Visual Styles

Visual Styles

Visual styles in video games are a type of feel the player gets when playing the game and can clearly be distinguished. Styles are used by game developers in most games to give the game a more immersive feel.an example of this is with most sports games most sports games have fast upbeat music in the background with high saturation and high contrast makes the player feel tense and pumped. Some styles used by game developers include

Pixel Style is closely associated with retro games, pixel games are game which you can see the pixels clearly and gives an old school feel. Old games such as space invaders or Tetris are good example of the pixel style.

Atmospherically gloomy which can be seen in most horror games and zombie games,

The Washed out style is also common among horror games, the washed out style is where there is very little saturation and the game has barley any colour, making the player depressed which is ideal for a horror game.

The cartoonish style is a versatile style as it suites most games. It can be used in a fun shoot them up game such as borderlands, and BioShock infinite.

Militaristic styles are those that are solely based around realistic warfare an example of this would be the Arma franchise which aims to give the player the most realistic military experience.

Photorealistic is a style where the game is styled to look as real as possible, most driving games have this realism especially games such as Grid which looks as if you are in the car due to the highly textured buildings and lens flares from the sun.

Cel-shading is a style which aims to give a simplistic look, with minimal texture detail. The style looks very similar to a cartoonish style.

Dayz the zombie apocalypse survival game still in alpha is a clear example of the gloomy dull atmospheric style. The game always has a low saturation and the player rarely feels relaxed when playing the grey sky and very frequent rain storms keeps the player depressed and feeling miserable much as you would in a zombie apocalypse. The gloomy atmosphere does sometimes pass and bright daylight can be seen at times this is to keep the player not to bored of the atmosphere and to brighten the gameplay.

An example of Photorealism style is seen in the racing game Dirt 3. Dirt is a rally level based game where once one race is complete you can unlock and play the next race. The game is very photorealistic set in various rally tracks around the world the scenery looks almost real due to the EGO engine used in the game which. The most notable thing about the engine is the particle effects, this makes the game really immersive especially in first person view, and the engine also gives good depth of field when in first person due to the real time shadows.

BioShock Infinite is a First person shooter, which Is fantasy world, the game features two different realities conjoined game is set on the floating city of Columbia where the player booker dewitt must save his daughter from himself in a different reality whose name is now Zachary Comstock the founder and creator of Columbia, however he is a twisted tyrant who stole his own daughter from himself in a different reality to make her heir to the throne in Columbia. The game itself has a brighter feeling about it compared to the previous BioShock 2 which was dull and gloomy. Bioshock infinite at the start and throughout the game is bright and highly saturated, its cartoon look makes the player feel welcomed and relaxed on Columbia, when in reality Columbia is a corrupt nation. The the game keep the cartoon graphics and bright atmosphere throught the story, to show that they are trying to deceive the inhabitants of the truth. Although the game does not match the doom and gloom of the previous games it makes for a more enjoyable experience, and doesn’t leave the player feeling depressed when they stop playing the game.

Some of the most popular games with the pixilated styles are old games from the 70s and 80s games such as Tetris is a clear example of the pixel style although in the early development of video games pixilation wasn’t really a style but more of a limitation and if possible game maker in the 70s and 80s would have preferred less pixelated game, however back then the technology limited them to that resolution. However today most games which are pixelated are done so on purpose to give the game a retro feel as technology today is capable of rendering clear non-pixelated images. One example of a more recent pixel style game is the 3D survival game Minecraft, The game is not as pixelated as some other games which strive for the original bright pixels with low resolution. Instead Minecraft is a mix of modern day video game capability and retro pixilation. In Minecraft you spawn in a randomly generated 3D world made of 32x32 pixel 3D blocks, at closer inspection pixels can clearly be distinguished within the blocks. Although the community have made texture packs which re-textures the entire game. Some of the texture packs have had a resolution increase with ranges from 64x64 , 128x128 to 256x256, This eliminates the pixilation and removes some of the retro feel however the square cubed blocks still give a hint of the classic pixilation.

Cel-Shading visual style is where the modelling of the character is realistic meaning you do not have oversized features like you would in an anime/cartoon style. A popular example of Cel-Shading style is in the game series The Walking Dead. The walking dead this zombie apocalypse game based on the TV show contains cell shading. The colours used in the cell shading are very washed out and dark, this enhances the zombie apocalypse gloomy atmosphere.

 
 

One in depth example of two games which share the same style are EAs Battlefield 4 and Activisions Call Of Duty Ghosts. Both
these games share many of the same styles some of these styles being militaristic, both games clearly have a militaristic style about them, however they also share other styles such as photorealistic and fast paced. Both of the two games are photorealistic this means that the games are similar to what warfare would look like in real life, although Battlefield is using a new and better engine Frostbite 3. Whereas Call Of Duty uses the older IW engine which has been used throughout all of the call of duty’s in the franchise, first used in call of duty 2 in 2005 the same engine is used in call of duty ghosts. Although the developers of call of duty say they have tweaked and altered the nine year old engine. Both games vibrant adrenaline colours and exposure effects give the game an immersive and hyped feel.