Showing posts with label realism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label realism. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Mass Effect, More Realistic than Call of Duty?

Now you may be asking, how is a game about aliens, ancient evil robots quadruple the size of the Titanic, and spaceships more realistic than a modern-day war shooter set firmly in our level of reality? Well, to answer that, one must look into how we as gamers define realism.

Do we simply refer to realism as making the game look as photo-realistic as possible, à la Crysis? Or maybe you define realism by gameplay that faithfully represents the laws of reality with no hint of supernatural elements, like the current Call of Duty games or the Uncharted series. I keep hearing that people want games to be more realistic, and the vibe I get from this rallying call is that this statement basically means "less Ratchet and Clank, more Heavy Rain," and if that's the case... I hope that never fucking happens. Ever.

Since simple visual photo-realism is simple enough to understand, let's focus instead on physical realism in games. People who want these types of realistic games want things to react just as they would in real life. This not only extends to certain materials acting as they should, whether it be wood breaking or metal bending as it should, like in The Force Unleashed, but it also means that the human character you play as must feel human. Their abilities must be based in our current reality, so no superpowers or futuristic tech that doesn't exist in our world. I don't know about you, but to me, that sounds boring as hell.

I'm not saying realistic games are bad... well, not completely... but if you look at it, their attempts at realism push them further away from the goal. The more things they do to make the games seem more realistic, the more noticeable it is when they overlook something. Take Uncharted 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for examples. Both games go to lengths to make themselves more realistic. They both sport art styles firmly within the boundaries of real life with no artistic deviations, neither one lets you do anything supernatural like shoot fireballs from your eyes, use biotics or fly with the power of dreams, and both games are set on our quaint little planet Earth complete with real-life locations such as Moscow and Washington D.C.

And yet, they are both completely unrealistic.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Why So Serious?

Why So Serious?

Why the fuck are games so serious now? Back in the day, games were made to be fun. Now, a lot of the time, it seems to be that games are made to approximate the experience you get in a Hollywood blockbuster or whatever. They have to have all of the elements in place that make a big, immersive, “realistic” experience, and while that can be, and often is, great, and effective.....CHILL THE FUCK OUT A BIT! Sometimes I hear the word “realistic” in an interview or read it in a press release and I inwardly groan, because in my view, this often time comes at the expense of fun.

Think about it: “Realistic” means no cheats. No new game+. The restrictions imposed by the rules of physics and such. You know, sometimes it would be nice to be able to jump 30 feet high, turn on no gravity, big heads, paintball mode, infinite ammo, and other cheats, start a game with an overpowered character, and just HAVE FUN. No story, no drama, no rules, no realism. Just quirky, chaotic, crazy fun.

Like the old days.

And yes, I know these games still exist, but you must admit the balance has certainly shifted towards the serious and “realistic.” Take the FPS genre for example. I'm bored as shit with FPS games, and perhaps this realism thing is a part of it (perhaps, I'm not saying it is for sure, and it certainly wouldn't be all of it!). Every shooter seems to be a military shooter with real weapons. How about some crazy jumping, get those reflexes ready, twitch based craziness with completely over the top weapons and abilities? Let's get crazy!

Look at Earth Defence Force 2017: The game looks like shit, sounds like shit, has terrible dialogue, terrible cutscenes, a poor story, broken fucking vehicle control, ridiculous, over the top....well, everything, and it's a FUCKING BLAST!!! It reminds of me of old school games. You start shooting and you don't stop shooting until every last gigantic spider and gigantic, acid shooting out of their asses ant is dead. You use a huge variety of all sorts of fun weaponry, half of which are ridiculously unrealistic, and, get this: the gigantic space alien bugs that you fight drop weapon, armour and health pickups that are represented by a terrible looking 2D icon. I LOVE THAT! Just adds to the old school game/'B' movie vibe.

Realism can be great. Some games are so incredibly immersive because of their realistic and serious tone, but it can get really fucking redundant when they all start being made in a similar vein. Crazy jumps, wonky physics, out of control situations, over the top dialogue, jokes galore, etc. Games are supposed to be fun. I often wish the focus would be more on fun than it is on making the game 'AAA' and shipping 5 million units because the kids got to feel like they were a U.S. Marine for 8 hours.....or at least think they felt like one (they have no idea....and neither do I, but I know a game certainly doesn't approximate the experience). That's the thing, a game will always be a game, so maybe they should keep that in mind.

But maybe it's just me.