Photorealism is the most commonly used graphic art style for computer games during the present due to the development of technology. Not many years ago game developers were very limited to the graphics they implemented within games because they just didn't have the hardware to create anything better. However, as all of us will know game graphics have just evolved over the years. This advancement has now given game developers the ability to create photorealistic graphics! This has made companies even more competitive because they are always trying to make the game with the best graphics! One of the most important factors about a game is how immersive it is; photorealistic graphics are a good way to highten this factor because the more realistic a game looks the more the player will believe the game is real.
The term 'photorealism' is used to describe art that has been created to look like an actual photograph. Photorealism is just a developed concept of 'realism'; realism began very early and was made popular during the 1800's in France. However it began much earlier than that; it was crucial that there were always realism artists to paint portraits of royals if not for any other reason. Diego Valázquez was a Spanish painter who worked within King Phillip IV's court during the 1600's. His job was to paint the Spanish royal family and other European figures. The picture to the right shows one of his paintings titled "Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Pink Dress". It's a painting of the Kings daughter and you can tell by looking at it that he was very good at capturing realism in his paintings.
Photorealism itself began to develop during the late 60's from 'pop art'. Richard Estes was considered one of the founders of the photorealism movement; Estes would paint every day places such as diners and public transport but in such a realistic way which caught peoples attention. One of his most famous paintings is titled "Telephone Booths" which features four telephone booths next to eachother (to the left). 
Although paintings are much different to digital graphics they had a massive influence on the design and style of certain games. A recent game that pulled off photorealism very well is L.A. Noire; the game was released in 2011 as an 'action-adventure third-person shooter neo-noir crime' video game. The game is set in Los Angeles during the late 40's and you play as a detective. The game relys heavily on its theme which is the reason why they chose to create photorealistic graphics. Using this technique the developers could more effectively represent the theme and immerse the players. The picture to the right shows a screenshot from the game; you can see why it's graphics have been raved about. When you play the game you feel much more immersed in the game and that you actually are the main character. Like a lot of films and games L.A. Noire has actually based their animated characters on their voice actors; the main character Cole Phelps is played by an actor called Aaron Staton. In the picture to the right you can see a comparrison of them both; creating 3D models this way can be much easier and effective than basing models on people that don't exist. Obviously this technique of working off a photograph worked for the developers of L.A. Noire because the character looks exactly like the actor. 
Skyrim is an 'action role-playing open world' video game set in the fictional province of Skyrim. This game also has a photorealistic graphic design; it is very important to the game that the graphics are interesting because players find themselves travelling large distances going from quest to quest. Epic landscapes are abundant in this game and make the game what it is. Since the game is set in a fictional, 'better' world it is important that they depict this with their graphics. Role-playing games usually do have this particular style because they help immerse the player into the game more and take on the role of their character. However, Skyrim has exaggerated themes about it because obviously this world doesn't exist and includes some outrageous themes. 
Cel Shading
Cel shading is a graphic art style used to make the games graphics look as if they were hand-drawn. This style is used to give the graphics a comic book or cartoon look; it isn't often used in video games but it is usually used when the designers want to give the game a unique or simplistic look. Obviously this style was influenced by traditional comic art; comics such as Wonder Woman use bright colours and thick black lines in order to make the images stand out. Cel shaded games use the same technique in order to create a fun and playful feel. Two of the most popular games to use the cel shading technique is Borderlands and Borderlands 2. The picture to the left is some promotional art for the game; it has all of the playable characters infront of a scene in the game world. You can see by the designs of just the characters and weapons that the game is meant to be outrageous and silly. All of the characters have a unique style and unique traits which can be manipulated within the game. These traits are suggested due to the individual styles of each character and are well represented with the outlandish graphics style.
However, some games appear to just use the cel shading technique because the developers are too lazy to create anything that looks better. Take the game, 'Project Rub' for example; it is only available on the DS which obviously limits the graphics to a certain degree but they don't seem to make much effort at all. The imagery uses block colours and no shading which obviously tells you that the graphics were made easily and quickly. To compare Project Rub's graphics to Borderlands is like comparing Da Vinci's Mona Lisa to a childs finger painting. 
AbstractAbstract is a graphic art style which uses lines and shapes to represent things opposed to photorealism which incorporates real life objects within the game. This style is only really used in puzzle games because other genres can't just use lines and shapes to represent the games assets.
Tetris is one of the most famous games ever and it has an abstract style; the game wouldn't work in any other style than this. The whole point of this game is to fit different shapes together and create a line with no gaps; using any other style to create this game just couldn't be done because the whole point of the game is to use shapes. The screenshot to the right shows how basic the graphics actually are in Tetris; another reason why they will have used an abstract style is because it was simple to create. When Tetris was released in 1984 game developers were limited to the graphics they made so this was a simple way of the creator to make something that looked quite good.
Exaggeration
Exaggeration is a graphic art style that is similar to photorealism but much more exaggerated. It's basically a style that represents things in a much more exciting way using things that aren't real; Japanese game developers are well know for using this style in most of their games.
Take the Final Fantasy series for example; you can see from the picture to the right that the graphics are pretty realistic but the style is completely exaggerated making it look much more exciting. All of the characters are in outlandish costumes and use outlandish weapons. Even the environments are eggarated to make this fictional world look even more exciting! The reason some games use this graphics style is because it allows the player to escape into a different world and experience new things. 
Horror games are the biggest culprit of using an exaggerated graphics style and you can clearly see why. Obviously monsters aren't real in real life so the graphics have to be exaggerated to a certain degree. The picture to the right shows a screen shot from one of the Resident Evil games; this game series probably has the most exaggerated graphics ever! The monsters are completely ridiculous however the other characters and environments are pretty realistic. It is important that games get the right balance because the game world still has to be believable so the player finds themselves immersed into it.
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