[squarejawhero]

Being such a big fan of Thalamus' brilliant C64 game Retrograde, with its eye-bleeding colours, and todays predisposal to eye-candy, I want to know what your fave Retro graphics are. It doesn't have to be a game, it could be a modern game with Retro stylings (Rez, Tron 2.0, or that recent Strategy title)... or even a film (er... Tron again) or television show (hands up who remembers Automan?)...

So, your fave retro graphics? Will it be The Last Starfighter or Space Invaders? I can't wait to find out! Doesn't have to be computer generated either. Check out the old BBC Hitchikers Guide efx for proof!

[lumi]

I like the graphics from the 320x200, 256 color generation of games.

[Ninth]

Dark Castle.

[Sage]

Great question, Squarejaw!
I was just comparing and contrasting two of my all-time favorite games from the dawn of adventure gaming's "Golden Age" the other night- "Myst" and "Return To Zork".
Myst is cool because everything in that world (except for the clips of the actors) is completely computer-generated, and thus the graphics take full advantage of the 640x480, 256 color format, making them relatively sharp and clear. "Almost Fully Computer Rendered" might not be a big deal today, but in 1993 it was a revelation.
Return To Zork, however, appears to make much greater use of photographs of actual places and things that have been digitized and composited. This makes for somewhat muddier graphics, but taking this shortcut allowed the game designers to really pack that game with clever and challenging inventory-based puzzles, as well as a fair amount of character interaction.

There is one other game that really impressed me from long, long ago, but I have no idea what it's name was. It was an arcade game inspired by the original "Star Trek", and you could play as either a Klingon or Federation ship. You viewed the ships in plan view (from above) on a black & white screen, and it was the first game of that type in which the ships could sustain partial damage. If your starboard warp nacelle got shot off, the ship would tend to go in clockwise circles but could still fire it's phazers. Again, this clever programming isn't particularly impressive today, but in the early 1980s it was unheard of.

[Sage]

Originally Posted by doroposo

Sounds like Orbit, a Trek-themed clone of Spacewar. Did it look something like this?

Arrrrgh! I can't see the image! Apparently my 8-year-old Macintosh doesn't know what to do with .png images, because I've run into this problem before.
Anyway, that might well be it because although the game's images were clearly inspired by Star Trek, it's name gave no clue to this.
The game wasn't very popular in it's day, and I've only seen two examples of it. As I recall, I was the only person I knew who was the least bit impressed by the sophistication of the programming that went into the game. All my contemporaries were seduced by the splashy, colorful graphics of Ms. Pac-Man, Centipede, and Galaga, relatively brainless though those games may have been.

[nikoniko]

Sorry about that... here's a GIF version.

Originally Posted by Thrift Store Scott

There is one other game that really impressed me from long, long ago, but I have no idea what it's name was.... If your starboard warp nacelle got shot off, the ship would tend to go in clockwise circles but could still fire it's phazers.

Sounds like Orbit, a Trek-themed clone of Spacewar. Did it look something like this?

[Sage]

That certainly looks like it. I was remembering the graphics as wireframe (a la the original Asteroids), but it's been at least 25 years since I've seen one and I may have been mistaken on that point.
Thank you so much for clearing up that mystery for me!

[Dasilva]

I've always been in love with SCI graphics.

[Karmillo]

Take a guess

[Dasilva]

Originally Posted by Karmillo

Take a guess

SVGA?

[Karmillo]

erm....I dont know

[SakSquash]

Pixilated FMV please.

[nikoniko]

Originally Posted by Thrift Store Scott

That certainly looks like it. I was remembering the graphics as wireframe (a la the original Asteroids), but it's been at least 25 years since I've seen one and I may have been mistaken on that point.
Thank you so much for clearing up that mystery for me!

I think it may have reminded you of Asteroids because controlling the ships was similar, as you'd use rotation and thrust to move around, and graphics moved very smoothly under your control. Or I guess it's marginally possible that you're remembering Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulation, which uses wireframe graphics... but as far as I know, in that game damage doesn't affect your manuevering ability, and you definitely can't play as the Klingons.

Here's a screenie of that one:

[Gordon Bennett]

So many possibilities, so little space.

For games, I like the look of Below the Root and Alice in Wonderland on the C64. They have beautiful character backgrounds and monochrome sprites, which work so well.



In demos and a few games, I have a weakness for older 3d effects, particularly flat shaded polygons, blenk vectors, dots, and vectorballs.



Last bit, and far more recently, I like the look of may of the multimedia games of the mid-1990s that were using static 640x480 screens for the first time to depict sketches, drawings, and other designs with the look of ink or pencil on paper, cutouts, photo collage, and other forms of non-digital images onscreen to complement the computer generated art. There are too many examples to pick one that suits everything, but here is a good one to give some idea of what I mean:



There is, overall, quite a lot that appeals to me. I used to think that graphics weren't important, but I've changed my mind. They are. However, it's the art aesthetic that counts, and not the technology behind it. I've seen graphics on twenty year old home computers that look fantastic today, and images on the latest hardware that look like rubbish, all due to design.

[Sage]

Nah, the first one was probably it. I only played the game a couple of times in about 1980 or 1981, and it was certainly in plan view with no first-person (first-ship?) perspective. Also, the thrust and rotation controls you describe are spot-on.

[Karmillo]

Originally Posted by Gordon Bennett

Whats wrong with blue?

[SakSquash]

Originally Posted by Thrift Store Scott

That certainly looks like it. I was remembering the graphics as wireframe (a la the original Asteroids), but it's been at least 25 years since I've seen one and I may have been mistaken on that point.
Thank you so much for clearing up that mystery for me!

Geometry Wars.

[pinkgothic]

How retro must it be? Because I adore the images from The Labyrinth of Time.



Rah!

[RLacey]

I get all nostalgic whenever I see the SNES Mario games, though they're not particularly old.

[Jeysie]

StarTropics!

One of my all-time favorite NES games.

Peace & Luv, Liz