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[brenobnfm]

The graphics are not even the main problem that plague games from that era
Its the scope and linear corridor design, every big AAA game feels claustrophobic like you are walking through corridors with a painted landscape on the wallpapers.

Mass Effect, Fallout 3/NV, GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Dishonored, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Arkham Asylum, Deus Ex and many others. That's just some of my personal favorites of that generation, seems like a problem with your selection of games.

 

[Bradamante3D]

The reason why PS3 and X360 games look bad today is 1) bad anti-aliasing, low quality overused SDR bloom and 2) very little system memory. The latter leads to low resolution textures, and sometimes it's also the reason behind linear gameplay that just drags you from arena to arena.

 

[Thanati]

I fired up an old C64 game the other day and was really disappointed by how badly it had aged.

 

[Tunned]

I really enjoy games like PGR4, Midnight Club 3 or NBA Street Vol. 2 running on PC using an emulator, they look clean on a 4k TV. These games look even better when I play them on the Steam Deck OLED, where low res textures and such are less apparent.

 

[chokotoureiki]

And that's because it goes for a unique look instead of photorealism. I feel like the trend of going for REAL LIFE graphics needs to die already.

Hell no. I actually love games that aim for realism. Just play your artsy fartsy games if realism is so threatening to you.

 

[ReBurn]

The graphics are not even the main problem that plague games from that era
Its the scope and linear corridor design, every big AAA game feels claustrophobic like you are walking through corridors with a painted landscape on the wallpapers.

That hasn't really changed much. The hallways may be a little wider and the wallpaper is nicer but game design is largely the same.

 

[Maogp]

Pgr4 looks amazing. Ridge racer 7 on PS3 is freaking beautiful, same for GT5 and 6. Gears? Really good. All Halo games amazing. Etc etc. It depends on the game, I don't think all games have aged badly.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

They've aged better than me, tbh.

 

[onQ123]

Playing through a couple PS3 games, and it is absolutely crazy how bad they look when compared to current gen games. Even stuff like RE5, which I thought was the pinnacle of graphics for awhile, doesn't look that great any more.

It's fun looking back at previous gen, now that this gen is wrapping up, and actually seeing how far we have come.

Beyond Two Souls still looked pretty good a few years ago but I'm sure that the shortcomings standout like a sore thumb nowadays.

 

[Judge Magister]

Knowing the game's resolution helps. For example FFXIII. If i set the resolution of the PS3 to 1080p it'll upscale and looks a bit blurry. If i set to 720p and let the 4K TV do its thing it looks fine.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

And yet even Gamecube games like Metroid Prime look good to this day. Art style is crucial.

 

[Trilobit]

I can't play PS3 games with PS Plus on my 4K tv as it looks too bad. I think if I had a HDTV and played from a physical PS3 the experience would be much better.

 

[SmokedMeat]

And yet even Gamecube games like Metroid Prime look good to this day. Art style is crucial.

Art is what matters, but Metroid Prime isn’t a great example. Wind Waker on the other hand is.

 

[SportsFan581]

I'm an odd ball I guess, games from ps360 forward don't really bother me when it comes to graphics. Do they look older, sure, but not something that distracts me from the games. When you go further back to PS2/Xbox, that's where the limitations start to take me out of the game.

 

[namenotfound]

Some of them I think it's the contrast of the player character and everyone/everything else. Pretty good looking PC, but then a really ugly textured grass. Or really good looking head and then below the neck they look a bit janky. Low res textured grass and low res textured rocks at ~720p with solid characters though I think may be what really made that ugliness of the environments stand out. The ones that didn't make faces look good and mouth movement when talking look good coupled with a green/yellow/brown filter though - top tier ugly

 

[U n i o n 0015]

I rather enjoy revisiting that generation of games through emulation--it really helps the possibility for some of the games when free of the original hardware limitations. There's a lot of games that hold up well when you can pump them up to 1440p+ and if they used unlocked framerates, 60+ fps.

 

[Sooner]

It was a seven year difference (in 2020). This is nothing compared to all previous generation.

Here is six years and aging from the late 90s to early 00s.

Here is 4 years (the same amount of time from this thread being created to this bump)

 

[Larxia]

The ps3/360 games always looked trash, even back in the day, because of the low resolution and insane amount of aliasing.

When I first got my hd tv, I was incredibly disappointed by the result and confused why everyone was praising that, I legit thought some games looked better on CRT lol 720p with aliasing on 1080p screens always looked terrible. It's strange that people didn't care much about that back then, but now people complain if something isn't native 4K even when the result is still quite close.

A lot of games from that generation still look totally fine today if you play them on PC or in remasters in higher resolution with a good image quality.

Something outside of image quality that did age very badly from that generation though (but again I always disliked it even back then) is the sad brown / grey color palettes that so many games had, in an attempt to look "realistic".

 

[SonGoku]

Mass Effect, Fallout 3/NV, GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Dishonored, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Arkham Asylum, Deus Ex and many others. That's just some of my personal favorites of that generation, seems like a problem with your selection of games.

Should of said most AAA games except open world ones are built like a linear corridor/hallway.
Deus EX is very narrow and limited as well like a corridor shooter with compartmentalized levels

That hasn't really changed much. The hallways may be a little wider and the wallpaper is nicer but game design is largely the same.

Most games now are open world now or linear open (sand box?). This is very apparent when you compare Uncharted 4 with earlier entries
The first thing that comes to mind when i see footage from games of that era is how constrained and claustrophobic environments look

 

[Ebrietas]

Killzone 2 and 3 still look really good to me.

 

[Parazels]

I wonder how GC games are going to look on Switch.

(According to the rumors, Nintendo can finally add GC games to their online subscription).

 

[RCX]

Jaggies and brown. What an era!

 

[BouncyFrag]

Old games on XSS look great.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Jaggies and brown. What an era!

Better than trannies and purple, if you ask me.

 

[Spiral1407]

Depends entirely on the game. Killzone 2 and Halo 4 still look amazing for example

 

[March Climber]

As someone who has been playing some of these older games, isn't just the looks either.

You can tell specifically when devs finally figured out control schemes/game feel for most games, and if you play any game that takes place before that special moment in time, you will feel the age 100%.

 

[skit_data]

Yeah, I keep my PS3 hooked up and while the XMB still looks and feels sweet af it all falls apart no matter what game you boot bar a few.
3D games in geneasl age pretty damn bad sadly and it's very hard to go back to loading times and framerates all over the place.

That said, a part of me miss the brown-grey shooter era of PS360, nowadays I find many games have way too vivid colours. I guess the main reason is screen readability vs the increasing levels of detail, but at times I get sick of seeing the same vivid colour scheme in many modern games. I guess I just kinda like a more muted look.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Old thread, but that extra 4 years or so still isn't doing the PS3/360 generation many favors. Awful time for the industry in terms of actual solid mechanics and visual design. Things have gotten massively better and more polished since then, and even as someone who didn't care much for the games we got that gen back when it was current, it's still pretty crazy how much better games have gotten since that point.

Not that there aren't plenty of exceptions, as there always are. If games had focused more on imitating Rainbow Six Vegas as opposed to Calladuty, we would've ended up in a much better timeline.

 

[intbal]

Who else misses the PS3/360 era?

I feel like 15 years ago there was a lot more variety, more innovation, and games were a lot more focused and well paced, without needles content just for the sake of it Looking back at 2010, i got GoW 3, Bayonetta, Red Dead Redemption, Darksiders, Heavy Rain, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Enslaved...

www.neogaf.com

 

[Syphon Filter]

The games look fine to me, also I rather play ps3 or 360 than ps5 or series x, at least they have games and games that are actually good gameplay and not dumbed down or have an agenda to push.

 

[ExtendEmbraceExtinguish]

Guys requesting screenshots also w hdr on and off.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

One of my favorite things about PC gaming is playing that generation of games on modern tech. So I disagree OP.

 

[KXVXII9X]

I feel the opposite. While graphics have definitely improved, I find the PS3 era games having better art direction, visual clarity, more animations, and more physics and interactivity (at least with the Definitive Editions/Remastered versions of the games).

I think the post processing effects of newer games ruin them. I also find modern games look less consistent in visuals. The use of random, bright colors that clash with the environments don't help at all. I find PS3 era games look visually more cohesive.

I'm watching Mass Effect 3 vs Andromeda footage and ME3 looks so much more atmospheric and consistent.

 

[March Climber]

I feel the opposite. While graphics have definitely improved, I find the PS3 era games having better art direction, visual clarity, more animations, and more physics and interactivity (at least with the Definitive Editions/Remastered versions of the games).

I think the post processing effects of newer games ruin them. I also find modern games look less consistent in visuals. The use of random, bright colors that clash with the environments don't help at all. I find PS3 era games look visually more cohesive.

I'm watching Mass Effect 3 vs Andromeda footage and ME3 looks so much more atmospheric and consistent.

The bolded part is extremely important, because there were a ton of vaseline-smeared sub 30fps games during that generation. On top of that quite a few of them had warmer color tones overall. I have been enjoying my experience playing a ton of them as BC games on Series X and as collections on PS5, but this is mainly because it's years after, post-cleanup/remaster on better hardware.

I agree that some games today are just splashing more color everywhere, but some of them which are actually doing a good job of having a consistent artstyle, are wrongfully being lumped in with 'Fortnite' simply because they aren't muted enough in tone. Also, they run much better and are at a high enough resolution to which there is more clarity simply due to that aspect. Maybe when next gen has it's own trend people will finally look back and separate the good from the bad this generation instead of attempting to put it all into one box.

 

[BlackTron]

I wonder how GC games are going to look on Switch.

(According to the rumors, Nintendo can finally add GC games to their online subscription).

Better wait for Switch 2...

 

[KXVXII9X]

The bolded part is extremely important, because there were a ton of vaseline-smeared sub 30fps games during that generation. On top of that quite a few of them had warmer color tones overall. I have been enjoying my experience playing a ton of them as BC games on Series X and as collections on PS5, but this is mainly because it's years after, post-cleanup/remaster on better hardware.

I agree that some games today are just splashing more color everywhere, but some of them which are actually doing a good job of having a consistent artstyle, are wrongfully being lumped in with 'Fortnite' simply because they aren't muted enough in tone. Also, they run much better and are at a high enough resolution to which there is more clarity simply due to that aspect. Maybe when next gen has it's own trend people will finally look back and separate the good from the bad this generation instead of attempting to put it all into one box.

I hope they do too. I actually like the Fortnite and Dragon Age Veilgard style a lot. I am just seeing the weird blend of colors in games where I feel it clashes with the overall style ( one example: sonic frontiers). Like there is no knowledge of color theory, tone, or care of atmosphere.

One of my favorite looking games this generation is Sifu due to the smart use of semi-hipoly aesthetic with stylistic shading. It used colors VERY well and everything always looked consistent and cohesive.

 

[EverydayBeast]

I think 360/ps3/wii gen was great, all the personality traits, the smoothness of PS3’s xmb, the brashness of motion controls on the Wii and the one weakness was 360’s RROD.

 

[Lionel Richie]

Hell no. I actually love games that aim for realism. Just play your artsy fartsy games if realism is so threatening to you.

Good for you sister, enjoy your slop.

 

[RoboFu]

Nah those games are so much better than games these days.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

The issue was less with how the games look and more that they ran at 15 FPS.

At least games of that era weren't all trying to be movies, walking sims or bloated open world time wasters.

 

[SHA]

I've just deleted 2 360 games from my series x, couldn't stand the graphics, it's like %90 of 3rd person games on 360 were designed for the characters look and anything besides it is heavily degraded, an old trend.

 

[RoboFu]

Nothing makes me sadder than reading you idiots talk about graphics 24 hours a day. Better graphics are not going to make these crappy modern games better.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Funny how I remember people saying graphics will never get better than the 360 gen

 

[Midn1ght]

While you fucks are faffing around with your PS5 Pros, I'm currently replaying The Last of Us on PS3 like a real man should.

It looks fine.

Resistance looks awful tho.

 

[Trogdor1123]

They all look fine to me… I’m amazed at what they got out of that hardware. It’s like a fraction of the power we have now.

 

[Portugeezer]

And yet even Gamecube games like Metroid Prime look good to this day. Art style is crucial.

I can hear the visor scan effect in every screenshot.

 

[LordOcidax]

This reminds me when people were laughing about Wind Waker artstyle… I don’t know why.

 

[kevboard]

And yet even Gamecube games like Metroid Prime look good to this day. Art style is crucial.

which is why there is no such thing as "aging" in video games.
either the developers did a good job to use the hardware appropriately, or they made something bad from the get-go.

these here are unmodified screenshots of Mirror's Edge that someone posted on twitter a while ago:

if you look at these you can see that the original console versions actually held back the beauty of the artstyle and the detail of the prebaked raytraced lighting.
if you crank up the resolution of this game it just gets better looking, when often the opposite is the case, where low resolutions hide imperfections.

the lighting here, being baked, is of course more static than in modern games. but at the same time it looks more temporally stable and less artifac ridden than even most current gen titles.
great ambient occlusion, amazing looking light bounces and GI, diffused soft shadows. it got it all. and because there is no need for dynamic lighting in the game, it works absolutely perfectly, and was well suited for the Xbox 360.

 

[HRK69]

Nothing makes me sadder than reading you idiots talk about graphics 24 hours a day.

Try playing video games without graphics

 

[Ironman_Bad]

One of if not the worst gens technically even out of the gate games had terrible framerates and low res especially on ps3, was the last time the master race was truly the master race of gaming