Response

Judged not a game by the appearance of its graphics, but by the content of its game-play.

In our technologically advancing society, we tend to focus on and give high expectations towards visual effects. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when it's the only thing we focus on, it takes away from what truly maters; the overall content. While technology my increase the quality of an image, technology cannot improve the content of a story or its game-play; this can only come from the creativity and imagination of the human mind.

To go in-depth with this idea, I will identify six games. Two will have great content (opinionated by a majority of people). The next two will have poor content (also opinionated by a majority of people). And the last two will have love-hate content, meaning some people love it and some people hate it (plain and simple). One from each category will have great graphics, and the other will have poor graphics.

The Good:

Injustice: Gods Among Us is one of the latest in the video game industry, available for all three modern day home consoles (Xbox 360, Play Station 3, and Wii U). All of these consoles, by the way, display games in full high definition (that is if the game is compatible for high definition, which Injustice is.) Injustice play like a side-scrolling fighting game (similar to that of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat), and includes some of the most popular DC characters to fight as. What makes this game so great is that it includes a story campaign, in which you play a new character for every chapter (ten chapters in total). In addition, the replay-ability is tremendous, due to the personal goals of leveling your user and unlocking in-game content; such as character skins and concept art. Needless to say, Injustice: Gods Among Us has amazing graphics and its game-play is love by most if not all.

Pokemon Red and Blue is where it all started with its insanely popular franchise, and these games are a perfect example of a great game with poor graphics, due to the fact that they were only available for the Game Boy. The Game Boy is 8-Bit portable console that could only display images in black and white (or in the Game Boy's case, green and dark green). In addition, the Game Boy is very limited to the number of pixels on the screen, displaying 160 x 144 pixels (to put this in comparison, the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, displayed 256 x 240 pixels). Even though this game suffered severe graphical limitations, it never stopped the fans for loving it for what it truly is. What makes this game unique to others of its time (and even in today's time), is that there is an infinite amount of options to be made, making every choice, your choice. This description for Red and Blue, is only the tip of the iceberg to even begin to explain why people love these games. All I can say is that you'll have to play it for yourself.

The Bad:

Sonic The Hedgehog, only for Xbox 360 and Play Station 3 (commonly known as Sonic 06, so it can be differentiated from the original 1991 Sonic The Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis), is well known to be quite possibly the worst game of its decade and/or its generation. Granted, it is played on high definition consoles, its graphics cannot save itself from the abomination of its own game-play. And what makes its game-play so horrible is its control, plotting, level design, many glitches, and long load times. It is just bad all across the board, creating one of the worst game-play you could ever see in a game.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for Atari 2600 was created in a hurry in response to create merchandise from the movie. The game sold poorly, and for good reason, it had awful control and confusing game-play. Five million copies were made but only 1.5 million were sold, but even then, most were sent back to the company. Any leftover or unsold copies by the truckloads were sent to a landfill in New Mexico to be buried. Both, Sonic 06 and E.T. show that if there were more time in development, they might have turned out to be decent games. To quote Shigeru Miyamoto (developer, director, producer, artist, designer, and general manager for Nintendo), "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."

The Ugly:

Super Mario Sunshine for the Nintendo GameCube, was a visual improvement from its previous game Super Mario 64, by giving having a smother look than jagged polygons. I mentioned before that this game had a love-hate relationship, and I think it's because of its difficulty. It's because of the high difficulty that your blood boils with frustration as try over and over again to finish one single level. But once you actually do complete a level you have failed multiple times, the feeling of satisfaction is like nothing you have felt before. All in all, it took me six years (non-consecutively, but it still took six more years of skill), to finish this game with a one hundred percent completion, and the satisfaction that came with it was not worth it (but that's just my opinion).

Castlevania for the Nintendo Entertainment System is one of the best horror games of its time, and quite possibly, of all time. And, even as a side-scrolling action-adventure game, it still stands as one of the best. The reason this game has a love-hate relationship, is the same as Super Mario Sunshine; its difficulty is frustrating but still gives you a great feeling of satisfaction when it's over.

This is to show you that no matter the graphics, there will games of all kinds' amazement and disapproval. But none of this even maters. I shouldn't have to what games are good or bad, that's for you to decide, just as long as the graphics don't cloud your judgment.

Injustice: Gods Among Us. [Computer software]. (2013). Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

Pokemon Red and Blue. [Computer software]. (1998). Kyoto, Japan: Nintendo.

Sonic The Hedgehog. [Computer software]. (2006). Tokyo, Japan: Sega

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. [Computer software]. (1982). Sunnyvale, CA: Atari, Inc.

Super Mario Sunshine. [Computer software]. (2002). Kyoto, Japan: Nintendo.

Castlevania. [Computer software]. (1987). Tokyo, Japan: Konami. Kyoto, Japan: Nintendo.