In my mind there are two basic visual modes for a first person shooter - glossy and grainy. In most cases, I just don’t care for the cartoon style gloss versions.
The somewhat glossy visuals of Halo, Area 51, and Project Snowblind are acceptable because they are in the sci-fi genre. It’s cool to have a vividly animated feel when you’re blasting aliens and mutants.
But when it comes to the military genre of first person shooters, I think the gloss is a detriment. I much prefer the grainy, gritty feel of games like RS3 and RS3 Black Arrow.
These games have a more realistic, dirty feel to them because of the toned down graphics and unforgiving action. You can just about feel the sweat running down your character’s neck in the heat of battle, and the action is definitely more serious as just a couple of shots amounts to a game over.
On the other hand, take military first persons like the much accliamed Black.
Bah…
Yeah the audio was incredible. And the visual action was impressive, but inappropriate I believe for a military genre.
Just too damn glossy.
And the action was lame. In the first two minutes (which was about the time it took for me to decide to head back to EB and get a refund on this one) I must have shot down like forty bad guys.
Come off it. That’s just crap.
RS3 (aside from the series trip into Disneyland with the ludicrous Lockdown module) gives you a real challenge. The AI is smarter, and if you run into four enemies at once there is a real chance your man could get pasted.
So to recap:
IMO gloss is great for a far-fetched sci-fi adventure. But I take my military shooters without the shine.
