Why the 90's felt "dirty"?

[Evaccaneer Doom]

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"
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Fallout went from uncanny wasteland
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To just an abandoned rural looking area with some building.
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Older 3D games just look like that

Post automatically merged: Feb 27, 2025

One of the most notable differences in early 3D gaming from later games is the fog.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

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.

Yeah indeed act 1 is kind of the most dark and most reminiscent of D1 I guess

Well act 2 has its moments like the mummy that's taking human skin or the palace and sanctuary.

My least favorite is act 3 but it gets the deadly jungle vibe pretty well.

Act 4 is so hopeless it gets to you at some point

Act 5 I think is more of all out battle and siege vibe Its fits well for baal than the hopeless and spooky vibes which is a perk of fighting diablo not baal.

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

The 90's had CRT TV's, so any flaws would be ironed out as antialiasing. Also on monitors you had a knob to push up the brightness and color and finding the right amount that was bright enough to read while not too bright to damage the screen.

It was a very different time...

 

[Graw]

Yeah indeed act 1 is kind of the most dark and most reminiscent of D1 I guess

Well act 2 has its moments like the mummy that's taking human skin or the palace and sanctuary.

My least favorite is act 3 but it gets the deadly jungle vibe pretty well.

Act 4 is so hopeless it gets to you at some point

Act 5 I think is more of all out battle and siege vibe Its fits well for baal than the hopeless and spooky vibes which is a perk of fighting diablo not baal.

I will admit. D2 is still definitely dark fantasy and it's darker than something like Baldur's Gate or more classic fantasy themed games and definitely darker than Diablo 3.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I will admit. D2 is still definitely dark fantasy and it's darker than something like Baldur's Gate or more classic fantasy themed games and definitely darker than Diablo 3.

I didnt play diablo 3 but seeing cain go out like that annoyed me and tyreal becoming human ????? The witch from D1 doing "I was evil all along" my god what a mess.

 

[Graw]

I didnt play diablo 3 but seeing cain go out like that annoyed me and tyreal becoming human ????? The witch from D1 doing "I was evil all along" my god what a mess.

I played it a little bit with my girlfriend on co-op and it reminded me of playing Gauntlet. Then we found an actual Gauntlet game that was released around that time and we played that instead. By comparison I was horribly addicted to Diablo 2 for a few years as a teenager.

 

[Jeff]

3D Technology was still new at the time. N64 graphics were a bit foggy and muddy, PS1's 3D graphics were a bit blurry half the time. And a few PC games that were played on a Windows 98, the brightness and shading were faded due to the limitations they had.