[JemyM]

A game can be entertaining despite bad graphics, but what would you suggest is the ugliest adventure game ever produced?

To be fair though:
* Lets forgive amateurs and small unknown companies for not having the best artists around.
* We cannot blame people for not being able to pass the technical barrier at the time a game was developed, but we can blame them for producing an uglier game than what was possible at the time.

I wont give any nominees yet since I wanted to see what titles pops up without me poisoning the well.

[Karmillo]

Simon 3D, it wasnt bad but the design for simon was pretty awful

[fov]

Zork: The Underground Empire?

fov

Isabelle.

[ATMachine]

Several candidates come to mind:

Zak McKracken 160x200 res is unbelievably ugly. It makes the original King's Quest look like a masterpiece in the graphics department. (The contrast with the FM Towns version of Zak is mindboggling.)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade VGA version: the backgrounds are full of sloppy use of gradients, and the character sprites are exactly the same as in the EGA version, just with different palettes. LucasArts' artists were still cutting their teeth on VGA at that time. Personally, I think the original 16-color release is better graphically when seen in its respective technological era.

The Dagger of Amon Ra: I didn't really like the art style of this game, especially the exaggerated full close-ups of characters talking at the Museum party, or the ugly moving image of the streets outside the Taxi windows.

Well, there are far worse than that.

[Karmillo]

Originally Posted by SamNMax

Isabelle.

Wow, and the review says thats its only good point aswell...

I hate the look. It's like some spoiled, elitest brat's stupid short film. Except it gives you a really bad headache with those terrible, loud colors.

[RLacey]

Originally Posted by Karmillo

Simon 3D, it wasnt bad but the design for simon was pretty awful

Yeah. While the style grew on me, to the extent that I didn't really mind it, I'd have a hard time thinking of any recent adventure that actually looks uglier.

[JemyM]

Most of the games I cannot even find remotely appealing today was products of the experimental era 1995-2000.

At this time it felt like the industry started to dabble with new technologies that was not yet mature.
What makes theese really bad is that at this time games could actually look VERY good just by using real artists (remember that Full Throttle for example was released 1995).

The 3 big ones were FMV, Pre-Rendered 3d and 3d.

A motion video or photograph scaled down to 320x200@256C do not have much quality left in it, yet some games put theese very chunky downcropped videos/photographs on screen.

From memory the worst example of this design was probably Police Quest IV. Not only did it look ugly, the blurry cropped photographs made it difficult at times to see details on screen. Another example of this design was Toonstruck which used Christopher Lloyd in a game that was otherwise painted by an artist. Ironically, an artist would have given Lloyd more honor than what the chunky photographs gave him.


A technology not quite as bad was the games that was pre-rendered in 3d before they were downscaled. Now theese games did not suffered as much as photographs/fmv when they were downscaled to 320x200@256c. Luckily the adventure genré was spared here, so I cannot mention any mainstream adventuregames that suffered from this technology. Besides, some adventuregames was even released with a much greater resolution since the PC's was modern enough to handle them (MYST & Riven for example).
To see what I talk about though, check out the last SNES games such as Donkey Kong Country on Mobygames.com


Then we have the much discussed 3d. I am not one of thoose who say adventuregames should be made in 2d, in fact I thought Broken Sword 3 still looks good. But if you move back 3-8 years, the 3d technology was not good enough to deliver things like face expressions and well made cinematic scenes. Now there was someone who could produce games in 3d technology that still look graphically appealing. Again let me use non-adventure games as example, check out Mario 64 from 1996. It uses the 3d technology just right for it's time. Strong colorful graphics, relying more on 3d techniques and "cartoony" models than textures and attempts to create realism.

Simon 3d have already been mentioned. What really makes Simon 3d so unforgiving is that it was released 2002. Maybe it would have met somewhat softer feedback if it was released 1996 back with Mario 64... It still have a somewhat cartoonish look on it, so it doesnt try to look realistic, which makes it somewhat more appealing. Monkey Island 4 met alot of frowny faces when it was released, but at least they used the 3d technology correctly, and the 2d backdrops was rather artistic. Again the real uglies comes from Sierra Online... Kings Quest 8 might be forgiven since it wasnt an adventure game, but Gabriel Knight 3... It doesnt even look good for a 3d game released 1999... The leading 3d games around then was Alien VS Predator, Quake 2, Blood 2, System Shock 2... each using the 3d technology to the fullest. Anyone who knows the history of the game know what the team had to go through, but with the history in hand, it was a disasterous decision to go 3d in the first place.

[RLacey]

It's not meant as an excuse, but one has to remember that both Simon 3D and Gabriel Knight 3 were subject to lengthy delays and problematic development periods; there's an interesting post-mortem article on GK3 that you may be able to find if you do a search, which makes development of the game sound like a nightmare, while Simon 3D was not only held for the best part of a year after completion due to the critical panning it received, but had already been delayed before then. If each of those games had been released on schedule, rather than several years behind, they would probably be seen as a product of their times rather than be compared with the latest games from the time of their release.

That said, early 3D games did look particularly bad. If they hadn't been made, though, then the technology wouldn't have developed as it has...

[samIamsad]

I never thought that GK3 was a bad looking game back then. I bought it after its release, though. Some of the texturing was exceptionally detailed (the chapel in Rennes, for example), and the character models and animations were rather well done, too. For that time... The char models in Shock 2 have been very meh from the very start. Although one could argue that their awkwardness added to their creepiness. GK3 didn't look as cool as "Wheel Of Time" or "Quake 3", and the quality of the visuals was rather uneven (good in some places, mediocre in others), but hey.

Hurts me to see "Zak" in here as well. Ugly game? Mh, .. "Flight Of The Amazon Queen". No style, no wonder, and that's not even taking into account that the actual game is nothing but a craptastic "me, too" title trying to cash in on the sucess of some other companies.

[AFGNCAAP]

Not an adventure per se, but, really, three words: Betrayal at Krondor. Fine, it's not early 3D, it's very early 3D, but the low-res cardboard characters pasted on those ugly backgrounds aren't much prettier, either. I can't imagine anyone appreciating its visuals even back in 1993.

The fact that apart from the graphics it's a superb game, only amplifies the effect.

[NcroManiac]

Myst. Ugly as sin
But in all seriousness, the Dracula Resurrection series has the honor of featuring many of the ugliest characters in adventure gaming!
The Keepsake cinema models come close too.

[samIamsad]

That reminds me... at least the late 3DO games had very awkward visuals, too. They used the same (slightly enhanced) enginge that was already outdated in 1996 for two more games (Might&Magic VI-VIII), and it's almost unbelievable that this game was powered by the Lithtech engine (NOLF1/2, AvP2).

But the gameplay was so addictive.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by samIamsad

"Flight Of The Amazon Queen". No style, no wonder, and that's not even taking into account that the actual game is nothing but a craptastic "me, too" title trying to cash in on the sucess of some other companies.

Hold it there, mister! No style? Beg your pardon, it had a perfectly capable Indy-clone style.

And the game being craptastic? Well, a matter of taste, I still think it's vastly better than Monkey Island 2. There, linch me.

[samIamsad]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

Hold it there, mister! No style? Beg your pardon, it had a perfectly capable Indy-clone style.

And the game being craptastic? Well, a matter of taste, I still think it's vastly better than Monkey Island 2. There, linch me.

I'm shocked! (Here I am, thinking you were one the few persons on this board with some........ TASTE!)

[colpet]

Though the game ranks in my top ten, I'd be the first to admit that Rhem was not a pretty world.

[Lacrima]

Actually, AFGNCAAP, I don't remember minding the graphics when I played it, which had to be after its original release 1993 - I can't tell you when it was exactly, but maybe I was just too young to realize it looked awful... I can recall enjoying it though. And I remember the dungeon below the castle (was it below the castle? It was early in the game after someone shot a party member or something like that.*) As in Albion, I hated first person-dungeons, they freaked me out. (I don't even like first person-adventures to this day. Maybe now I know why.)

I can't say much to the topic, though, since I don't really know how fair it is to call some adventures ugly, considering their age.
But the hover car of Mean Streets was great. Not only fun and an appropriate gameplay element, but oh so beautiful. Really.

And hey, I just recently played Gabriel Knight 3 and though I wouldn't choose an adjective anywhere near 'pretty' to describe it, my eyes don't feel insulted by it and I wouldn't call it anywhere near 'awful', either. Not even 2006. (Had other flaws, though. At least when it comes to my personal opinion.)

Yeah, alright, my memory isn't great when it comes to games I played when I was like 6, but I KNOW I didn't mind the graphics.

[AFGNCAAP]

Originally Posted by Lacrima

Actually, AFGNCAAP, I don't remember minding the graphics when I played it, which had to be after its original release 1993 - I can't tell you when it was exactly, but maybe I was just too young to realize it looked awful... I can recall enjoying it though. And I remember the dungeon below the castle (was it below the castle? It was early in the game after someone shot a party member or something like that.*)

Hope I wasn't too harsh trying to crush your childhood memories. I suppose the visulas could have looked cool for 1993, if only beacause they were 3D. And I liked the game itself (and probably will even finish it some day ). And yes, there are dungeons towards the end of chapter one; I spent ages wandering there.

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

And the game being craptastic? Well, a matter of taste, I still think it's vastly better than Monkey Island 2. There, linch me.

*pop*

© by Karmillo