Three dimensional games were clearly the future - but traditional computer architecture was
not designed to fit.
Early accelerator cards like 3DFX's Voodoo unlocked CPU-rendering limits, and saw a bloom
in the potential of 3D gaming.
Faster frame rates.
Higher resolutions.
Better graphics than ever before.
Like so many visual firsts, the earliest hardware assistance for 3D games can be found in the
arcades.
2D tricks were old hat by the late 80's - and so the 3D tech provided by Namco's System
21 'Polygonizer' was a no-brainer.
It powered games like Winning Run, and was the first arcade board specifically designed
to accelerate polygonal 3D graphics.
Others followed suit - and in the arms race at the arcades, hardware 3D graphics would
become the de facto attract mode.
Similar hardware assistance found its way into the home consoles, too - the Super NES's
Super FX chipset was a latecomer to the fourth gen, and provided faster polygon rendering.
By the fifth generation, a graphical co-processor was a must: polygons were hot, and the hardware
had to match.
Once 3D cards reached the PC market, they quickly became a must-have accessory for gaming:
and the modular nature of PCs has helped them to establish unchallenged graphical dominance
since.
Games like DOOM and Quake pushed sales of powerful 486 and Pentium-class CPUs: and when
paired with a dedicated GPU, not much could touch the PC's power.
It was first person shooters that garnered the most attention for their graphics: with
games like GLQuake getting early support for 3D acceleration.
By 1998, the first wave of shooters designed to take advantage of such hardware started
to roll out: and the first Unreal was certainly a head-turner in its day.
With a silky-smooth framerate, coloured lighting, detailed textures and level geometry - Unreal
and its engine would quickly become associated with cutting-edge graphics.
Its technology would go on to power many other games - more than just an impressive-looking
demo, Unreal would prove to be a powerful and portable platform.
id Software's tech behind Quake would see similar reuse: powering games like Half-Life,
amongst many others.
By the end of the millennium, the popularity of 3D accelerator cards was such that Quake
3 Arena abandoned its support for software rendering entirely.
Any PC gamer without a 3D card at this point was left playing solitaire.
FPS was the dominant genre during this explosion of 3D acceleration - and this wouldn't change
much in the future.
The early 2000s brought with it a wave of follow-up titles to the emergent franchises
from the previous decade: and in each instance they brought an expectation of superior visuals.
Sequels are also expected to raise the bar in terms of gameplay - and so some had quite
a reputation to live up to.
Half-Life 2 was praised for its overarching style, combining state-of-the-art graphics
with a bleak aesthetic: and impressive - if over-eager - demonstration of its physics
capabilities.
Similarly, id Software had quite a task ahead when they stepped up to produce a sequel to
the legendary Doom.
Doom 3 saw a radical departure from the brighter graphics of the original: with the game fully
embracing very dark environments.
The dim lighting did help ratchet up the atmosphere, however - and your reliance on a flashlight
to carve out a narrow cone of vision made for some tense moments during monstrous encounters.
It was a departure from the original both in style and substance: a tech-focussed game
which embraced new-generation features: unified lighting and shadowing, and a detailed world
with more complex animations.
However, amidst all this new technology, some techniques turned stale.
It seems that the popularity of World War Two shooters during this time left a lasting
impression.
The gritty brown hues these games used became quite the trend for a while, with developers
desaturating colours as part of an effort towards realism.
The origin of the style can be traced to Quake, with its subdued tones imparting a gothic-industrial
charm - but an aversion to bright colours would later permeate games across all genres.
The minimalistic approach of Shadow of the Colossus was reflected in its palette choice:
with subdued tones complementing the games restrained style.
Other uses are less fitting: the dull-yellowed tones of Need For Speed: Most Wanted are consistent
throughout - giving the game a certain unified look, but crushing the colour gamut in the
process.
Although the excessive use of brown has abated slightly in recent years, it does still crop
up - duller tones are a good fit for post-apocalyptic settings, after all.
Brown was but one trademark of this era: and it was a common counterpart to another blinding
effect in bloom.
Bright objects bleed into their surroundings as though viewed through a cinematic lens
smeared with vaseline: the effect intended to make bright objects appear brighter.
One of the first games to make use of this effect was Ico: with its soft lighting reinforcing
a naturalistic style.
The technique become more popular in the wake of Monolith's Tron 2.0: the neon-like glow
a fitting addition to emulate the original film's visuals.
The techniques they used were detailed in an article, and since then the effect has
found its way into many other titles.
Overdone bloom is a common criticism levied at games of this era: It can be a convincing
effect when subtle, but when presented with a novel tool, developers are not always known
for their restraint.
More recently, the effect has been toned down - and can help an otherwise flat-looking scene
by simulating the higher dynamic range of natural light - or by adding a touch of cyberpunk-inspired
neon flair.
While dull tones and cinematic effects are both intended to inject realism into games
- some took a more stylised approach instead.
Cel-shading is the deliberate use of flat colour and inked outlines to give 3D images
a cartoon-like appearance.
Early titles like Jet Set Radio embraced the style, and catapulted it into prominence:
and it served as a pleasant reminder that not every game has to drudgingly adhere to
reality.
The style can be divisive, however: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker's visuals are striking,
but the game's sales are overshadowed by the much more successful Ocarina of Time - a fact
sometimes attributed to the cartoon style.
It marks a deliberate shift in focus towards a cohesive aesthetic instead of photorealism.
This was a departure from a time when every new game was expected to make a major leap
forward in visuals - an important realisation as video game budgets spiral ever upwards.
The middle of the millennial decade ushered in the start of the seventh console generation,
and marks our arrival in a contemporary era.
3D technology was mature, and hardware more powerful than ever - so where do we go from
here?
Join me in the final part of this series for the past, present - and future - of video
game graphics.
Until then, farewell.