You might remember E3 2005, we were introduced to all that was coming for next generation and we could barely contain it because it was emulating a lot of realistic details like the palette in real life. There is something we cannot deny, our colors in life is full of tans and gray tones especially if you live in a desert area. But another fact is that as life is boring, our colors are as well.

When people were talking about high definition I expected a spectacular change for my eyes, but not much from what I have seen really impressed me at all. It is all gray, dark or full of unnecessary glowing. All this was relevant in 2006 but now with the many titles that are out the formula has been recycled over and over again making it something worse than a simple untapped potential.

A common argument that has been rounding this decade is that graphics are not as important as game play or story lines. While I fully support that philosophy, I cannot help but to think about the poor palettes in the game environment. If you want a concept to be effective, and if you want it to be eye-catching try using color.

Now while this effect does a nice job making textures and the surroundings more believable, sometimes the characters and setting are so unpolished that they make the whole effort crumble apart easily, otherwise it doesn't matter much to me. Let's put Metal Gear Solid 4 as an example. Even though the Metal Gear Solid saga looks astounding and full of material, just by looking the poor tones in the fourth installment has made me avoid it a bit much from trying. The story, setting and development seems outstanding and spectacular with the (self-spoiled) battle climax. However if I want to get in the actual game outside the cinematics I want it to be enjoyable and less tiring for my eyes with a similar color everywhere.



An example to make apart is Half-Life 2. The game has some of the most impressive story telling in a first-person shooter ever, especially as the surroundings tell you the story in it. The world of Half-Life 2 is full of the gray-ish palette but because the whole world in it is sad and has humanity suppressed, for once the colors actually make sense because the post-modern industrial installments are not fully functional and toxic wastes are every where. it is a well settled apocalyptic world full of depression but still hope remains waiting to see a new day. I know the same could be said about other titles like Gears of War and inFamous, but they do not seem to share a common interest in making the player explore the place further to see the vanished and simple life of the people that used to live there supporting the motivation alive.

There is a curious case on the small but successful franchise of Team Fortress. I just got the classic game from 1999 included on the Half Life 1 Anthology, and while the game structure is basically the same, the tone does not invite to play as much as the sequel from 2007. I know that it is a bit unfair to compare blocky polygons from ten years ago with high definition renders, but the change of humor and colors is so dramatic that the new one is more believable not just because of the graphic quality, but because the colors are alive and well managed. The textures, despite the lack of detailed rendering, are solid and full of life, also giving credit to the amazing radiosity techniques.



Moving on I want to bring another title to note in. Mirror's Edge, despite the not-that impressive story and just pretty decent game play, it has all of what I dreamed from high definition. Powerful colors everywhere. The red colors are strong as a cherry, greens that would make Mr. Destructoid envious and blue skies clearer but as lively as the ones you know. Even if the game has a lot of glowing, I find all of it well applied instead of just marking the glowing food on the floor. The city is full of shining from the strangely polished but relentlessly beautiful buildings.

To close in, I want to bring attention to the incoming title The Saboteur. The style has been noted to be like another sandbox game, but the subliminal message as you continue the game seems to be a satire of the modern twist in games in environment design, because the more you save of Paris from the nazis, the place if recovering it's color from the dark noir tone. A very Beatles message, but fresh and reliable on the expectations so far.



To summarize, I want to tell any developer (or wanna be developer) to take as much advantage of the graphic capacity of the system they are hosting and keep things alive. it is fortunate that some companies are aware of not falling in the same trend and to keep their games less dull looking. Let the sunshine in, baby.