I love Sandra Bullock’s lips, F-14s flying wing tip to wing tip 20 feet off a steel-gray ocean, and Michael Andretti’s Lola-Ford scrambling for traction as it dives through Laguna Seca’s Corkscrew. In short, I’m a visual kind of guy. My optical fantasies are not, however, confined to corporeal reality. The dark streets of Vampire: The Masquerade’s New York City trace a cold finger along my spine and the glistening hoods of NASCAR Heat’s stockers drop my jaw.

Yeah, I’m impressed by the way things look. It’s important to me --important, but not crucial. Unfortunately, it sometimes feels like developers in the game industry spend an inordinate amount of time beautifying their baby when they should be spending time making a better game. Hence, we get a large number of beautiful, yet mediocre, games (Can you say Wargasm?).

How come?

Obviously, as with any question not asked by your spouse, there are several answers. Hey, first of all, we all like pretty stuff. That’s why Rosanne Barr never made it as a poster child. And that is a prime reason developers and publishers alike sink lots of time and money into their pixels and polygons. Face it, the visual and audio ambiance of Grand Prix Legends did much to throw you into the cockpits of those Ferraris and Lotuses (Lotii?). So too do the knotty yellow wisp-snakes of Baldur Gate II’s Entangle spell convince the gamer that Jaheira has in fact rendered her target motionless.  Bottom line, graphics are one of the ingredients that create an immersive game world.

The Press to Blame?
Part of the graphical emphasis is our own fault. Since graphics are an important ingredient, we discuss them in the gaming press. And you can bet that anything that receives continuous coverage in the press is going to make publishers sit up and take notice. Flip to any review/preview (mine included) and you’ll find a section on graphics. The same cannot be said for a game’s user manual, dialogue, voice acting, scenario design, or artificial intelligence.  They are important factors often left out of previews and reviews.

While the visceral pleasure that graphics provide might be the main justification for dumping time and money into pixels and polygons, I think there's a major reason why we see so many visually stunning games on the market: Making games pretty is easy. 

Path of Least Resistance
First of all, there are more proficient artists in the games industry than good designers.  As a result, it's easier for developers to put more resources towards the visuals because it's easier to find the manpower.  But more importantly, visuals sell easy.   You better believe that when a developer has to demo a game to a publisher, it's easy to wow them over with dazzling graphics.  What looks good is what sells good to the publishers, and what sells well is what garners the development time.

By the same token, graphics are easy for journalists to evaluate. Whereas critiquing the combat routines of a role-playing game or the physics engine of a racing simulation takes a considerable amount of experience, commenting on the fluttering leaves in the trees of the latest Test Drive offering takes no skill -- just eyes.  And make no mistake, in the age of the Internet gaming site boom, experienced gaming journalists/editors are a thinly spread breed.

So, graphics are king (or queen in Ms. Croft’s case). Often great graphics can enhance a game, but just as often, graphical emphasis -- whether in a game or the review thereof -- is a result of developers and journalists taking the easy way out. When that happens, we all lose, especially as long as game publishers think it better to spend development time on polygons instead of play.