Gamers will experience the graphics even before knowing about the gameplay through trailers and cutscenes in the game. Even so, there is a “paradox” where many AAA blockbuster games have graphics quality that is nowhere near acceptable, as if they don’t care about this aspect at all.
Poor graphics quality can be due to trailers intentionally being made beautiful to attract players (then the official version is severely downgraded), due to a few visual elements being unbalanced, or simply because developers do not know how to utilize the budget they have to create a game with visually appealing graphics. Because of this, the value of the game decreases, and if it is an AAA game, the consequences are even more severe. Here is a list of 8 famous games with graphics that are so bad they are cursed.
Shenmue III
Shenmue III is not a game with a budget as large as those from Rockstar or Naughty Dog, but for a game funded by the community (crowdfunding), its budget is quite substantial. Specifically, this game raised up to $7 million, becoming the most funded game on Kickstarter in history. This is similar to when Shenmue was released; at that time, Shenmue was the most expensive game to develop. After receiving additional support from Sony and Deep Silver, Shenmue III finally launched after 18 long years.
However, the result was not what everyone expected. The control mechanism in the game is quite clunky, while the animation is outdated, generally being an “offense” to current graphics technology. Shenmue III is like “half old half new”, not old enough to be retro but also not new enough to be modern, making the gamer experience far from pleasant. Part 3 should have followed the previous part, making it look truly retro, instead of trying to make the game look modern and failing miserably.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
True to its name, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has accomplished something quite remarkable: both versions on two generations of consoles are equally ugly. The versions on Xbox 360, PS3, and Xbox One, PS4 all have very poor graphics quality with nothing outstanding, and the gameplay doesn’t shine at all.
New York City in the two “flagship” versions on PS4 and Xbox One looks bland, with buildings that all look the same, devoid of any distinguishing features. The image quality of the characters in the game is a disaster, not to mention character models that often pop up unexpectedly whenever Spider-Man swings around the city. The old consoles like PS3 and Xbox 360 are even worse, looking like a joke.
Although released in 2014, the graphics make you think this game launched somewhere around 2007, during the PS2 era. The lighting quality is poor, the buildings look like boxes as in Spider-Man 2 (2004), and the texture quality is atrocious. It’s hard to believe this is a game released many years after blockbusters like Far Cry 3 or the Uncharted series. Far Cry 4 and Alien: Isolation released in the same year looked a thousand times better when ported to older consoles.
WWE 2K20
WWE 2K20 can be described as a disaster for many reasons. This is one of the games with the most disastrous launches in recent times. It was plagued by so many silly bugs that players couldn’t even play, the gameplay is as bland as water, and the character upgrade system is very clunky. It is a downgrade in every aspect compared to its predecessor; moreover, the graphics quality couldn’t salvage this game. The difference in visuals between 2K19 and 2K20 is like day and night, with 2K19 being vastly superior.
Character models, which looked quite impressive and realistic in the previous two installments, inexplicably look like wax figures in this installment, as if playing on a PS3 despite being on a PS4 with high-end hardware. It is so ugly that players cannot believe the developers had the “talent” to create something like that. The graphics quality has been slightly improved, but sometimes the legendary copy & paste combo is still better than trying to create something new.
L.A. Noire
Besides gameplay issues, L.A. Noire also has another graphic problem. It’s not that it’s ugly or anything, but the quality of the graphics in the game lacks consistency. The game was promoted as using advanced MotionScan technology, capturing actors’ facial expressions with 32 cameras at speeds of up to 1000 fps simultaneously. The results were astonishing and detailed, surpassing many AAA titles of the time.
However, perhaps Rockstar spent all its resources on those 32 magic cameras, leaving the rest of the characters looking painfully bad. Even when compared to contemporaries like Red Dead Redemption, you can clearly see that the clothing and body details look very stiff and unnatural. The texture of the clothing has very few details, making the characters look more like plastic dolls than humans. And when you combine such body parts with heads that look real, you can already guess, it doesn’t match at all, if not to say it feels like “heads detached from bodies”.
Far Cry Vengeance
Before being acquired by Ubisoft, Far Cry was a renowned game built on CryEngine by Crytek. At that time, the graphics in Far Cry looked very impressive and realistic, with lush vegetation and stunning scenery. With the Xbox versions Instincts and Evolution, the graphics quality decreases somewhat due to the transition to consoles, but overall it still looks very beautiful and was considered ahead of its time.
However, with the release of Far Cry Vengeance (2006) on the Wii, the story changed. The character models look very poor and the animation is terrible, and the environment in the game is just as “bland”. If this were a game on the N64 (released in 1996), some might even believe it. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter – a game released 10 years earlier – looks no worse than Far Cry Vengeance. It is true that the Wii has weak specs, but this excuse is not valid at all because The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess, released in the same year, looks absolutely stunning.
Pac-Man (Atari 2600)
The Atari 2600 is a console that launched in 1977 (North America), and you might think that with such an outdated machine, there could be games with bad graphics? Indeed, the Atari 2600 has not very “high-end” hardware, but games like Solaris and California Games still look quite decent. Therefore, when the legendary game Pac-Man was brought to this system, it was truly a disaster. With numerous pre-orders and an expensive marketing campaign, the development team predicted that players would enjoy it more for its gameplay than its graphics.
But no, anyone who has played Pac-Man will be impressed not only by its gameplay mechanics but also by its appealing graphics. However, the version on Atari 2600 is truly a catastrophe: Pac-Man looks nothing like the arcade version, and the ghosts in the game keep flashing continuously, which is painful to the eyes and makes gamers shake their heads in disappointment. Overall, it is a disaster, folks.
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Aliens: Colonial Marines is one of the most infamous games of the Xbox 360 and PS3 console generation. Upon release, it failed miserably, and there were many rumors that Gearbox Software poorly managed its personnel, leading to this outcome. The studio was even sued for false advertising, as the quality compared to the demo prior to release was vastly inferior.
When you boot up the game, you will immediately realize that this is a downgraded version of what was advertised before. Besides the poor gameplay, terrible AI, the graphics quality of Aliens: Colonial Marines is also very “lousy”. The frame rate stutters, the levels are dark and repetitive, the character models are outdated, and the animation looks very polished if this game had been released around 2005 (which is when development began).
This game was “dormant” for a long time, and compared to other blockbusters released around the same time like The Last Of Us or the Tomb Raider reboot, the graphics quality in Aliens: Colonial Marines is simply unacceptable.
Mass Effect: Andromeda
The Mass Effect series is highly regarded for its role-playing gameplay, but in terms of graphics, especially character models, this is not a strength, if not to say it looks somewhat… soulless. However, in the first three installments, it compensated for this with excellent gameplay, engaging storylines, and grand environmental designs. Part 3 deviated a bit from the series, but overall it was still very “solid”. Five years after part 3, Mass Effect: Andromeda was released, bringing excitement and anticipation from thousands of fans. But when gamers opened the game, oh dear, it was a disaster.
The game had numerous graphics issues. Although the environment and scenery in the game looked breathtaking, the character models and animation were not meticulously crafted. Somehow, at times, the game looked even worse than the original from 2007, facial expressions and gestures were almost entirely absent, and lip-syncing was off with the dialogue. Not to mention characters stared at each other with lifeless eyes, resembling wax figures. The saddest part is that the gameplay was quite solid. Although it did not break new ground compared to the previous installments, it is unfortunate that it was overshadowed by the graphics quality, which can only be described as horrifically bad.
Source: What Culture translated by Gearvn