Let’s Talk About: Graphics

[Arcade Heroes]

It’s been weeks in the making, but after hours and hours of recording, editing and splicing video clips, gifs and photos together, it’s time to talk about: graphics.
Why talk about graphics? Well, without them, we don’t have any “video” in our “video games.” Are they the most important aspect of a game? Not the most, but they still are important. Otherwise, no one would be hiring teams of artists and driving progress on technology to produce more photo-realistic appearances and effects.
To discuss, I sat down with Bryan “Azrial” Adler a couple of weeks ago to dive into the subject. While the audio could have been produced just as a podcast (something that I haven’t done in a while), it makes more sense to do this as a video, given the theme. The original recording went for about 1h45m, but because that’s so long, I cut out a section on arcade history. Instead of droning on with an info dump in that regard, you can look at this reference page for that data.
One thing I wanted to add that isn’t in the video is that bad graphics can hinder interest in a game. Justice League: Heroes United is one good example that I should have brought up. I loved that a company had tried to do a beat ’em up in 2009, but it really was tough to get past the bad look and some control issues. If a game looks like hot garbage, then players core and casual often will stay away from it. If a new game looks like it’s 20 years old, I’ve found that it struggles to earn in locations that have a big casual audience. This is a problem I’ve noticed at my location with some indie games. I love the indie games themselves as they are great and fun to play. But unfortunately, a casual audience ignores whatever doesn’t look modern. That isn’t an issue in a different location though, but does go to how you capture a wide audience beyond just slapping a license onto something.
Without further adieu, here’s the video:

What do you think? What are your favorite graphics in arcades these days? What is your favorite special effect? When was the first time you were impressed by the graphics in an arcade game? Let us know!
The post Let’s Talk About: Graphics appeared first on Arcade Heroes.


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