Graphics in games have changed vastly over the years.

The original 8-bit graphics which many of us will remember with nostalgic tinted glasses is what many will look back on, these graphics were nothing more than a few pixels that had a lack lustre set of colours. Along the evolutionary path of graphics came more and more improved versions of these 8-bit graphics. Numerous gamers grew up with these graphics and can feel completely at home in this style of graphics, however many gamers who are rather new to playing games would be repelled by such graphics. Much of the 8-bit graphics died as the years went on and many gamers of the last decade have been spoiled by rich, vibrant colours in games nowadays, the advancement of graphics have made recent games look very nice and, in many recent cases, realistic. Due to this many gamers do not appreciate older generations of games solely based on their graphics and this has had an effect on sales of games across the board. Interestingly though graphics for many games are now reversing and doing a full 180 turn and going back to the 8-bit/ 16-bit style. While not as visually appealing as their modern day military shooter cousins these games tend to be much more enjoyable, often being challenging. Unfortunately as I previously stated many gamers will shun these games due to their choice in graphics. However these games tend to mainly focus on their story as their selling point. Games like Limbo, Cave Story or Hotline Miami, tell their story using relatively little graphically wise however I have found myself drawn to them after first being repulsed by the this choice in presentation. For instance Limbo, which has now won awards for its innovative storyline uses nothing more than a colour pallet of black, white and grey. There is no dialogue and very basic movement controls yet just from visual cues we learn that The Boy, or main character, is searching for his sister. However the world around him is froth with dangerous obstacles such as bear traps, spike pits and giant spiders. Even with the lack of detail the player will learn how to overcome these obstacles by themselves.

This game has very little in the way of an interface. There is no health or GUI to speak of and the entire game is controlled by only three buttons. On for moving left, another for moving right and one for jumping. However with these controls the game has be programmed to use an xbox360 controller, making it more accessible to the people who wish to play it. Hotline Miami is another example of these regressing graphics.

The game is reminiscent of SNES game graphics as seen above. It uses a very tame colour palette for the levels and characters as a whole. [ The main character will have nine different colours on him at any one time. ] While the outside of the level is filled with a gradient of pulsing, changing colours. The game revolves around the unnamed protagonist, who fans call Jacket, getting a mysterious phone call telling him to kill people, to which he obliges. He fights and kills many men and eventually topples a Russian mafia. The game can also be played through another characters perspective which results in a very different interpretation of Jacket during a confrontation. The player unlocks masks for beating levels with a set score, these masks give the player various

abilities such as running faster, surviving a bullet or starting the level with a weapon.

The game has a particularly interesting health system, in that there is none. You die in one hit from anything, however this also applies to the majority of enemies. The game allows players to be reckless and even encourages you to barge into rooms filled with enemies by awarding the player a large score bonus for being seen. However the game can be played at a slower stealth pace if the player wishes. The game has gotten great reviews and recommendations for awards, however many people will not play it because of the graphics. In fact I was one of those people but I decided to try it out anyway and have never regretted it, I have tried in vain to get my friends to put down their call of duty, battlefield and GTA, to give this game a chance but they refuse, citing the lack of amazing graphics as their only reason to not give it a chance. For a game with such a lack of graphics it also for the most part lacks an interface. It has no health GUI but it does keep track of what the player does during their time in the level and awards points for killing the enemy in a variety of ways. At the end of a level the player is shown a breakdown of all their points and how they earned them. They are then shown what they have earned as an unlockable item for completing their tasks. The game has simple controls with the stable W, A, S, D being used to control movement and the mouse being used to aim as well as lock onto enemies. However even with such simple controls the game still lacks any basic controller support making it keyboard and mouse compatible only.

Another game that a friend of mine adamantly told me to play was Cave Story+

I had heard of it long before I had ever even thought of playing it. Its reputation proceeded it immensely with a cult following, great reviews and numerous awards and mentions. The graphics are once again, like the previous games, nothing great or astonishing and yet it is still an amazing game. Why? Because of the story. The story is great, it tells the heart breaking tale of an amnesiac robots, Quote and Curly Brace, as they battle the evil doctor who came from the land below the Cave and attempt, in vain ,to save the population and their friends. In the game you primarily play as Quote.

Who must run, jump and shoot his way through his enemies to save his friends. When an enemy is defeated they drop crystals that power up your weapon, when the weapon has enough crystals it levels up, however any hit will knock the level back down. There are multiple endings, resulting in Quote being a coward, a losing saviour or a hero and each of these endings will pull at your heart strings. Above is a picture of quote from Cave Story and Cave Story+ As you can see the graphics have made a vast improvement, its a one man development team. But there are many people who will refuse this game as being good in any way, shape or form. For its interface the game has a health bar and a weapon experience bar that tell the player how close to death they are and how much damage their current weapon can deal. They also have an ammo count and a grid that shows a symbol for what weapon they had previously equipped and what will be the next in line to be equipped. The game uses A and D to move the character around with space to jump. W, aims up and S aims down. Clicking the mouse makes the character fire their weapon, Q and E swap the currently equipped weapon and F interacts with the scenery and the NPCs. The game has only partial controller support but has been ported to the 3DS handheld as one of its launch titles.

I asked a group of gamers and non-gamers if they would play any of the above mentioned games basing their answer on a picture that just shows the graphics and to give a yes or no answer. Limbo: Yes; 4 No: 11 Hotline Miami: Yes: 7 No: 8 Cave Story+: Yes: 5 No: 10

I then had each person play a few minutes of each game and then give their opinion again. Limbo: Yes; 3 No: 12

Hotline Miami: Yes: 13 No: 2 Cave Story+: Yes: 9 No: 6 So from this we can see that Limbo has lost a yes vote while Hotline and Cave Story have both gained more yes votes. I asked why this was and was told that, Limbo is very hard and the lack of direction was frustration. Hotline is really fun when you get over the graphics. Cave Story is a great game when you pay more attention to the story than to the looks. And so after this it seems that if people would just give these games a chance then the new retro-indie games would have a much more stable base and target that they could sell their games to.