Why the 90's felt "dirty"?

[Ikagura]

And by dirty I mean the way 3D design looked, when I first saw Fallout 1&2, Abe's Oddyssey among many games there was always that uncanny and unclean look from older 3D rendering.

When I got to see Fallout 4 and New 'n' Tasty they looked "too clean" and "too nice".

Rupture Farm went from "dirty, unhygienic slave factory" into just some "meat and metal processing"

Fallout went from uncanny wasteland

To just an abandoned rural looking area with some building.

 

[OmegaPunch's iconOmegaPunch]

Different times, Different culture.

 

[Ikagura]

Different times, Different culture.

While it's true maybe it's because of how newer rendering engines are handling things.

Like how the PS360 era had browns and yellows.

 

[OmegaPunch's iconOmegaPunch]

While it's true maybe it's because of how newer rendering engines are handling things.

Like how the PS360 era had browns and yellows.

Yeah, the piss filter.
And I do agree that it's also because of technical advances.

 

[Bonkers225]

Because 3-D was in it's infancy. Like almost everything else, the beginning of something always looked rough or dirty, and their designs/look improved as time went on. This can be something like cars, phones, smartphones, television, media players, cartoons, etc. We had colorless anvils as television sets in the beginning, now look at it for example.

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

Well, Fallout 3 was closer to the Fallout 1 aesthetic but I imagine Bethesda got complaints about it being too "grey" and made the other Fallout games more colorful.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I think you can see an evaluation of lighting in video games that effected the entire mood of the game.

Even CGI cutscenes from old had stronger lighting look at diablo 2 OG scenes and compare them to the new , look at the OG WC3 trailer and compare the darkness in it to the reforged one , darkness was so strong in these old scenes that it painted a more grim picture even the last bit in the WC3 intro with the pool of blood and the human and orc hand felt more brutal since blood had a stronger reddish color.

Same for cameras the 90s and 80s cameras are more rough and less clean allowing for this mood to settle while watching the movie im not sure how to exactly describe it....

You can also see this in resident evil games while 1 had stronger colors 2 and 3 were so freaking dirty and grim its perfect.

Even in anime and while im not fond of anime my eyes latch on older ones with the 90s graphics compared to the more clean modern ones.

I think something in general about the dirty and rough technology makes it more appealing like this is something weird to see its not as clean as modern movies they have this clean perfect camera that's just hard to get by in real life the more dirty and rough I think feels more believable.

And that's why the 90s had this appealing charm and vibe going for them.

 

[Aisf]

I think it's because of the technology at the time along with culture. It just made things look dirty and freaky.

 

[Raggs]

Having graduated high school in 97, I can reminisce a bit here. This was a particularly volatile time period technology wise. In 1988 I'm playing Wasteland. And by 1995 I'm playing Final Fantasy VI. Graphics were going through a rapid evolution and everything was trial and error to see what worked and what didn't. And underneath all this the internet was barely acknowledged or understood, contributing to that lack of uniformity in graphical evolution. By the time I'm in the second year of college the industry was being flooded by the new gen of "smooth boys": N64, Dreamcast, PS2.

As a side note, as stated above, the 1990s was kind of dirty culturally. It was a knee jerk overcorrection to the 1980s glam rock and posh pop music scene, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, money is king culture. So we went with grunge, poverty, depression in the Americas despite a booming economy, all while East Europe was facing an actual economic crisis.

//tl:dr penguin tastes like chicken

 

[Ikagura]

Well, Fallout 3 was closer to the Fallout 1 aesthetic but I imagine Bethesda got complaints about it being too "grey" and made the other Fallout games more colorful.

Fallout 3 didn't have that weird greenish filter (to convey radioactivity)?

Even if the game was flawed I found that 3 and NV looked dirty enough compared to the clean looking 4 and 76.

Same for cameras the 90s and 80s cameras are more rough and less clean allowing for this mood to settle while watching the movie im not sure how to exactly describe it....

Yep, pre-HD, pre-Digital cameras had that special feel. Even the lighting in older movies felt different (especially at night).

As a side note, as stated above, the 1990s was kind of dirty culturally. It was a knee jerk overcorrection to the 1980s glam rock and posh pop music scene, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, money is king culture. So we went with grunge, poverty, depression in the Americas despite a booming economy, all while East Europe was facing an actual economic crisis.

Very interesting, the zeitgeist was to get "dirtier" instead of looking clean and sleek (even the 80's had some "clean" feel compared to that decade).

 

[moonbits]

perhaps lighting was too expensive to render so they compromised with grittier/darker renders.

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

perhaps lighting was too expensive to render so they compromised with grittier/darker renders.

Muddy, dark moody lighting and fog hides low render distances and low quality textures better. High definition textures are more conducive to having bright lighting to show them off.

 

[DukeRed]

Funny it kind of correlates with music too. I just looked up the top hits of 2000s rock which I grew listening to. There is a lot of dark depressing music compared to the 80s which I also like. e.g. David Bowie vs Nirvana.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I like to think that it was due to stylistic choices more than anything else... The technology simply wasn't there to make something look clean, so they doubled down on the hellish aesthetics. I think it works.

 

[Ikagura]

I like to think that it was due to stylistic choices more than anything else... The technology simply wasn't there to make something look clean, so they doubled down on the hellish aesthetics. I think it works.

Even Black Mesa looked too nice in the eponymous game compared to Half-Life despite looking "brighter" than Quake and Quake II.

 

[hazys]

In the 90s 3D games had a lot of juxtapositions, like low-poly models on pre-rendered backgrounds, or upscaled sprites on low-polygon 3D environments, etc. This gave a lot of games a sort of "dirty" look compared to the more uniform graphical quality of the sixth gen. Some games took advantage of this look, though, like the original Silent Hill.

 

[Nidoking's iconNidoking]

I think it's the same reason you can say that about a lot of 90's movies, and why so many 90's cartoons were stylistically 'ugly.'

I don't know specifically what that reason is, but it was so prominent it has to be something. It might be as simple as that was a very popular aesthetic... and it was.

 

[SLEDGE_DOG]

I think the whole gross out aesthetic was big around that time as well, but that may be just a small part of it. I remember a lot of toys and shows involving boogers, slime, bugs, mutants, etc.

 

[Ikagura]

I think the whole gross out aesthetic was big around that time as well, but that may be just a small part of it. I remember a lot of toys and shows involving boogers, slime, bugs, mutants, etc.

Oh right, it's probably one of the few things I absolutely don't miss from that epoch.

 

[miguk]

One of the most notable differences in early 3D gaming from later games is the fog. Fog everywhere. Not atmospheric fog, but just fog covering the landscape up because it wasn't rendering fast enough to show a full world that didn't drop off at a short distance. Outside a few exceptions, it was pretty ugly, really.

There was also a lack of textures. Some were applied, but only a limited amount could be at once, resulting in inorganic ones (rock, metal) looking better than organic ones. So sterile and industrial backgrounds would look more realistic even though they looked a bit more uncomfortable.

 

[Ikagura]

I know it may sound silly but back then I had a magazine about N64 games and I saw many screenshots of Turok 2 Seeds of Evil.

Back when my only experience of FPS was Goldeneye and Perfect Dark this one gave me shivers as it was almost like a horror game disguised as a FPS.

Maybe the low res screen shots (which were literal camera shots of the screen back then) and paper print also helped setting up the mood

Goldeneye was still "creepy" sometimes

Especially on the real hardware in low res and with uneven framerate.

Post automatically merged: Feb 25, 2025

One of the most notable differences in early 3D gaming from later games is the fog. Fog everywhere. Not atmospheric fog, but just fog covering the landscape up because it wasn't rendering fast enough to show a full world that didn't drop off at a short distance. Outside a few exceptions, it was pretty ugly, really.

There was also a lack of textures. Some were applied, but only a limited amount could be at once, resulting in inorganic ones (rock, metal) looking better than organic ones. So sterile and industrial backgrounds would look more realistic even though they looked a bit more uncomfortable.

Yep, oblivion's lair in Turok 2 was so lifeless looking with that industrial look

I would say that organic levels were quite popular in the 5th gen

It looks grosser than in the 3DS remake.

 

[Mago]

TFW technical advancements actually make things look worse. That said I can't help but feel theres a cultural element to it, like audiences wanting things less gritty and more bright and colorful. Might be in part do to gaming becoming more mainstream.

 

[Graw]

Even CGI cutscenes from old had stronger lighting look at diablo 2 OG scenes and compare them to the new

I'd say there's an even bigger disparity between Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. Diablo 1 was a very dark and brooding game. Diablo 2 is very bright and colorful by comparison and then by the time you get to Diablo 3 it looks like a cartoon.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I'd say there's an even bigger disparity between Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. Diablo 1 was a very dark and brooding game. Diablo 2 is very bright and colorful by comparison and then by the time you get to Diablo 3 it looks like a cartoon.

Not quite so D2 has some hellish things especially in the rouge monastery where you can spot dead rogues by torture the whole thing looks gross and only a demon would do.

D2 didn't hold back in brutality with the grim vibe now it can be much less dark than 1 but I think its good enough of a dark game much more than people give it credit when compared to 1.

 

[Graw]

Not quite so D2 has some hellish things especially in the rouge monastery where you can spot dead rogues by torture the whole thing looks gross and only a demon would do.

D2 didn't hold back in brutality with the grim vibe now it can be much less dark than 1 but I think its good enough of a dark game much more than people give it credit when compared to 1.

Yeah it had its moments but Diablo 1 is dark, grim and depressing from start to finish. There is no point in that game where anything is bright or even remotely happy. Like it's just floor after floor of death and torture. Then you go back to the bleak depressing town and listen to stories about death and torture. All the monsters a grim and demonic looking with a dark realistic look.

Diablo 2 was a lot more of a dark fantasy vibe. Yeah you had the monastery, and random dark set pieces here and there but overall it's a lot more colourful. All of act 2 is a bright colourful desert. The tombs are more Egyptian fantasy horror than the grim brutal Gothic darkness of the first one. Act 3 was more dark pulp fantasy in tone. Act 4's Hell was like a barren grey wasteland then you get to the big fiery demon castle. Diablo 1's hell was dark, claustrophobic and menacing. Act 5 reminds me more of something like Skyrim than Diablo.