Perfectly Peculiar Pixels [#17]

There was a prolific period of game development in the late 90s, early oughts, where I, though sidelined with inadequate hardware, observed from the sidelines how everything looks more or less the same. It’s not that games didn’t have strong art direction. Not to say Bushido Blade didn’t look quite distinctive from e.g. Jet Set Radio, But the low polygon count, and not much else in terms of effects, meant the games had a very similar look no matter who made them. It would only take a few years for things like motion blur, dynamic lighting effects, bloom (for better or mostly worse), and ultimately polygon count to transcend that particular problem.

I bring it up now, because I think we’re both in the same situation today, though at a higher fidelity, and at the precipice of whatever comes after it. These are a testament to limitations leading to increased creativity, as, while all of these have arguably strong art direction, a lot of it is directed via the very technology they’re using. Between polygons and pixel art, there is this entire world of technology driven graphical styles I invite you to explore.

F-Zero is the first game to utilize Mode 7 on the SNES, an effect applied to a sprite sheet, that gave it the distinctive infinite plane in 3D look. The game was still running in 2D, there was nothing in that little grey box that could render polygons (and if you’re thinking Star Fox, that cartridge had a special chip inside for that purpose). The effect however made games like MarioKart and Mechwarrior possible, and made them stand out from SEGA’s home offerings at the time. The link provided will take you to a 2002 fan made DOS recreation of the game you can get for free.

Road Rash was apparently ahead of its time in naming schemes as well. Why, it wouldn’t be until the 2010s that we had such brilliant titles such as “Hitman”, and “Tomb Raider”, not at all hiding the fact there are at least half-a-dozen games behind each. Not as egregious, this title had a couple of racing type (with punching and kicking) outings before this one, on the Mega Drive/Genesis. Quite frankly, neither could prepare you for the 90s fest that is the CD-ROM powered assault on the senses that is Road Rash (1996), with one of the first licensed soundtracks in the gaming industry. The disparity in styles between the full motion video, surrealist caricatures of the menus, and, whatever mid 90s hardware could push in-game is both jarring from today’s perspective, and a testament to eclecticism. Though something like Road Redemption tried to capture the spirit, streamlining the jank, going post apocalyptic and taking itself a little bit too seriously makes for a good, even better game, but doesn’t necessarily say ‘new Road Rash’.

The biggest hurdle in making a game look interesting in the early days of flight simulators, was having terrain features. Be it Microsoft Flight Simulator, F-15 Strike Eagle, or the venerable Falcon series, it’s hard to convey a sense of speed if there are no features on the ground. It’s even worse if you’re simulating a helicopter which doesn’t fly too high to begin with. Enter Novalogic’s Voxelspace engine, here used in Comanche 2. Cubes these are not. These voxels are more akin to facing particles you might generate in Blender to create vfx. But it was computationally effective enough to run even on mid-range hardware of the time. Unlike flat polygons, although highly pixelated, you can still make out features of the terrain, unlike the contemporary titles. Before going defunct, they reiterated the engine enough to be used all the way down to earth in Armored Fist and Delta Force games.

Sadly Epic didn’t think to bestow us with a timely boomer shooter title for this issue, but that’s no reason to avoid Chuchel. If you enjoyed last week’s Botanicula, and specially if you haven’t tried it, you have the chance to observe progress of a developer’s style directly.

You ain’t never had a friend like Pardo