[General Discussion] The use of colour. Or how earthtones are next gen.

I was reading Margaret Robinson's blog last night, and in her most entry - Monotony, a very worthy read - she talks about there should be more games that use simple black and white colour schemes.

I think there's a bigger topic here though: the use of colour in games. Some titles make incredibly use of colour, or the lack-thereof, to give them fantastic looks. Recent games like Blue Dragon, Eternal Sonata, Sega Superstars Tennis and Patapon actually caught my attention because of their use of vibrant, playful colour palettes - the latter mixing colours brilliantly with a strong black and white component.

However, there seems to be a lot of games these days have adopted these rather ugly dirty brown/grey colour themes running through them. It's all too easy to cite Gears of War as a pinnacle of that, but I can think of a whole bunch of examples off the top of my head. That's not to say brown or grey can't be used effectively: I'd point to Professor Layton, which is bathed in a sepia tone that enhances the feeling of the setting. It's all about how the colours are used.

So the question is: what games do you think make particularly good use of colour, or the lack-thereof, and why? Perhaps there are some hidden gems out there to be discovered.

Conversely, any examples of games with terrible colour palettes?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I wasn't saying Gears of War should have been in pastel colours, the style they went with suited the story and feel of the game, I was just pointing to it as the prime example of a palette quite a few games have adopted recently (not all with good reason, or done anywhere near as well).

I agree, it's using colour correctly. I'm loving the look of Valkyrie of the Battlefield and that wouldn't look at all right as anything other than nice soft pastels.

There's nowhere I can't reach.