[General Discussion] Are developers afraid to make 2D games on Consoles now?

Most game developers like to have an unrestricted perspective. Even games froma 2D perspective still use 3D graphics. One of the reasons is >99% of all 2D graphics are sprite based, meaning if you look closer, the sprite will look blockier. If 2D games are to evolve, they'll need to use vector based graphics (as best seen when you zoom in on a flash movie). 2D gaming is a niche market and is made now from a primarily artistic a standpoint, much like black and white movies are.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Another reason 2D games were made so often back in the early 90's is the fact that most gaming systems couldn't handle good looking 3D. Now that games such as Unreal Tournament 2007 and MGS4 are coming out, it's easy to see why people don't make 2D games anymore, they have great looking 3D games.

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Originally Posted by Megalith

Sprite-based games can also be much more work.

Not really, with most recent RTS games, all they did was convert the 3D images to sprites, then do the same for various angles and frames. Now a hand drawn style 2D games, that would be a lot of work.

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We'll just have to be content with 2D games being made by small developers and as freeware products. After all, has AM radio made a comback for playing music?

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Some games I find representative of 2D graphics (and gaming) at it's best:
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island 1996?
StarCraft 1998
Age of Empires II 1999
Heroes of Might and Magic II 1997
Sonic The Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles 1993 & 1994
Sonic CD 1993
Super Metroid 1994
Chrono Trigger 1995 (and most other Square games made for the SNES during 1995 and 1996)
Gunstar Heroes 1993

Feel free to critique and add suggestions to the list.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Megalith

I have a hard time considering anything that isn't flat and hand-drawn to be 2-D. StarCraft looks 3-Dish to me.

StarCraft uses no 3D effects. In fact, DOOM is not true 3D as evident by the sprites and level layouts. Anything that is pre-rendered and doesn't use 3D models is 2D. StarCraft does use the 3rd dimension, but so does some side scrollers (you can move up-down, left-right and move back and forth in the environment without moving higher up).

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Pretty much from here on out most 2D games made will go for a highly stylized artistic look, which is how games should look anyways. Playing a game that looks like a crappy summer blockbuster (movie) would only show how much we lust for games where people look and move realistically.

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It's quite obivious that some developers lost their talent trying to make the switch from 2D to 3D (the Sonic Team being a good example, though the Sonic Adventure games were great). Anytime you try to make a 2D franchise 3D, something is lost in translation.

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Originally Posted by evilboris

No no, they don't allow 2d games period. At least SCEU doesn't. Metal Slug 3? The cream a la cream of the series, it was more of a piece of art then a game itself with all the stuff they creamed into it (it featured much, MUCH more ideas and almost perfect implementations of them then many 3d games do today) - and they didn't allow the USA release because it was a 2d game. It was released in Japan, in Europe, on the Xbox, but not on the USA PS2. They don't want "graphically inferior" games or some such bullshit.

2D games are still being made and released in Japan, and they are doing fine and dandy. There's just the fact that outside Japan, clever marketing can create a much bigger hype to a game, ultimately selling it even if its a turd. And what's easier to hype then fancy graphics? Do a fancy techdemo and label it Metal Gear Solid xy and you will instantly grind the sales of the competition to a halt even if your machine is not out yet. It's all about the hype, and you can't create enough hype with a 2d game for it to sell outside of Japan.

At least in Japan they actually care about the game itself so thats not a danger there, and we can still get some awesome 2d titles every now and then.

SCEA has largely been anti-2D since the original PlayStation cam out in 1995. In fact the only reason so many 2D games came out on the PS1 &PS2 is either because they were ports of excellent PC/16bit games or the fact that the developer probably begged them to accept their game. Outside of sidescrolling games, 2D is completely dead because the perspective fits 3D games so well (like in RTS games and other isometric games).

Jam it back in, in the dark.

It'll be interesting to see what (if any) 2D PS3 games will look. With vecor graphics or painstakingly hand drawn art, they could look great. With current technology, it would be easy to make a game look like a high quality Anime series, whihc sounds very appealing to me.

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Originally Posted by Infernal Monkey

Probably because the Metal Slug games take all of fifteen minutes to finish. Perhaps you should go grab the PAL PS2 versions, which were released separately, and cost an arm and a leg.

I am very grateful that SCEE doesn't give a shit about what gets released, though. Euro publishers can get away with anything, such as releasing straight ports of old Amiga games such as James Pond or Impossible Mission on PS2. There's ZERO quality control. It's hilarious.

Well at least you get to try a lot. Most of the crap in the US is big budget and as such makes the PS2's greatest hits have some mediocre games.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.