Theory

[zinger]

I was being sarcastic. I'll have to remember to add "lol" in the future.

[icycalm]

I just had to make sure.

[zinger]

http://machinarium.net/

Good looks (though not exactly mindblowing), 2009. Here's a trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WliaZtLMW8I

It's by a Czech team, and the style is definetly reminiscent of some Russian and Czech 60's, 70's and 80's cartoons. La Planète Sauvage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgCxCZNkQ9E) and The Mystery of the Third Planet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obk3byk-P58), for instance.

[icycalm]

Everything is subjective so Recap might as well close the forum down since Macaw is "not sure how much can be gained from discussing anything" lol.

Or did you just mean that you felt offended that Recap attacked your taste and instead of trying to offer arguments to the contrary you would feel more comfortable by undermining the authority of his taste by labeling it as "subjective" and dropping the discussion?

For the record, I think that GunLord boss looks perfectly fine. Not great, or special in any way, but I would have easily taken it for a Japanese effort if not told otherwise. The only things bad about that screenshot are the sprite, the bonus items and the platform. The boss, background and weapon effects are just fine as far as I am concerned. So I concur with Recap that what Westerners often fail to get is cohesion between the various visual elements -- as if different people worked on them without bothering to show each other what they were doing. And the same of course holds true for 3D efforts. Take a game like Otogi, for example, where the fucking menu screens are some of the most visually impressive things I've ever seen on a computer monitor, and the entire game's style flows like water. I can't imaging Westerners ever getting anywhere near that level of coherence in a hundred years. Except with something as simple and plain as a minimalist amateur game -- in which case even I could do it.

http://postback.geedorah.com/foros/view ... 888#p12888

[icycalm]

Dragon Age 2

[icycalm]

And just to be clear, the point of the thread was to post good-looking artwork, but I couldn't resist this grotesque example considering what a high-profile game it's from.