wisielec said:
Thats my gripe with DEHR. Its nice and all, but the locations are too empty, design too predictable, chara/fashion hardly fresh if you know Shirow and other manga (old and new) artists. Geometrical - triangles and diamonds - textures/structures were cool though. But the colour palette was too monotneus to my tastes, locations were too similar. Cyberpunk is the Melting Pot, merging, morphing, the change is constant if I may say so.
What I miss is the Hi-Lo tech accents, the overwhelming info stream and everpresent pulse of the city. A metropoly that never sleeps.
Hm. You brought up some very good and interesting points. Some of the locations being empty, could that be due to lazy level design? Don't know if we can attribute that to the aesthetics of the game. And although it's not on par with the original Deus Ex when it comes to creative levels, I still think they did an admirable job. The maps were varied enough when it comes to sets. Chicago had a lot of back alleys and streets with hookers and shit while Hengsha had street vendors, customers, a brothel, a night club. I don't know, I thought the level design was pretty good, especially judged on its own merits.
Color palate, yeah, I guess a little more variety would be nice. Chicago could have used black and amber/dark orange/muddled gold, in China they could have changed it to black and red, in Montreal they could've used black, blue and white. Just to give each location a reinforced feeling that they're different and not just located behind some alley way in Chicago. Could this be nitpicking though? Is the lack of color variety really an aspect that diminishes the overall quality of the game?
It's hard for me to know where the line is when it comes to being overly critical just for the sake of it and where the high standard for sci-fis are. Blah. Still, good points and yeah improvements could have been made.
wisielec said:
Making anything "in similar style" to DX:HR would be spitting in the face of everything the artists did to achieve their look. Others should pick up on their philosophy to create original visual identity, not do anything else. DX:HR look works for DX:HR because it was carefully designed for it, there is meaning behind the style. Using that style on anything else would be nothing short of amateurish.
That said, Cyberpunk concept art seemed to be going in a more 80s-inspired direction (just look at that tacky blue leopard print jacket...)
Good point. Copy, pasting anything, regardless of what they're copying, is indeed rather uncreative, boring and fucking lazy. I do wonder if the artistic style of DX:HR is a completely original piece or if it's heavily "borrowing" elements from other sci-fi sources, like most notably, the fantastic movie Blade Runner. And now, where is the line between "original style" and "merely following the conventions of sci-fi". When you look at Blade Runner it immediately tells a story, just the visuals tell you everything you need to know about what setting and time period you're in.
It's almost as if Blade Runner set a standard for how a sci-fi is supposed to look. Even Mass Effect has major elements which is so Blade Runnerish but it doesn't bother me because, hey, it looks fucking amazing. So yeah, where's the line. If Cyberpunk deviates too much, it might create it's own style but will it be sci-fi? Man, I'm making it sound like Blade Runner set the standard for
all sci-fis are supposed to look! That's not my intention. Blah again!
All I'm saying is that Blade Runner set a precedent, and now a lot of sci-fi worlds borrow elements from that movie. I wonder if Blade Runner set a precedent within how sci-fis are supposed to look (specifically those set in a megapolis filled with crime etc) or if it's merely an artistic direction to emphasize the feel and themes of the movie. Damn, this is difficult shit to make sense out of. It's even harder to clearly and eloquently explain what I'm trying to say
Again, whatever direction Cyberpunk chooses I'm sure it's going to be fucking amazing. Though, just as a last example: The style of the Witcher isn't all that original either. It's very Tolkienish in it's lore and feeling, and Red has successfully managed to design the monsters and history etc in a way which really makes it stand out from its competitors. But again, you can see the similarities right? Did Peter Jackson set a precedent for how all fantasy is supposed to look through the style he chose to tell his stories? I'm no expert on this, but I am damn fascinated by "genre versus style" idea and curious to know what other people think.
And fuck, this was a long post!
