You know, ive been thinking about games graphics recently, and more specifically the differences between each of the systems games and designs. Game designers have been specifically trying to improve the graphics in games. Many companies try and try to get that special graphics sweetspot that makes their stand out amongst the others, and that gamers are looking for. But what is this sweetspot? Is it having the biggest technical advantage? Or is it something else that stirs gamers emotions?

When games upgrade their graphics engine, people assume that the graphics will always look better, as well they should. But throughout my years of playing games, i have found that this is not nessesarily what catches my eye in terms of graphics. I think that it should take more that shiny graphical hardware to capture my imagination. In fact, this is one of the reasons that the Wii is not upgrading its graphics hardware that much. Nintendo, as well as the game giants across all the consoles incorporated color into conveying feelings and moods. These feelings can be expressed by showing all different sets and ranges of colors, from the blackness of a dark blue used to express sadness, to a vibrant luminance of a happy yellow. Brown can be used sometimes to express earthly colors, and the opposite can be achieved by using a color such as a purple to achieve a soft somber feeling. Even a simple color like white can be used, and when combined with another color, it can even achieve emotional status. Whenever witnessing a color such as red, a person can be stirred to feel of action, excitement or even feelings of anger. Since the color red works in contrast with the color blue, a great game maker can have a games environment include red and blue in the same place, and achieve botha a feeling of action, and of solemness.

Some of the scenes from a game such as Resident Evil 4 manages to pull off such feats of color contrast, and on a console that has worse hardware advantages than that of an Xbox, a gamecube. (although now its available for Pc and PS2 as well. The game manages some incredible feats, and I think thats the reason that it was looked at with such glory in terms of graphics. At every moment in the game, you can see how the color effects everything from the doomed atmosphere you feel, to the constricted feeling you get inside the castle walls. When your outside in the villages, it truly feels as if you are wandering in a diseased old town,. thanks to the mixture of yellows, greys and browns. In boss chambers what are the colors that are used? In the fight with the little prince guy, it is a redish-orange. In other boss fights, ou can feel a sense of dread because of the mixtures of black and violet they use, such as the Final boss fight. Also, i think its more than just a coincidence that ashley is wearing a light-orange(bright, vibrant) colored clothing and leon is wearing black and dark brown (solemn, serious) You never see a character that is decked out in all black and is humerous or vibrant.

What happend when the game combines the maximum efficiency of the hardware and uses colors the way they should be used? Games like Halo, metroid prime, Zelda, and even Grand theft auto are born. In Halo, i noticed this in the deep purples of the covenant ship, in metroid, This was shown in each of the environmental locations. Grand theft auto used it on a lesser note, but you can truly feel the gritty-down to earth feeling that liberty city gives off as you walk its streets. The buildings all look tragic and over-worn. Compare this to a game that also uses cities, like spiderman 2, where the players have the same environment but dont feel the grittieness. In the game zelda, the same applies with the temples themselves, as the first temple is always green, to signify the begginers feeling in the game.

Overall, i think that good graphics are a combination of all aspects including hardware, colors and the emotions enstilled in them. If a person simply focuses on the hardware aspect of a game, they may overlook the true beauty that a game can posses, that comes from the details and the color designs.