What's with all the brown and grey looking games?

They all look so drab.

Metal Gear Solid 4

Resident Evil 5

Gears of War 2 (again with "gears" in the title)

on and on and on...

It's a cheap way of making something look real and mature.

Are gameplayers so insecure with childish looking games? I guess it's the age group that gamemakers are aiming for, the age where people still have something they need to prove about their maturity.

When MGS4 was being previewed on TV, I had to bring the color levels way up just to see some color. It looked like the game was in black and white.

Atleast Halo has some color.

I know some people who would refuse to play Zelda WindWaker because it looks too colorful. Then comes the new Zelda Twilight Princess with the ugly drab look, and they say it looks better.

WindWaker was the most amazing looking game in the Zelda series, and they threw away all that art direction for the insecure fanboys. What a waist.

Realistic cities don't make me think that there's something wrong with my color display. I watch movies you know.:P

but it's not only color, contrast is way low aswell, cities and deserts might not always have vibrant colors, but the laws of nature still persist, so it's also this low contrast that gives this drab feel.

specular sheen is needed.

I saw a great looking and very very realistic car game (forgot the title), the roads had a nice specular shader, with some splash of color here and there. But it wasn't overly colorful.

anyways it's hard to find a good art-director nowadays. and a good shader specialist, but these are high budget games so there's just no excuse for such amateur gimmicky tricks to fool the eye, we're not that stupid, we know how realism looks, we see it everyday.

And speaking of car games, what's up with the bloom effects!!! it makes my eyes watery.

We haven't had a movie use bloom since the seventies, and there's a reason for that, cinematographers were puking at the idea.

I can believe that, Gears 1 was drab to me.

edit:

just checked out Gears 2, and it's a perfect example of drab.

I don't mean to attack the game per say, I'm just noticing a trend which I dislike, I'm sure the game is fun nonetheless.

I nominate the original Fallout as the most brown and grey game in existence.

I'd have to agree with a previous poster, Gears titles are likely the worst offenders of them all. Unreal Tournament 3 was also entangled in its snare. They all look.. really, really good but - that's just for a screenshot. Playing these games in motion or even staring at them for more than a few minutes becomes straining to me.

Mirror's Edge is an extreme example of how not to be drab.

I think Source titles (Half-Life 2/Team Fortress 2/Left 4 Dead) hit a fairly good balance between the two extremes (Mirror's and Gears)

Mirror's Edge is a good example of how color can help an image look more real.

And imagine Fallout 3 with some color, if you find a delapidated Mcdonalds, it will still have those colors. So a post-apocalyptic future will still have modern day industrial design.

And GTAIV is also a good example. If you visit those places in real life, you'll see color!

Rainbows in MGS4 is not what we're asking for. Although that idea would be cool, heheh.

One word. Uncharted. Why do you think everyone loves it? It's different, colorful and vivid.

(Aside from the awesome story and action that is.)

I can understand Gears of War 2 but RE5??? It looks more in definition realistic and bright then dark and gritty. klusps

Get real.

Green leaves are desaturated (like I noted before about desaturation):

http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images&q=%22resident%20evil%205%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

This guy's red t-shirt is pink and desaturated:

http://media.timeoutnewyork.com/resizeImage/htdocs/export_images/621/621.x600.timein.res_evil.open.jpg?

REALITY:

The Oscar winning and gritty film Platoon (where green is green):

http://www.moviewallpapers.net/images/wallpapers/1986/platoon/platoon-1-1024.jpg

And another example of reality (where green is green):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Germany-Army-Platoon.jpg

FPS and gritty games of this type should attempt at bringing reality to the screen. It's as if none of you ever saw pictures.

Green is suppose to be green, not grey-metallic like in the GTAIV example noted previously.

If 1 or 3 games is desaturated, with brown and grey everywhere, I can understand,

but all of them! This is just lazy art-direction

Oblivion says hello

and there is a mod for fallout 3 that makes it greener. It is called "Greener World". Look up some mods on www.fallout3nexus.com

Oblivion says hello

and there is a mod for fallout 3 that makes it greener. It is called "Greener World". Look up some mods on www.fallout3nexus.com

Jekken6

Mirror's Edge is a good example of how color can help an image look more real.

And imagine Fallout 3 with some color, if you find a delapidated Mcdonalds, it will still have those colors. So a post-apocalyptic future will still have modern day industrial design.

And GTAIV is also a good example. If you visit those places in real life, you'll see color!

Rainbows in MGS4 is not what we're asking for. Although that idea would be cool, heheh.

Rizla_Plus

There is absolutely nothing about Mirror's Edge color that makes it look more realistic.

[QUOTE="Rizla_Plus"]

Mirror's Edge is a good example of how color can help an image look more real.

And imagine Fallout 3 with some color, if you find a delapidated Mcdonalds, it will still have those colors. So a post-apocalyptic future will still have modern day industrial design.

And GTAIV is also a good example. If you visit those places in real life, you'll see color!

Rainbows in MGS4 is not what we're asking for. Although that idea would be cool, heheh.

HiResDes

There is absolutely nothing about Mirror's Edge color that makes it look more realistic.

The following image from Mirror's Edge looks more real than anything from MGS4 and RE5:

http://gamgea.com/2008/01/16/erste-bilder-zu-mirrors-edge/mirrors-edge-20080115102316761jpg/