Working in a video game store I often encounter the HDTV guy. He has some new 65″ liquid plasma television that he wants to brag about. His sound system was flown in from Germany and sounds like a Who concert. He has a million questions about refresh rates and hertz and all kinds of other words he makes up on the spot. He is so concerned with 1080p versus 1080i that he doesn’t even really care about the quality of the game he is buying. As long as it looks good on his mammoth television, gameplay doesn’t really matter.

The HDTV Guy is a new kind of Graphics Snob. Where the old graphics Snob wanted high polygon counts. The new HDTV Guy wants a blazing fast response time and great pixel resolution. He scoffs at your standard definition. If you are not playing in high definition then you might as well throw your television down a well, because it is worthless. If you are not close to a well, you should dig a well, so you have a well where you can then throw your t.v.

You see him in the wild, often in the Blu-Ray movies section checking out aspect ratios and what kind of Dolby Digital is supported. He can explain the difference between uncompressed and lossless audio formats. He will often ask if you have seen “this _____ movie on Blu-Ray?” Even when you tell him you didn’t care for it, he will respond with “but you have to see it in HD.” As if increased resolution can  make a terrible movie better. For all of his bluster he has yet to convince me that HD is all its cracked up to be.

I refuse to believe that clarity makes a movie or a game all that much better. For me the HD is like the Cherry on top of a sundae. Sure it is nice and delicious but I don’t hate the sundae without it. For the HDTV Guy the Cherry is all that’s important. For him all that matters is the pixel resolution.

Before HD, I don’t remember a single person that watched a movie and said “Wow that movie was cool, too bad we couldn’t see every blemish on the actors’ faces.” No one cared. Maybe we didn’t know what we were missing.

A wire has been crossed in the brains of a lot of people, and clarity has taken the place of beauty. Increased clarity does not make things appear more beautiful. If something is ugly, no amount of resolution is going to make it look good. In fact, increasing the resolution can often make things look worse. Some of the best looking games understand that the art direction is far more important. Would you rather look at a crystal clear dirty wall or a slightly less sharp sunset? I don’ t think many people drive to the beach to go stare at a wall for a half hour. Games have started to move away from the brown and gray color palette because a dirty wall is still just a wall, even in HD.

Anyone who thinks HD always looks better should try watching the evening news in HD. It is disturbing. You can see all the little stubble marks and pancake makeup. High definition make the news anchors look like early generation Terminators. There is no way you can honestly say that those extra pixels bring anything to the table other than terror, unless you like the idea of getting your news from Terminators. The HDTV Guy doesn’t care if the extra resolution makes once beautiful women appear old and crinkly. The HDTV Guy wants his news delivered at the maximum possible resolution.

The HDTV Guy doesn’t care if he is playing Summer Athletics THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE or Bioshock. HDTV Guy knows that the gameplay doesn’t matter. For the HDTV Guy everything is ‘ahhh-some’ in HD.

In the end, do not pity the HDTV Guy, unless you do it in full 1080p with Dolby Digital 7.1 Surround Sound.