Horse (and buggy) power

Yes, today’s popular genres are covered with the fingerprints of gaming’s forebears. This is a conclusion few would deny. Whether or not that is such a bad thing is another question. Putting that debate aside for a moment, let's return to the brown-and-gray issue, a problem that some would blame on a lack of computational horsepower.

At first blush, this seems to be an odd scapegoat. Isn’t the thrust of this article founded on the assumed (and untapped) limitless of current technologies? Eight-bit darlings aside, have we ever seen a console generation so blanched of color as the present? Even looking at the previous cycle, the libraries of the PlayStation 2 and the original Xbox display a rainbow-like richness contrasted against today’s grayscale slogs.

Phil Ra, however, in his tech-minded gamasutra article on the topic, points his finger squarely at what he deems current consoles’ most glaring deficiency: lighting. Or, more specifically, real-time indirect lighting. In short, Ra cites the very ability of modern landscapes to approach photorealism that means any defect, no matter how slight, can throw things askew.

Has graphical horsepower led us down this road?
 

Think of this effect as the environmental equivalent of the “uncanny valley.” Due to this shortcoming, the “mere presence of saturated colors” destabilizes the image and “shatters immersion.” Consequently, developers lean heavily on washed-out tones and textures to suppress or airbrush over these lapses in verisimilitude.

Still, we have reason to hope, according to Ra. He notes the introduction of a wider palette in Uncharted 2 resulting from programming workarounds. And, of course, with the next console generation nearly upon us, we’ll soon see just how much slack we can cut current titles.

While looking ahead, it’s easy to imagine one unintended consequence of this brown-and-gray band-aid: Its success may signal its cementing. The gritty, dishwater look of modern games may become a preferred aesthetic or, at least, an acceptable one. Just as the 8-bit past has etched itself in the hearts of the old-school crowd so to may today's youngsters cling to the spectra of their formative years.

Whether or not these muddy earmarks find a longterm following, any shortcut to profits that publishers can latch on to will remain on the table. If they see dollar signs with this aesthetic, both in streamlining art and asset production, by tapping a proven market to its fullest, they’ll milk it 'til it’s dry. No one in the boardrooms of today’s major game companies wants to be the one to slaughter a cash cow. The one thing that does the most to keep them in the gray is the fear of falling into the red.

Are non-rose-colored glasses forever destined to be gray?

Maybe it’s always been this way to some degree. There were extensive periods of cinematic history wherein a few genres dominated, such as westerns, musicals, and film noir in the '40s. English literature has had similar spells. There were decades during the 1800s, for instance, when few popular tales ventured outside melodramatic territory involving marriage and family.

Whether stemming from technological flaws, a development community creatively bankrupt, or the tether of thematic roots, the relative youth of our hobby means that the video game history books of 100 years from now will feature an index of fads and flavors as varied and undulating as those of other mediums.

Can nostalgia taint our enjoyment of the present?
 

More fundamentally, is the essence of what I’m wishing for even ultimately possible? Is it a question hinging on longstanding philosophical chasms rather than the simple willingness or inability of game developers to plot another course?

To wit, could mine be simply a manifestation of the overfamiliarity with the world in general one sees during the journey into adulthood? The ennui of a longtime gamer passing through a landscape, physical and social, that has been fully ferreted and trampled by routine and made stale through jaundiced eyes? A pinning for a return to the wonder inherent in youth?

Or, have we only scratched the surface of a slow and intractable shift in the aims of this industry and the expectations of its audience? Has ours become a lockstep downward spiral? The internal echo of a round of Simon Says becoming so tangled to as make the source not only untraceable but moot?

To even attempt to get to the bottom of these questions, we’ll need to examine the lives of games that boldly deviate from the redundancy.

Stay tuned for part two of "Déjà doo-doo: Charting the chronic familiarity of video game landscapes."