Help needed choosing best looking games for a games course art library

mrnpc

Hello there

I am head of games at Escape Studios in London and I have am MA in game art starting this January. 

I am buying games for our library so we can review art work etc. I  thought it would be a fun and easy task but has turned out to be far more difficult than I first thought. I am the kind of person that can never make their mind up at a restaurant and this is far worse.

We will have  most formats to play, The remit is best looking games in their genre for

PC

Xbox

PS4

Wii U

Ipad / mobile

I was wondering if any one could offer suggestions on what they think are the best looking games / essential titles for students to review

The list so far that we have been mulling over, in no order ( and which just shows my bias)

The Order

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

Uncharted

The last of us

Limbo

Monument Valley

GTA

master chief collection

The Room 3

Some example of Mario ???

Bloodbourne

FarCry

SKYRIM ( best game everrrrr )

Tomb Raider

Ori and the blind forest

Cheers for any ideas

Simon

Simon Fenton
Head of Games

Escape Studios, Pearson College London

Shepherds West

Rockley Road

London

W14 0DA

T: +44 (0) 20 7348 1920 

TW:@pixelsfenton

http://escapestudiosgameartblog.blogspot.co.uk/

www.pearsoncollegelondon.ac.uk

Snowfly

League of Legends (PC) - Strong emphasis on visual heirarchy. Art to reinforce gameplay.
Transistor (Mobile) - Dipping into art traditions outside of videogames and adapting them into an unlikely setting.
Team Fortress 2 (PC) - Masterclass in team and classed based gameplay design.
SimCity 5 (PC) - Excellent use of post processing to get a lot of mileage out of their relatively simple art assets.
Guilty Gear Xrd (PS4) - Very good approximation of traditional animation in realtime 3D, with a unique art pipeline.
Yoshi's Wooly World (Wii U) - Soft, cuddly aesthetic pushed to the extreme.

PolyHertz

The Order 1886, Ori and the blind forest, and Guilty Gear Xrd (as mentioned by Snowfly) are all good choices.
You might also want to look into CupHead and the new Ratchet & Clank game once they're released. The former is using some very novel approaches to animation, and the later is sharing a lot of assets between the game and feature film.

Tekoppar

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

RobeOmega

Crysis 3 is a good addition.

marks

Have we really reached this point without a single person suggesting Journey? Wow.

JedTheKrampus

Witcher 3, Bioshock Infinite, Ryse: Son of Rome, The Order, Team Fortress 2, Dota 2, Guilty Gear Xrd, Remember Me, Transistor, Super Hexagon, Mario Kart 8, Towerfall Ascension, Nidhogg, Rayman Legends, Killing Floor 2, Cuphead

RN

I think Kingdom Hearts is relevant.
Awesome cartoon aesthetics, the characters are well animated etc.

 

RaptorCWS

Assasin's Creed: 4, Unity, Syndicate

HitmonInfinity

Borderlands and Prince of Persia (2008) were some of the first to explore some more creative art styles. Borderlands was sketch inspired, PoP was paint/water-colors.

AtticusMars

Bravely Default

PolyHertz

Oh yea, Prince of Persia 2008 is a good one, the textures especially are fantastic. Get the (DRM free) pc release though, the console versions don't really do it justice.

R3D

Borderlands was actually directly inspired by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2iOcCibzUo

Anyways for WiiU, You should check out the design blogs for Bayonetta 2

http://platinumgames.com/2014/09/26/character-modeling-in-bayonetta-2/
http://platinumgames.com/2014/08/08/enemy-design-in-bayonetta-2-pt-1/
http://platinumgames.com/2014/09/12/enemy-design-in-bayonetta-2-pt-2/

Their whole blog is really interesting and they even go in depth with storyboarding, music, cinematic directing, AI controls and ect.





Perhaps not the prettiest game, but one that I really enjoy the aesthetic for is Asura's Wrath

Deathstick

The Witcher 3 is absolutely gorgeous to run around in. Fallout 4/Bethesda games have the charm of being smart and witty with their environments and prop placement/cluttering as well as assets that are highly reusable/modular due to the amount they have to make, not to mention you can't underestimate the value of making something look good that runs well in an open environment versus encapsulated levels. And Bioshock Infinite had some very nice art direction and setpieces. (Their lighting artists in particular know how to tell a story through lighting alone)

Also something not commonly tackled as others, but water visualizations have certainly evolved past having simple looped normal-mapped planes for water. World of Warships has some nice dynamics in theirs, https://youtu.be/Fk5QF3R945A and I recall the ocean in Assassin's Creed Black Flag being great.

Not really a game but there's NVIdia Waveworks as an implementation for water visualizations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUSYbco0zIg
As well as the interesting PhysX Flex solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKEte54_tcQ

RN

Don't Starve, comic-book sketchy style art.

 

Gmanx

I would second the Stalker series and Metro 2033 (+ Last Light), Dishonoured, Thief 4, TF2, Last of us, Witcher 3. All good choices. Can't think of any more not already mentioned except for maybe Doom 3 (purely for its place in game art history?)

mrnpc

I have to say Polycount  is just fantastic, thanks everyone for offering your great suggestions, it has been a huge help, So many great games that I missed. It will be interesting to see the look on my bosses face when I produce a games list longer than Bilbo baggins contract from the Hobbit.
Thanks all

Simon

mrnpc

Wow
I have just watched the break down of the art pipeline  for GuiltyGear, I was at GDC this year and missed the talk .
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022031/GuiltyGearXrd-s-Art-Style-The
Thanks

Simon