Lol. It’s true that our perceptions change- when the PlayStation was new we looked at games like “Gran Turismo” (the original PS version) and REALLY did think that it looked so realistic. Older games like Myst were hailed for almost like being there…. Decades or sometimes mere years later you look back and can’t believe you ever though those were good graphics lol.
Though as a fun fact- many old school game players who play remakes etc. of classic games from the 8 and 16 hit era or newer games made to look like that style will often think it looks much worse or somehow off from how they remember. That’s actually often true- it isn’t a case that your brain has been “spoiled” by better graphics or that your memory is bias- the technology has changed.
I get this with Playstation games, but not N64 games.
PS games used to be passable at worst (at least the ones I played) but nowadays anything that doesn't have static backgrounds look janky to the point I have to work at being able to appreciate what I'm looking at, while N64 games largely still look fine.
If anything, the static parts of N64 games, like menus and icons such, are the worst looking parts to my eyes.
Yeah. There are some other odd things with frame rates and monitor quality and all sorts of things, as well as certain design decisions- that can make newer games look bad. I wouldn’t personally compare most modern games to first gen 32/64 big systems, but even looking at many titles from the last few years and comparing to some titles from 5-10 years ago- there are lots of games where it’s like… the older games beat the newer ones for “realism.” Lol.
Doesn't help that all the AAA games nowadays that are going for a photo-realistic look are starting to look the same as each other. The artistry is kind of gone.
That’s also a real problem critics and many in the industry are noticing. There are several factors- commercially of course, when a game or films etc. set a fad and big dollars follow- studios putting up major cash for titles don’t want to take risks so they try to go with what is “in,” and for awhile that’s been “gritty” muted pallets and such.
Another factor is assets- to lower costs and speed development, studios have their own asset libraries and there are third parties that license assets to developers. So in any given title, instead of the team designing every rock or bush or whatever- often they’re using the equivalent of “stock photos” for background stuff. This contributes to games all looking the same, and of course the design and color pallet of a game may be tweaked to fit the assets- so assets being reused means games that tend to look more similar in more ways than one.
Though as a fun fact- many old school game players who play remakes etc. of classic games from the 8 and 16 hit era or newer games made to look like that style will often think it looks much worse or somehow off from how they remember. That’s actually often true- it isn’t a case that your brain has been “spoiled” by better graphics or that your memory is bias- the technology has changed.
PS games used to be passable at worst (at least the ones I played) but nowadays anything that doesn't have static backgrounds look janky to the point I have to work at being able to appreciate what I'm looking at, while N64 games largely still look fine.
If anything, the static parts of N64 games, like menus and icons such, are the worst looking parts to my eyes.
Another factor is assets- to lower costs and speed development, studios have their own asset libraries and there are third parties that license assets to developers. So in any given title, instead of the team designing every rock or bush or whatever- often they’re using the equivalent of “stock photos” for background stuff. This contributes to games all looking the same, and of course the design and color pallet of a game may be tweaked to fit the assets- so assets being reused means games that tend to look more similar in more ways than one.