In order to learn more about different art styles and different demographics I have been doing some research into different styles used on different platforms. I've decided to look into Borderlands on the Xbox 360 and the Pokemon games on the Nintendo DS.

I chose these two games because they are both of very different art styles, but are both high quality and popular for thier own platforms.

The comic book art style of Borderlands were a great change from ther semi-realistic style from previous titles. The new hand drawn, almost cartoon style gave the game more of an edge over other recent releases on the same platform, such as Brutal Legend, Uncharted 2 (all released in October 2009). Brutal Legend had a stylised model design, with a simple cartoon-like character design, where as Uncharted 2 had more high quality graphics with environments and animations with high realism. Rather than looking at different character design styles, Borderlands has taken a risk with a similarly popular art style but succeeded with something new and refreshing. This new and innovative style would also help to appeal to the games demographic more as well, which would be late teens, due to the amount of violence in the game play. The apololyptic game plot coupled with the art style shows that the game would appeal to fans of graphic novels and gritty super hero films, such as 'Wolverine' and 'Iron Man.'

Examples of game art from Borderlands.

The Nintendo DS has very different specifications to the Xbox 360, however there has still been some impressive progression with some games' aestethics. The Pokemon games have been running for more than 14 years and through this time the game has moved from the simple monochrome of the original game boy games into full 3d games in the next release of Pokemon Black and White. The style is simple, but good quality for it's platform - the artist know thier limitations. The art style has become more detailed and the interface has been kept very much the same, but adapted to to the touch screen of the Nintendo DS. The simple style and colours shows that the game would appeal to a younger audience who would also be fans of television shows such as the cartoon of 'Pokemon' and 'Digimon', and other titles such as 'Avatar - the Last Air Bender'. However, as the 'Pokemon' games are so long running, they also have a loyal fanbase of older players who enjoyed playing the earlier games.

Screenshots from Pokemon Red.


Screenshots from Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver, and Platinum.

Screenshots for the upcoming Pokemon Black and White games.