Art direction is pretty important. Where technical limitations of hardware can sometimes hinder the realisation of an artist's vision of a world, strong art direction can carry a game's visuals even without the use of cutting-edge technology. Since the very first games, art direction has always been a large aspect of development. Primarily, games as a medium are able to connect to players through two of their senses- sight and hearing. This makes the way a game looks incredibly important. As an example, the NES game "Castlevania" has a very particular art direction, entirely different in style and atmosphere to other games on the same system. Even in this era, when animations were very basic and 8-bit graphics denied artists the freedom we have today, artistic direction was intrinsically linked to the product's success as a whole.
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| Art direction can turn a visually dull game into something distinctive. |
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| A game that looks like a painting. Yes. |
More recently, game technology has evolved to the point where near-cgi level visuals are entirely possible, and this allows artistic directors more freedom than ever before. Before a player even picks up the controller, the visual style can tell them a great deal about the 'feel' of the game. From a quick glance at the visual design of the characters, someone could tell pretty quickly that Gears of War is probably going to play a little differently to Mario Galaxy. Not only can the art direction of a game speak for the content of the game itself, but it can give it a unique identity, causing it to stand out among other games. In recent years, the popularity of the military first-person-shooter has saturated the market in games with hyper-realistic art-styles, and games like Okami or Journey stand out with unique visual directions, taking inspiration from hand-painted artwork and cultural themes.
image sources:
http://www.enizr.com/media/27122/spec-ops-the-line-pc-demo-playthrough_a__2_.jpg
lunadigital.tv/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/okami20070130074554505jp9.jpg
references:
http://www.edge-online.com/features/the-art-of-spec-ops-the-line/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ckami
http://kotaku.com/5927467/half+life-2-art-director-laments-the-stale-state-of-modern-video-games
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