Great Art in Games

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AuthorTopic: Great Art in Games
E Equals MC What!!!!
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Which aren't Spidweb/BoX.

Two examples from Half-Life: Near the start, when everything's just gone to hell and you press the elevator button, it malfunctions and sends a bunch of people crashing to their deaths. Gee.

Also, when you're crawling in an air vent, then you hear soldiers below you, and then rays of light appear before your eyes as bullets tear through the vent, coming towards you.

Fallout: I played it without sound, but I thought both the intro and the ending were pretty darn good.

And of course, entering Polito's office in System Shock 2.

Tell me some standout moments from games you've played. Specifically, endings that break from the "Yay! You win!" paradigm would be great.

[ Sunday, January 29, 2006 02:41: Message edited by: Ash Lael ]

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SupaNik: Aran, you're not big enough to threaten Ash. Dammit, even JV had to think twice.
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Shaper
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I've always found the graphics in Dead Or Alive to be rather good.

And, in its time, Mario.

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I'll put a Spring in your step.
:ph34r:
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Warrior
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The arts and graphics in Splinter Cell are real good, they look really nice and natural. Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 has wicked arts and graphics, and the ride function is awesome with those graphics. And i'm a fan of the Dune 2000 art, but that very is old now, so it's not that impressing for these days.

[ Sunday, January 29, 2006 03:49: Message edited by: Snafta ]

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There are 400 words in the dictionary that begin with "self" and only 8 that begin with "fellow".

When in doubt. . . mumble.
Posts: 150 | Registered: Saturday, August 20 2005 07:00
...b10010b...
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Graphical design isn't the kind of art he's talking about, I suspect. He means Art with a capital A.

Okay, one game that comes to mind is Odyssey: the Legend of Nemesis. Most problems in the game have a violent and a non-violent solution; the violent solution is usually easier to find, and invariably results in innocent people dying. Of the two "good" endings, one involves the player character's death and the other involves the destruction of several cities.

[ Sunday, January 29, 2006 04:11: Message edited by: Thuryl ]

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The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure!
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Warrior
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quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

Graphical design isn't the kind of art he's talking about, I suspect. He means Art with a capital A.
If that's true, I'm sorry for posting. If that's a way to insult the games i like... no comment. :P

EDIT: I just read my post again, and it sounds rather aggresive, sorry for that, no hard feelings :)

[ Sunday, January 29, 2006 04:17: Message edited by: Snafta ]

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There are 400 words in the dictionary that begin with "self" and only 8 that begin with "fellow".

When in doubt. . . mumble.
Posts: 150 | Registered: Saturday, August 20 2005 07:00
...b10010b...
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I'm not saying there's anything wrong with pretty graphics; it's just that I don't think that's what he was after.

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The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure!
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Shaper
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I loved the moment in Tomb Raider one when the T-Rex came at you in the third level. That was a great moment. In fact, TR1 was full of them... The Lara clone that you had to fry up, anybody?

Apart from that... I'm not much into computer games.

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Posts: 2864 | Registered: Monday, September 8 2003 07:00
Lifecrafter
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quote:
Originally written by Ash Lael:


Fallout: I played it without sound, but I thought both the intro and the ending were pretty darn good.

You really should play it with. The narration is excellent and the music is haunting.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Master
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I was always ibn love with the Graphics of two of my many flight Simulators. The detail with stunning:

In falcon 4, when your aitctaft exploded, you would see this enormous explosion, broken pieces of the aircraft would fall down with great speed in the general direction of the missile that hit you. When flying past any explosion, you would here fire and sometimes even histarical people.

In Flight Simulator 2004, all the graphics are good. However, what simply struck me as amazing, was the detail of some of the big cities and their airports.

EDIT: I just had to think about a game from Pangeasoft, called "Nanosaur 2." It si really brilliant. the music is excellent, and the detil of the terrain, and movements of dinosaurs is stunning.

[ Sunday, January 29, 2006 09:29: Message edited by: Thralni, The flying Dutchmen ]

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Where the rivers meet
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Law Bringer
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Summoner is an unexceptional, fun game. It also has the best representation of a city I've seen in any game, partly because of graphics and partly because of great design and so on. Even on the umpteenth time walking through the city I'd still stumble into new shops and find more people complaining about the draft.

Myth 2 is itself a work of Art with a capital A, but one of my favorite moments of detail comes while sneaking a saboteur into a castle. If you wait near a pair of guards you can eavesdrop on their conversation about the world's largest turnip.

—Alorael, who doesn't give endings that require the hero to die much credit anymore. It's been done to death almost as much as saving the world.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Lifecrafter
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I don't suppose that any of you have played the relatively recently released PC game F.E.A.R.?
I'm not exactly one for massive amounts of gore; however, the way that the back story is revealed through a combination of cutscenes, communications with the villain, and that GIRL is brilliant.

If you're going for art, like graphcal art, My favorite would have to be Riven. No, you don't have all of that 3-D, but I've always liked the originality that went into the creaion of the islands.

EDIT:
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The silent assassin just yelled at me very loudly for not posting a quote from him.
I hope he's satisfied now.

[ Sunday, January 29, 2006 10:01: Message edited by: Lenar Labs ]

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-Lenar Labs
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Posts: 735 | Registered: Monday, January 16 2006 08:00
Law Bringer
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Pretty much any of the scenes from Half-Life 2 that involve water are great. That water was amazing.

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Posts: 1556 | Registered: Sunday, November 20 2005 08:00
Master
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quote:
Originally written by spiders in my brain get them out:


Myth 2 is itself a work of Art with a capital A, but one of my favorite moments of detail comes while sneaking a saboteur into a castle. If you wait near a pair of guards you can eavesdrop on their conversation about the world's largest turnip.

I have a demo of Myth 2, forgot all about it. yes, that was an espacially amusing game. not only the guards talking about the worlds, largest turnip was funny, but also the tutorial, in which the game's basic commands were explained, the tutor who gave you tasks to practice with, was also funny. if you waited long enough and not doing what the tutor wanted you to do, he would become angry and start screaming at you:

"Walk to the stool"

"walk to the STOOOOOLLLL!"

"How do you expect to learn anything!"

etc.

Also, when blowing up chickens and the like, the tutor would say something like:

"I hope you are plannaing on eating that..."

or

"Yeeees! You can kill the chickens!"

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Play and rate my scenarios:

Where the rivers meet
View my upcoming scenario: The Nephil Search: Escape.

Give us your drek!
Posts: 3029 | Registered: Saturday, June 18 2005 07:00
Law Bringer
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It's all fun and games until a Mahir eats your dwarves.

—Alorael, who enjoyed the beginning of certain Myth 2 level a great deal as well. An band of rampaging monsters demolishes a friendly force. It's not unusual. Then you magically explode a band of attacking monsters. Also not unusual. Having to travel through the square where your first troops got killed and decide when, or whether, to start more magical explosions is a nice moment too.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Law Bringer
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Hm... awesome graphics? Let me see...

Realmyst and Black & White. 'Nuff said.

EDIT: I stand by my choices, given the dynamic nature of Black & White's cinematics and the overall beauty of the Myst world.

[ Sunday, January 29, 2006 13:33: Message edited by: Ephesos ]

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Gamble with Gaea, and she eats your dice.

I hate undead. I really, really, really, really hate undead. With a passion.
Posts: 4130 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00
E Equals MC What!!!!
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Um... yeah, I was referring to capital A art. I didn't think I'd need to clarify that around here, but apparently I was wrong.

In other words, pretty graphics = not what I'm looking for. Really awesome gun = not what I'm looking for. Empty rocking chair moving back and forth, but the shadow shows someone in it, and then that someone suddenly stands up and points at you = much more along the lines I was thinking.

Odyssey: Legend of Nemesis sounds cool. Did a quick google, and on the plus side it's now free, but the drawback is it seems to only be available for Macintosh. :(

[ Sunday, January 29, 2006 13:33: Message edited by: Ash Lael ]

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SupaNik: Aran, you're not big enough to threaten Ash. Dammit, even JV had to think twice.
Posts: 1861 | Registered: Friday, February 11 2005 08:00
Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!
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I could never get very far in that game. Once I tried attacking the guards in one city and getting them to follow me to an enemy city just to see what would happen, but they just waited until I came back and then killed me. Eh.

There are some scenes in Diablo II, especially Act V, that I absolutely love. As in, I sometimes just sit there and watch the snow fall or walk around the mountain peak to see all the fortifications below, and I always watch the end scene in which Tyrael throws the sword and destroys the crystal. Actually I tend to watch all of the videos. Starcraft too, and even Warcraft III (just not so much). Sometimes I think Blizzard should stop making games and just make game animations. Then I realize I'm not willing to entirely give up my hope for SC2. Some day, I swear.

There were a lot of really awesome backgrounds and weather effects in Ambrosia's Farazel's Wand - I remember calling a friend over to my house just to check out the wind and rain once - but they're probably horribly outdated by now and just looked relatively cool at the time.

Though I've never played Half-Life 2, my friend showed me a swinging corpse once that was very well animated (i.e. believably affected by gravity).

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And though the musicians would die, the music would live on in the imaginations of all who heard it.
-The Last Pendragon

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Shaper
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The diablo series.

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Lifecrafter
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The cut-scene from Dungeon Keeper. That kicked ass.
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Infiltrator
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I will always remember the scene in tLoZ: Wind Waker, when the wind temple boss emergess from the ground keeping that strange... I don't know, creaking sound , and then burrows back to the ground. The first time trough it scared the hell out of me.

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Shaper
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The PS3 demo shots that included a revamped version of the FFVII intro scene...

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Lt. Sullust
Cogito Ergo Sum
Polaris
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Shaper
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Did anybody play Silent Hill on PlayStation? That was awesome... especially the FMV in the hospital as...

****SPOLIERS****
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The nurse goes evil and bleeds from her eyes.

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And when you want to Live
How do you start?
Where do you go?
Who do you need to know?

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Skip to My Lou
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I loved the entire plot of Final Fantasy VIII on playstation. The endless crazy twists made it impossible to know what was really going on until most of the way through the game.

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Lifecrafter
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I loved those cut-scenes and that card game was pretty fun. I never had any idea what was going on though.
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Warrior
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Shenmue on the Sega Dreamcast.
Beautiful art style that really made for convincing environments and contributed to the overall mood.

I've yet to play a game that impresses me to such a degree from a visual standpoint.
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