Why do we love 8-bit graphics so much ?

Feb 01

8bitIf the Nintendo Wii has proved one point, it must surely be that the quality of graphics in a game is not as important as the fun you have with it. I get hassled by Nvidea and Xbox fanboys on a regular basis telling me how good the graphics are on those baby's. They talk about resolutions , framerates and what have you. The brag about pixel perfect photo reality and crystal clear explosions, openGL fire and more of that stuff. And come to think of it . I don't give a flying fart. When I see them read through a 20 page manual and have a cheat-sheet with keyboard or joystick shortcuts on their lap I can only frown. Not to mention get seasick with the unnerving  camera-angle sweeps their second-person shooter does. I tap them on the shoulder and ask : What if a game reaches crystal clear graphic realism… then what is next.

Cause i'm an old school dude. For me the first gameconsole was the atari 2600. 8 bit magic galore. In those times where different. 3d modeling was done on a catwalk and a vector graphic was most often only a sprite. But I loved it. Cause the Atari 2600 (and all low-resolution graphic consoles that came after it)  had a very powerful EXTERNAL graphic extension : YOUR IMAGINATION. 

KnightwiseThink back on old games like Pitfall (infinately better then tombraider), Hero, or even ET for that matter. All poor in graphics but cool to play. Why ?  Because you got your imagination into the game. Those square pixels where merged into infinite resolution by your own mind. You played, got into the game, invisioned your own version of it and enjoyed it. Back then you didn't nag about not having 99 frames per second, or that the game would 'stutter' when you threw it into HD-resolution. We just played.

Lately i'm in a bit of an 8 bit revival, after seeing THIS Girls bathroom I was once again mesmorised by classic 8 bit. Mentioning to my wife that IF EVER she would make me tile the bathroom, I would do it like this. Expecting a snort and dismissal she looked at the picture and mentioned it would be a challenge to find the colors .. but she liked it  πŸ™‚ So who knows.  But it was all topped of by Sharky (who is becoming the main content provider for the week) when he MADE me this 8 bit animated Gif. The guy is a youngster (i mean , this kid was born AFTER we had EDO ram) but knows how to draw and has a taste for the classics. So thanx dude πŸ™‚ Now I can hack my version of Larry in the land of the lounge lizards and insert my very own character πŸ™‚  

 

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