and then given a post-apocalyptic wash. There have been times when I've been mid-mission and wished I didn't have to spend it cowering behind cover, because I wanted to admire the way my opponents are silhouetted against a burning fuel tanker, or spend a moment taking in a hanger full of corpses. It's beautiful.
What's more, so much of it the art in The Division is incidental. It isn't there for you to go up and look at - it's designed to be absorbed subconsciously, and just add to the overall atmosphere of the world.
I'd actually thought I'd started to grow tired of modern gaming's obsession with striving to create photorealistic visuals, but The Division has won me over. I mean, I'm a sucker for anything a bit post-apocalyptic-y anyway, but Ubisoft's graphics slaves have succeeded in creating such an incredibly compelling and tangible environment that they've won me round.
Everything about The Division's graphics screams "blockbuster", and we should be thankful for it. Whatever age you stumbled upon video games, there's no question that gaming has never looked better. Video games aren't a simple case of pointing a camera at a scene, and hitting 'record' - every cracked window pane, every shadow, every dust mote, has been created by hand.
And it's an incredible thing. Let's not forget it.
Want further proof of how good graphics have gotten? Go take a look at Andy Kelly's sublime Other Places series, which celebrates the gorgeousness of our virtual worlds.
I suppose I just wanted to dedicate a moment to going "Wow - game graphics are really good these days", instead of ignoring the fact.
Because, you see, The Division - and I'll get into the real good and bad of it elsewhere - is a stunning looking game, and nobody is talking about it.
I became a gamer in the days when a couple of flickering pixels jittering around a screen was enough to send people fleeing computer fairs in terror. I could never conceive that we'd reach a point where games would look this incredible.
There have been moments while playing The Division where I've just had to stop and look around. I mean... how do they do it? It must've cost a fortune; the level of detail is insane. It's a version of New York, recreated down to the most minute detail - and then given a post-apocalyptic wash. There have been times when I've been mid-mission and wished I didn't have to spend it cowering behind cover, because I wanted to admire the way my opponents are silhouetted against a burning fuel tanker, or spend a moment taking in a hanger full of corpses. It's beautiful.
What's more, so much of it the art in The Division is incidental. It isn't there for you to go up and look at - it's designed to be absorbed subconsciously, and just add to the overall atmosphere of the world.
I'd actually thought I'd started to grow tired of modern gaming's obsession with striving to create photorealistic visuals, but The Division has won me over. I mean, I'm a sucker for anything a bit post-apocalyptic-y anyway, but Ubisoft's graphics slaves have succeeded in creating such an incredibly compelling and tangible environment that they've won me round.
Everything about The Division's graphics screams "blockbuster", and we should be thankful for it. Whatever age you stumbled upon video games, there's no question that gaming has never looked better. Video games aren't a simple case of pointing a camera at a scene, and hitting 'record' - every cracked window pane, every shadow, every dust mote, has been created by hand.
And it's an incredible thing. Let's not forget it.
Want further proof of how good graphics have gotten? Go take a look at Andy Kelly's sublime Other Places series, which celebrates the gorgeousness of our virtual worlds.
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