Five Abused Video Game Visual Effects

Like children with new toys, developers can excitedly overdo it with visual effects until good sense prevails - here are five examples of exactly that from across video games history

[fr0sty]

Dirt on the lens (and JJ Abrahms style overuse of lens flare) is the worst, especially in war games like Battlefield. We're not supposed to be a camera! Way to ruin the illusion of actually being the player we're controlling.

[PrimeVinister]

Yeah, that's a bad one that is missing from the list

[FPS_D3TH]

Most soldiers today wear goggles or tactical glasses so dirt on the lens isn’t that much of a stretch tbh

[isarai]

Vignettes, chromatic aberration, and that annoying thing where they blur the corners of the screen. Also film grain.

[FPS_D3TH]

All those immediately get turned off when I load up my settings haha. Unless I’m going for screenshots it’s more than annoying

[PrimeVinister]

You are mostly stuck with whatever terrible effects on console. There are some options like motion blur that can switched off but it's not common

[PrimeVinister]

Depth of field is annoying. Along with most camera or lens effects.

But DoF will be cool in the future when they can track what you are looking at and apply DoF accordingly.

[DeviateFish]

Don't forget camera shake and "realistic" camera movement in cutscenes.

[porkChop]

The Syndicate reboot had the absolute worst bloom I've ever seen. It literally hurt my eyes and gave me a headache just from playing. I could never finish it.

[PrimeVinister]

Absolutely. Beyond the distraction and obstruction, it looked unpleasant a lot of the time.