Good visuals are an important part of any video game, as they help market it to a wider audience, and the art style and graphics are often a big draw for many players. But not all games focus on fully rendered visuals or high-fidelity character models. Instead, they choose a much less attractive aesthetic that often makes things look chaotic or chaotic the ugly. However, even when things are on the drab side of the spectrum, these games still feel great to play, with their questionable visual style often working with the gameplay to create a more unique experience.
These two main genres where “Ugly” games Shooters emerged, where the fast-paced action allowed for more experimental design choices, and gruesome settings and creatures that were more sinister than reality. There are also many other games that choose a less traditional visual approach, presenting characters and worlds that are either deliberately divisive in their appearance or ugly in ways that are at once off-putting and enticing.
ULTRAKILL
Fast-paced, bloody, non-stop action
ULTRAKILL Boomer is a whole new kind of shooter, taking a lot of inspiration from the early days of the genre and depicting a bloody hellscape full of machines and carnage. The unique gameplay comes from a style system that players can sort based on executing different kills and combos, similar to the style of the games. cried the devilFor players who enjoy pushing their limits to the max, it offers a great level of skill expression.
From the outside, the visuals look very dated and cluttered, but the color choices and retro aesthetic allow the game to flow perfectly and make each arena feel like a classic battle against evil. Plus, despite their simplistic designs, enemies can be pretty terrifying, and taking them out feels all the more satisfying thanks to the killer score and responsive movement that turns players into the ultimate killing machine. ULTRAKILL's The distinctive style allowed it to become a shooter sensation, proving that games with unusual visuals and gameplay styles can be widely successful.
No, I'm not human
Be careful who you let in
No, I'm not human is a remarkable horror game that takes the concept of an apocalyptic attack and places players at the center of a cryptic, global catastrophe. The sun has darkened, and strange creatures roam the streets looking for blood. The player's job is to monitor their surroundings and help or deny travelers looking for a place to stay, whether for safety or perhaps more nefarious purposes.
The art style of the game is very unique, the characters themselves are twisted and sometimes, grotesque in their appearance, even though they are really human. Yet even if it's rough around the edges, this aesthetic gives it an eerie, strange feel that ensures everything from the buildings to the people who enter the house seem a little out of the ordinary. It always puts the players in a state of tension and makes them uneasy about every encounter on the other side of the door, showing all the gory and gross details from start to finish.
Brutality Squad
Satisfying gunplay with a questionable aesthetic
Brutality Squad At first glance the friction appears, with a palette made up of sickly greens, bruised purples and general visual noise that looks more like a decaying environment than a polished render. The deliberately unstable visual language makes every space feel toxic and impure in a way that aligns with the game's moral ideas about the corporate world and the relationship between people and the economy. What makes the game so unique is that it creates a sense of hostility by filling space with shapes and colors that never fit into a cohesive world, whether the player is in the suburbs or traversing vast industrial zones.
Despite the chaos, nothing is ever random. Objects are carefully placed in specific, unique, locations, constantly pushing the player to adapt to their surroundings. This forced chaos can take some getting used to, especially when players have to deal with an array of unique enemies that can easily get the best of them with movements that can instantly go from slow to fast. Funnily enough, shooting feels crisp and clean, giving players complete control over how they approach each area, even if the game is visually all over the place.
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
Strange creatures in the pits below
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth It's easily one of the best roguelikes ever made, but it doesn't win any points for having a beautiful world for players to explore. The setting is gruesome and, at times, disgusting, with players having to fight off literal chunks of flesh and feces, and all manner of grotesque abominations littering every floor. The ugliness extends to Isaac himself, as certain items can drastically alter his appearance, often leaving him looking more like a horror movie villain than a brave hero.
When the players delve deeper and manage to make their way to the end, everything is coated in darkness and decay, with no real moments of positivity, not even in the final scenes. Along with all that, the toughness actually makes the game more fun. Fighting against piles of flesh and hideous amalgamations of flesh can actually be quite satisfying, especially given the incredible range of item combinations players can access to break any semblance of balance at the beginning of the game's combat.
Hypnospace Outlaw
Exploring the web one page at a time
Hypnospace Outlaw A trippy ride into the depths of cyberspace, bringing the internet world of the late 90s into the modern day. Not only are the visuals deliberately dated and inspired by simpler times of computing, but they also go above and beyond by adding extra objects and clutter to web pages, making every click feel like a rabbit hole of malware and scams.
This creates visual identity Hypnospace Outlaw It truly feels like nothing else out there, combining retro symbols and objects with a cluttered volume that can make even the most basic pages a challenge to navigate. Clutter also plays on a gameplay loop of scrolling through websites and trying to find violations, which can be hidden behind elaborate link chains that lead players to random sections of the web they never intended to visit. It's a perfect parody of early web surfing that manages to recapture the essence of bloatware and chaos from the unmonitored World Wide Web.
