Rise of the Argonauts premiered at E3 2007 and in the time since Codemasters debuted its action-RPG – as the title implies, it’s based around Jason’s mythical quest for the Golden Fleece – HD gaming has started to mature. Which is to say, videogames running on high-end systems have started to look absolutely ridiculous. Titles like Naughty Dog’s Uncharted, 2K Boston’s Bioshock (and a number of other games that artfully use the Unreal Engine 3), and, of course, Crytek’s Crysis have set a precedent for game visuals that’s becoming increasingly difficult to live up to. When I sat down with Codemasters to get a look at Rise of the Argonauts, I was disappointed. Not necessarily with the game, as some of the ideas behind its role-playing, such as currying favor with gods to develop a character’s abilities, are very interesting. I was disappointed in myself for recoiling from Rise’s visuals. Why is the character just sort of floating over the ground instead of having his feet naturally deform to the terrain? Why isn’t every grain of dirt perfectly rendered? Where are the character model’s pores? It took a moment for me to step back and realize how ridiculous it was to think like this. Not every game can feature the detail of the best of the best and not every game world needs to function like our own. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m starting to expect these things from every game and I’d bet I’m not the only one.
In fairness, Rise of the Argonauts looked like a mixed bag gameplay wise. The combat, even just watching it, lacked impact for a game that’s only a few months from release.
What do you think FPSers? Is it unreasonable to expect games to live up to an unbelievably high visual (and thusly more expensive to make) standard?