Aesthetics in Videogames

Check out this great dissertation on videogame aesthetics, with examples of worlds outside the universe of tired pseudo-photorealism:

"Depending on your point of view, photo-realism is either a scourge or a grail. The drive for it has come to dominate the visual aesthetics of videogames, and current technology seems to be pushing us very close to a peak. Limited markets and rising development costs, however, seem to indicate a gaping abyss. So will photo-real games be well crafted marvels of technology, or feats of economic hubris infused with mediocre gameplay? Will they be the ferryman to conduct yet more development studios across the Styx?

"The photo-real push is obviously important to many people within and surrounding the game industry, as demonstrated not only by the persistent trend in commercial development, but also by work such as the System Shock 2 mod Rebirth, which replaced some of the models with curvier versions, designed for more powerful machines than the original game.

"Yet increasingly, the push is sneered at. Among some of the gamers I know, the latest graphical offerings get little more than apathy. Critics cite rising development costs and the potential of different artistic goals, and are generally scornful of industry resources being poured into visually superior concrete and monsters. Nonetheless, they seem dangerously close to drowning under the effusion of marketing departments and most players.

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