Decrying the Excessive Emulation of Reality In Games 187
An editorial at GameSetWatch makes the case that game developers' relentless drive to make games more real has led to missed opportunities for creating unique fictional universes that are perhaps more interesting than our own. Quoting:
"Remember when the norm for a video game was a blue hedgehog that ran fast and collected rings and emeralds? Or a plumber that took mushrooms to become large, and grabbed a flower to throw fireballs? In reality they do none of those things, but in the name of a game, they make sense, inspire wonder, and create a new universe. ... We’ve seen time and time again that the closer you try to emulate reality, the more the 'game' aspects begin to stick out. Invisible walls in Final Fantasy, or grenades spawning at your feet when you go the wrong way in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 are examples of kicking the player out of that illusion of reality, and letting them know that yes, this is a game, and yes, the rules are designed to keep you in the space of this world, not the real world. In reality, as a soldier I could disobey my orders and go exploring around the other side. I could be cowardly and turn back to base. Games shouldn’t have to plan for every eventuality, of course, but it’s not so hard to create universes that are compelling but where the unusual, or even simple backtracking, is not so unfeasible."
yes, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but creating an alternative appealing universe experience takes imagination, ingenuity, creativity, sometimes requires radical approach to ideas and expects thinking outside of the box.
Doing any of that increases the risk that the outcome will not be popular enough and will not succeed in terms of sales, this is serious business and money we are talking about here, what do you think this is, a game?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
In that same vein, imagination, ingenuity and creativity builds with practice, and exposing ourselves to those venues of thought. If we don't, we become robotic consumers sucking on whatever 'the market' says is the shit, leaving all the creative niceties to those higher beings. No way, everybody can, and should be creative! Too bad the two most universal human traits are fear, and laziness.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Go earn $50M and fund your own game, see how much you value abstract notions of "creativity" then.
Well, I see the trolls are hungry tonight...
Not every game HAS to have super high detailed 3D graphics, a physics system plucked from the altars in heaven and a big shiny display in your local games store. There are a LOT of good games created that are VERY playable, that are VERY enjoyable that are free online or played on a subscription basis.
Why don't you look around at some of the entertainment that isn't on display at your local game store and actually try it? There are VERY few games that are ma
Re:yes, but (Score:4, Informative)
World of Goo is one such game, elegantly simple and more addictive than sugar candies!
Re:yes, but (Score:5, Interesting)
>>>Not every game HAS to have super high detailed 3D graphics, a physics system plucked from the altars
Yes you would think that, but it's not how the average buyer (read: kid, teen, or young adult) thinks. As example I didn't know what to buy my nephews for Christmas, so I just bought a pile of new Xbox and X360 games, and let them pick the 4 games they liked best. I was surprised when they picked the X360 game "Pinata" (or whatever it's called) instead of the Xbox Splinter Cell 2 game. So I asked why they chose the kiddie party game rather than the military game (which is their favorite genre).
"Because Xbox games have poor graphics."
Yep. Already judging games on looks, not fun, and this is why you can't create some 2D or 2.5D game - it will be automatically judged as crap. Personally I would have picked the Splinter Cell game (since I thought the Pinata game was dull), but then I've learned to judge things based upon the personality (fun, challenge, et cetera) not the T&A (polygon or pixel counts).
Aside -
This is why I like Nintendo games, and get a little annoyed when I hear people say "Nintendo consoles are crap". Okay so their consoles are not impressive hardware, but Nintendo still uses their imagination to create fun games. Ditto Sega. FOR ME the less real a game is, the more I enjoy it, because it feels like I've entered another world. Simulations of reality are nice, but how many times can I watch a body blowup and splatter blood all over the place? I think I'm sick of that genre. (Plus it really isn't realistic that you can get shot a dozen times and still be moving. I'd like to see a real FPS where one shot and you're done.)
One hit kill (Score:2)
I'd like to see a real FPS where one shot and you're done.
I'd like to see you get through Contra without a Konami code first.
Re: (Score:2)
to be fair, some FPS mods and multiplayer mods offer 1 shot; 1 kill play...it usually just caters to a small group of players who dig that, but it can be fun. i think Red Orchestra was one to do this early on several years ago as a UT mod. I *loved* it.
Call of Duty:World at War (maybe others?) can have the multiplayer mode set for 1 shot-1 kill, not that there are loads of servers offering that but it exists. I prefer bolt-action only servers which usually operate that way
Re: (Score:2)
>>>1 shot; 1 kill play...
It doesn't even have to be that. It could be 1 shot and you need a medic to patch you up. That's what real war is like. There's no such thing as stumbling-around when you have a bullet in you.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd like to see you get through Contra without a Konami code first.
Seriously? Contra was actually a relatively easy game, even without the cheat code. A halfway decent player should be able to beat the game without dying once, with a little bit of practice.
The 30 lives just made everyone lazy and not careful, so people didn't tend to get good at it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
(Plus it really isn't realistic that you can get shot a dozen times and still be moving. I'd like to see a real FPS where one shot and you're done.)
There have been, and still are, numerous examples. America's Army is the primary one. Many of the terrorist/counterterrorist games and mods also have one-shot kills. In TacOps, a mod for Unreal Tournament (which dates this discussion) if you had no armor and you got shot with almost anything you could die in one shot. Even a pistol hit to the head would kill you if you didn't have a helmet. Two head hits with ANYTHING would kill you even WITH a helmet.
Re: (Score:2)
For kids maybe, I bought world of goo as did many adults. Kids are not the ones with money.
Ghost recon is one shot and you are dead, on PC the console versions dumbed it down.
Re: (Score:2)
5 or 6 years ago we were still impressed with Xbox/Gamecube quality graphics. Nintendo has made a killing with Gamecube 1.5 (Wii) games. You don't need the most expensive and detailed graphics to create a visually appealing game (although you do need good artists).
While I do want some games to continue pushing the visual standards higher, I feel like some failed game concepts would have succeeded if developers had simply dialed down the graphics department budget, settled for "good enough" visuals, and
Re: (Score:2)
>>>Nintendo has made a killing with Gamecube 1.5 (Wii) games.
It also helps that a lot of Americans/Europeans still don't have greater than 480i televisions, so the difference between the Wii and PS3/X360 is not as obvious.
Even those who have high-def TVs often can't see the difference between SD and HD (maybe they have bad eyes).
Re: (Score:2)
If I had $50M I would buy a rocket ship and go to the moon and Mars and take a bunch of Victoria's Secret models with me.
Hey, this is fun!
Re:yes, but (Score:4, Funny)
If I had $50M I would buy a rocket ship and go to the moon and Mars and take a bunch of Victoria's Secret models with me.
Lord British might have something to say about that.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd put the 50 million in the bank, go into semi-retirement (i.e. work because I WANT to work not because I have to), and live off the interest of the 50 million. Any excess money that I did not spend would be used to hand-out free computers and help people get online.
Re: (Score:2)
Anonymous Coward wrote:
>>>>>live off the interest
>>
>>I always figured you were a Rethuglican Jew.
.
President Carter? Is that you? I love Democrats. C'mere and give me a hug you name-calling sweet-talking SOB.
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Hopefully, the remuneration that the games programmers would receive would be encouragement to complete more projects.
You are still underestimating the time and resources needed to produce a professional quality mod:
Story and script. Art design, Level design, Characters, props, and animation. Special effects. Music. Dialog and vocal performance...
It won't be enough to simply re-cycle the existing game assets: putting your American officer in a Nazi uniform and calling it a day.
Any significant departure fro
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, takes a while. Most don't make it. A rare few do. Might I point out T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age [thief2x.com]?
It's a Thief 2 mod, complete with its own story, dialog, textures and models, and even movies.
Still, it's a pretty old game. Does anyone know of a similar effort for anything more recent?
Re:yes, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Team Fortress Classic, Day of Defeat, and as someone pointed out, Counter Strike were originally done on the old HL engine.
The newer Source engine was designed specifically for that, AND to produce lower cost games that might not be as polished as full titles, but worth the lower price (The Ship, Garry's Mod) as well as create interesting free games that are pure mods. Steam has been doing it, AND created a digital delivery system that has effective enough DRM that isn't as draconian as other systems. They get the majority of my gaming dollars because I can install on multiple computers (but play on one at a time), they autoinstall, they are a great value (hello, Orange Box?), and they *do* protect game makers ability to make a profit while still providing a reasonable price to the consumer.
To me, Gabe has found a perfect balance between consumer and provider, and provides lots of free trials, lets you *give* extra games you get when you buy a package that has a game that you already own, etc. Plus I never install a CD to play, never worry about losing or scratching the CD, and they have great sales, from 10% to 75% off on a regular basis. Steam deserves to succeed, and I hope they continue to do so, because they treat the customer just as good as they do the creator of game content. It isn't perfect, but it is evolving, and doing so in a good way.
Re: (Score:2)
They get the majority of my gaming dollars because I can install on multiple computers (but play on one at a time)
Limiting play to one computer at a time wouldn't be such a problem if more PC games had a mode for HTPCs. I don't want to have to buy four copies in case friends or family members visit and want to play.
never worry about losing or scratching the CD
True, but Steam users start to worry about hitting the 5 GB per month transfer cap that's common with satellite in USA, 3G in USA, or anything in Australia or New Zealand.
Re: (Score:2)
Lots of Steam games *are* available as disks you install manually, then you update via steam and never have to insert the CD again. Counter Strike, Orange Box, HL2, etc. all are/were available on plastic wrapped in dead tree. I just bought Bioshock (killer game, particularly for $20), which I could have bought on disk. But granted, for those with limited bandwidth, the platform may not be as advantageous. For the majority of users globally, it is.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with most of what you said apart from that bit.
Prices for new games on Steam are nothing short of a scam. A game that costs the RRP/MSRP on Steam can be had from a store typically for 30% less. For example Batman Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition is 49.99 on Steam, and 32.49 on Play.com - 35% less. Battlefield Bad Company 2 is 49.99 on Steam and 35.49 on Play.com - 30% less.
That's even wi
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Steam does a lot of things right, and Valve in general. In fact, Team Fortress 2 is a very good example of how "good graphics" and "realistic graphics" aren't necessarily the same thing. I don't think I've ever felt a game has earned my money so much as Portal has, Steam is basically DRM done right (as right as DRM can be done), and now they're bringing it all to OSX. I love these guys.
Not to go too off topic, but here's a good interview [youtube.com] with Gabe Newell where he talks about his approach to development,
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The issue with computer gaming today is that it needs a business model
I disagree, what it needs is a complete and utter lack of a business model. It needs people who aren't making games to sell, but making games to play. We need the gaming equivalent of a bar band, whose musicians are talented and creative but have a daytime job to pay the bills, who do it because they love music. We need people who want a game you can't buy.
We need the equivalent of Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning. That was one funny movie!
Re: (Score:2)
The compromise would be for games companies to be more supportive of mod programmers and allow them to sell their mods at low cost whilst taking a cut themselves - maybe even sell third-party mods on their web sites. Hopefully, the remuneration that the games programmers would receive would be encouragement to complete more projects.
Of course, it will never happen in the real world because greedy games companies will see this as extending the shelf-life of games and won't want gamers buying mods instead of new games...
It really depends on the genre you're playing. Strategy games in particular (I'm thinking EU, the Civ series, & the like) have tended to be very modder-friendly. Why? Precisely because it extends the games' shelf life. It makes you love the manufacturer's products and it means a longer tail in sales, all for work that's being done for free from people who really love the game. As for centralizing mod repositories -- this is actually even in consideration for Civ V, with in-game access to Firaxis-ho
Re: (Score:2)
If the companies really focus on a quick profit margin in the first couple of weeks, as another poster has claimed, why do they also want to sell downloadable content? It's not a realistic model to expect to maximize profits everywhere at once. Some area has to be your number one focus - the other options can't all be your primary revenue sources too.
I know there are companies out there that get people to pay for the 'privilege' of displaying their advertising on tee-shirts, but even C
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Doing what everyone else is doing isn't exactly low on risk because you're going up against very strong competition and for most companies that competition will beat them (e.g. releasing your FPS alongside a Modern Warfare game). Very few companies are capable of beating that competition and even then there's the risk that you did something in the process wrong and your big expensive (because you cannot go against that competition on a limited budget) game flops. Doing what nobody else is doing is actually
Re: (Score:2)
Besides, if i wanted to play reality, i'd go outside.
Re: (Score:2)
Going to jail for doing a Grand Theft Auto is kind of a letdown, is it?
In fact, you go to jail for simply driving too fast.
There's only one thing you can do outside that's really lightyears above the its simulated or filmed equivalent. And you still need to wear a rubber, though.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
need more and better RPG elements in games imo
This is a rising trend, though. More and more games are coming out with different types of "leveling systems." Borderlands is a prime example of this misplacement of RPG elements. If you've played it, you know that what you put your points into is fairly arbitrary, and has little to no bearing on how effective your character is.
This is the problem. We all wanted an RPG FPS like Deus Ex, but no company wanted to put the time or effort into making the RPG element meaningful. Now we have a ton of crummy games
Re: (Score:2)
So what was it that you thought made Deus Ex shine where Fallout 3 failed? I think they were both excellent games. Deus Ex is probably the better game for its time, but I'd put that down to the depth of the story and the det
Re: (Score:2)
>>>Borderlands
I got bored with that game after about half a day. It seemed like a cool concept but it's missing... something. Maybe I just got tired of the repetitive battles and lack of any compelling story to make me push forward.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting, I really liked Borderlands, liked it enough to finish it alone, then finish it with a friend in coop. Probably has something to do with guns that set enemies on fire and my characters ability to make that fire hurt more...
Re: (Score:2)
Well, Mass Effect tried to do an RPG/FPS hybrid, but they ended up with higher review scores and better sales with ME2, which stepped back on the RPG elements.
Also I think Fallout 3 was very close to getting it right. The problem is it wasn't hard enough even at the hardest difficulty levels (difficulty that would force you to fall back on your specialties), and the control scheme was made for consoles.
Actually now that I think about it the gameplay was dumbed down for console users. Bah.
Re: (Score:2)
Fallout 3's problems have nothing to do with the leveling system, which in turn is not inherent to RPG games. Fallout 3's problem is simply that the computer is unable to simulate social dynamics or a personality, so every ac
Re: (Score:2)
Dwarf Fortress?
The graphics are 70's dumb terminal, but you can destroy the world with lava and create water powered turing machines from trap doors, pumps, and pressure plates.
Do watch out if one of your dwarves light a fire on an iceberg, you might melt down to the ocean.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>>>'Fictional Physics' of the old retro games or games from the Atari and Amiga era are still more playable to me than allot of the newer games coming out
>>>
Agreed. This is why I got my hands on an old Commodore=64. I can't do any useful work with it anymore (well except word processing), but it makes a great game console. 5000+ games and I've barely scratched the surface. The Super Nintendo and PS1 also had a lot of good 2D-based games.
It seems lately the old "modern" games I still en
Re: (Score:2)
Desert Bus (Score:2, Funny)
The perfect model of this concept is the game Desert Bus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Bus#Desert_Bus). The wikipedia article doesn't focus on it much, but my impression was that the point of this game was to illustrate how realism and fun are not always aligned.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Bullshit.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly.
From the opinion-piece-pulled-out-of-ass dept. (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhm, what? The article summary starts with "too realistic" then suddenly turns to "not realistic enough" in terms of open-world gameplay. I dont really get the point, if there is one.
Im pretty happy not every game is a sandbox game, which mostly try to do everything but do everything mediocre (GTA, Oblivion etc).
BTW, nothing in doom kept me from staying cowardly in the first room of e1m1, not moving, shivering.
All with real world consequences if i choose so (boredom and starvation).
Re:From the opinion-piece-pulled-out-of-ass dept. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is suspension of belief in "not realistic" allows for much more liberties about player's freedom than in "too realistic". If you know falling through the bottom of the level kills you in Mario, you're okay with it. Don't cross the bottom line of the screen, fine. If you make an awesome swing on grappling hook in Nexuiz and the invisible "bottom of the world" kills you mid-swing, you get angry.
Re:From the opinion-piece-pulled-out-of-ass dept. (Score:5, Insightful)
Being able to move forward but not back doesn't really bother us in Super Mario Brothers, but not being able to retreat in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 seems like an extremely artificial restriction in the context of a (somewhat) realistic game. (Disclaimer, I've never played CoD:MW2, I'm just inferring from the summary.)
Re: (Score:2)
Here's another related Wikipedia article that people might find interesting, suspension of disbelief [wikipedia.org].
It's actually extremely hard. (Score:2)
It's actually extremely hard to create such universes. No one has ever made one, as we speak. Not only there are hardware limitations (for example, a HL2 level takes almost all of 1 GB), but there are also software limitations. In order, for example, to have a successful "return-back-to-base" scenario, the programmers should encode a yet unseen AI into the program that turns the game into a war drama, instead of a fighting game.
Re: (Score:2)
It's actually extremely hard to create such universes. No one has ever made one, as we speak. Not only there are hardware limitations (for example, a HL2 level takes almost all of 1 GB), but there are also software limitations.
I just came here after playing some Morrowind. That takes a lot less than 1 GB. Even heavily modded to make it look visually stunning it takes less than 1 GB.
Now, sure, there are serious immersion-breaking AI limitations, gameplay irritations, it's got olde-style graphics, and the art design isn't to everyone's taste. But I still find it a hell of a lot more immersive than any game published since that I can think of. No invisible walls; no unopenable doors; no unkillable NPCs; lethal parts of the world are
Re: (Score:2)
I just came here after playing some Morrowind. That takes a lot less than 1 GB. Even heavily modded to make it look visually stunning it takes less than 1 GB.
Good to know I'm not the only one still playing that. Sure it has its limitations -- some of them down to technology that's 10 years old, some down to design issues -- but it's still the most immersive game I know, and the benchmark that other games should be trying to beat. Unfortunately, I don't think anybody know how they did it -- at least Bethesda seem not to, because Oblivion had better graphics but worse gameplay, and if it were quality of graphics I wanted then as somebody else pointed out I could w
Re: (Score:2)
Hard, yes, but not impossible. STALKER achieves most of this as an open-world shooter. You are free to turn back to base at any time. Hell, you are free to give it all up and just sell vodka to mercenaries, if that floats your boat. Sure, there are still "game" limitations, but relatively few of them compared to any invisible-path or rail shooter like CoD.
It's a difficult game for the same reasons that it's a challenging open-world game. You could be jumped by various things at any time, and you often
MW2 realism is a joke... (Score:4, Insightful)
Silly me, I actually got MW2 thinking it would be a realistic tactical shooter. I was deeply disappointed (especially since MW1 touched on it quite nicely). Dual-wielding sawn-off shotguns, firing grenades at a conflict area having only your team mates survive and the structures intact, submachineguns accurate to over a mile....It is more like a Die Hard film (where I am a bad guy..). And i got the game for PC, so I can't even trade it in.
I love playing Bad Company 2. Although I struggle with it, I find it much more enjoyable. Graphics are decent (but not dazzling, I admit) but the sound is incredible; gunfire changes pitch/tone when heard from further away, the crack and hiss of a sniper shot that just missed your head...I actually get startled, my blood pumps, adrenaline rushes! The game is not without its faults, I have used a high powered sniper rifle and hit an opponent three times without going down (though this may be related to lag). Still, for those after realism, a much better game.
Re: (Score:2)
submachineguns accurate to over a mile
The P90's maximum effective range is 5905 ft. Modern submachine guns in "long"-barreled versions can hit a target at a mile. Now you know.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop quoting numbers from games and wikipedia. Learn about ballistics, and go to the range.
That last part is a good idea. I have about 200 rounds I can afford to put through my Peruvian Mauser.
"Start Over" is unrealistic (Score:3, Insightful)
But when I want realistic online warfare, I want just that, realism.
Like having to learn to walk? Or being killed in one hit and never being able to play again? Or being injured and ending up in a hospital for weeks or months, also unable to play? Technically, even "Start Over" is unrealistic.
Acceptable breaks from reality (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
You want realism and you're playing on Arcade mode servers? Switch to hardcore mode, and turn off all the HUD junk.
The problem is everyone's opinion of 'realism' is different.. or rather, everyone's opinion of how to implement realism is.
exception... (closest?) (Score:2, Interesting)
Deus Ex
Re:exception... (closest?) (Score:5, Interesting)
Frankly I tend to play medieval fantasy type games more because you have more of an excuse ("It's magic!"), but having said that I do kind of wish that DE's "Realistic" setting had gone for something more like "If you're shot, it will kill you". As opposed to... well, if you know what you're doing, you can blow yourself up just before the mission ends and start the next one as just a head with no limbs or body.
I HATE invisible walls (Score:4, Interesting)
There are few more immersion-shattering elements.
So I plan: "This will be the right sniping spot. I will have them all right on the plate, and covered on their escape route too. The approach is covered, and the location provides decent cover behind these rocks. This should be easy then." Then - bump - invisible wall, border of the world. And I'm stuck with hopeless frontal attack which I barely survive.
Recently, I began playing Planeshift and learned how to find the perfect spots for mining. Unfortunately some of them are just past the invisible wall, leaving only crumbles for the poor in the open area.
Re: (Score:2)
Real men do it with a crowbar.
Old discussion (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it my line now? (Score:2, Interesting)
As game maker, I completely agree.
Gamisms are a good thing while reality is usually a burden. Of course it has its place in simulators, and mild levels of realism can be interesting (for example in robots, which I like to articulate in intricate forms), but videogames...they allow us to throw wild levels of nonsense and make them work. Gamisms allow our character to take a fireball to the face or defying death with credits, blessings or potions. It's convenient unless you aim to do a faithful simulation of
Re:Is it my line now? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get people sometimes.
Take the game I worked on a little while back: "Vin Diesel: Wheelman". It wasn't a realistic game, it was a game designed like an action driving movie. Driving at impossible speed through a city, impossible jumps, impossible side-swipes, impossible cornering, cars exploding from being shot by a pistol, jumping out of a moving car, into another moving car, the works.
And it gets points deducted in reviews for not being realistic enough. I can understand if they didn't like it, but at least complain about something it was trying to be.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, TFA reminds me of a discussion I've had more than once with a friend of mine. Whenever he and I disagree on whether something is good in a game (example: CoD 4's hardcore mode), he'll usually defend it on the basis of "it's more realistic". My point to him, every time, is so what? It's not fun, and the goal isn't to be realistic, it's to be fun.
It would be extremely realistic if the game destroyed itself the first time you died, but people would be furious. No one actually wants a realistic game, alth
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that it's a matter of opinion, my point to my friend (and I suppose, in my post above as well) is that if we consider "realism" the goal (as my friend does), we miss the mark. We need to consider "fun" the goal, and then decide how best to accomplish it, which may or may not be realism.
Realism can indeed lead to fun for many people, but what I find is that a lot of people will confuse realism as the goal, rather than a means to the goal. When you restrict your thinking in that way, you close off who
Re: (Score:2)
It's not just imagination, though: it also requires some degree of scientific knowledge to make your imagination believable enough.
That's the difference, for instance, between Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Final Fantasy VIII in spite of both being equally fictional: once you make a few concessions the SMAC world is relatively coherent and believable, whereas few over the age of 12 can play FF8 without asking why, in a world with modern weaponry such as sniper rifles and gatling guns, your character is a mo
in fact... (Score:2)
In reality, as a soldier I could disobey my orders and go exploring around the other side. I could be cowardly and turn back to base.
In fact, I can even start shooting my own teammates when they aren't looking just for fun!
Two Stories... (Score:4, Informative)
...posted two stories after the headline "Haptic Gaming Vest Simulates Punches, Shots, Stabbing". That's just funny. -Chris
Kids love the lack of reality... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kids love the lack of reality... (Score:4, Insightful)
The kid is exactly right. I can go outside to get reality, what I want in a game is just enough realism to help my suspension of disbelief, but no more. If I found the reality fun, I'd be doing that, so I would never want a perfect emulation of reality in my game. I refused to play hardcore mode in CoD 4, because it simply sucked all the fun out of the game when you would instantly die and have no way of knowing where you got shot from.
Oh, and for the record, it isn't "kids" that want a lack of realism. I'm 25, so while I couldn't be called old, I'm certainly not a kid any more either. In fact, until your post, I would've guessed that it was only kids that wanted such "realism" (quote marks used because even "realistic games" usually aren't realistic, including MW1 and 2), but that apparently isn't true either. I suppose it's foolish to try to draw age boundaries, people like what they like.
Re: (Score:2)
So, I don't like what you like, and that's because I suck at first person shooters and should go back to $other_game. Yes, that certainly is a mature, carefully-considered response.
And I wasn't "stuck" on a point about being a kid, I was simply trying to point out how your assumption about age is wrong, and musing that my assumption about age was wrong as well. In other words, I was trying to have a discussion.
A city o two minds. (Score:2)
The key here is why Second Life is popular for journalist. How is that? is a very minor game, played by few people, that hype his number of accounts to pretend is big, still it get frontpage news often. Why is that? Is not that journalist are stupid, is that theres a type of people where the virtual reality is much more atractive than something abstract. The abstract shotter mean *nothing* to these people. A game played by 80 millions is ignored, by one played by 120.000 becuase the first one is abstra
Emulating Reality (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem there is that mind-blowingly beautiful is insanely expensive, and will probably remain so for quite some time. This means that money frequently trumps creativity.
When reality gets in the way of fun (Score:2)
the blue hedgehog is a CGA relic
There were odd-colored cartoon animals [wikipedia.org] long before video games were invented. Sonic games wouldn't have been as fun if Sonic looked and acted like a real hedgehog [wikipedia.org]
Categorization fault - not 'games', FPS games (Score:2)
what is the guy complaining of afflicts fpses. in other gaming genres the opposite is true. extreme representation and simplification is done. like, in strategy games, for example medieval total war, a whole country, france, can be a single 'province', and you can attack and get all of iberia as a 'province', and then build 10 ships and go sail to levant and conquer jerusalem, syria, in one move. a lot of things are represented with 'points' and percentage modifiers rather than having any mechanic for them.
Bioware and Rockstar (Score:3, Insightful)
GTA4: Liberty City is insanely big, open world, no invisible borders, and fairly realistic physics, except that you--and to a lesser degree other characters--can take a slightly higher beating than in real life and survive. This is the closest you can get to "real", until Red Dead Redemption comes out.
Bioware, Mass Effect 1/2: gold standard for RPGs. Runner up: Dragon Age. Your actions shape the story outcome, responses, and so on. Leveling shapes the nature and tone of your character in play and combat.
Re: (Score:2)
GTA4: Liberty City is insanely big, open world, no invisible borders, ...
Not quite, GTA4 lacks persistence. Vehicles might disappear when you look into the other direction and missions are completly inaccessible unless triggered by a cutscene. Its kind of a bummer when you shall kill some thugs, but you can't shot them from a distance, as they are not even there unless you get close enough and the script triggers inserts them into the gaming world. The GTA-kind of open world games are really just simple linear games that share the same huge level for each mission, but between mi
Er... (Score:2)
Remember when the norm for a video game was a blue hedgehog that ran fast and collected rings and emeralds?
And now we have sexy blue Asari commandos quickly kicking ass and collecting names.
Personally, I'd call that an improvement, but each to his own.
My last five "big" games were Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed 2, Bioshock 2, Demon's Souls and Final Fantasy 13, so I'm not real clear on the whole "games are too realistic" concept. Dozens of alien races, 15th century Italy, a dying undersea city, a demon haunted world and cell powered Final Fantasy psychedelia- yeah, I can just walk out my door and see all that.
M
How real is real enough? (Score:2)
Do you want to be able to get forensic on the results of a sniper shot ("Look! Sinuses!")? Does having a car's brake discs glow red under heav
Re:Play ARMA2 instead (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. The thing to realize is that almost no game these days tries to emulate reality, instead they all emulate what one could call movie-reality or hyper-reality or whatever, i.e. that kind of reality where cars explode when you shot a few bullets and interesting things only happen when the game designer tells them to.
Games that actually try to emulate real reality, i.e. simulations, basically just get better for it, as a large part of emulating reality is the removal of artificial restrictions. Take flightsims for example or Operation Flashpoint/ARMA, those games don't have invisible walls, you can literally go into any direction for an hour and not see an end. What makes those games great is that all the interesting stuff that happens, happens due to the game mechanics, not duo to fake scripting events.
That said, I don't mind the Mario64 or Katamari style game, quite the opposite, but the thing that makes those games so great isn't just that its a colorful comic world, but also that they, just like a hard core sim, lack the artificial scripting madness that has invested so many of todays games, instead the games provide you with some core gameplay mechanics and everything that follows is basically a result of those. Its the player that plays those games and not the game designer that is playing the player.
Abstraction and Epiphenomena (Score:2, Interesting)
...they, just like a hard core sim, lack the artificial scripting madness that has invested so many of todays games, instead the games provide you with some core gameplay mechanics and everything that follows is basically a result of those.
You're on to something. At risk of seeming old, I was always fond of the abstract or nearly-abstract games of the early 1980s— Qix [wikipedia.org] or Tempest [wikipedia.org]. Even in games like the original Centipede or Pac-man which purported to represent something vaguely physical, a lot of the excitement and interest was epiphenomenal to the game mechanics and was unknown at the time of design. Game businesses probably don't pursue such things so heavily because of the difficulty in predicting the level of interest.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Exactly. The thing to realize is that almost no game these days tries to emulate reality, instead they all emulate what one could call movie-reality or hyper-reality or whatever.
Hey, I've just designed a new race game that does emulate reality. When you crash a 10lb lump hammer is fired at your chest from the console to emulate hitting the steering column.
Re: (Score:2)
You could include one of these [slashdot.org] with it.
Re: (Score:2)
ArmA is no more realistic than Modern Warfare 2. The only difference is that where MW2 went for hollywood-reality through "cinematic" special effects ArmA went for armchair-reality through deliberate obfuscation.
It's not any more realistic to make the player's avatar an incompetent cripple with no sense of proprioception and no representation of things you'd obviously know in reality than it is to tell them exactly how many more times they can get shot before dying and how many bullets are left in the curre
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, it's not limited to MW2. There are a ton of Smash Bros players who insist on playing with items off, on a flat stage with nothing happening. In other words, taking out all the interesting parts of the game to promote "skill". Well, you know what? True skill is the ability to win the game that actually exists, not the game you wish existed (and try to create through your arbitrary restrictions).
I haven't played MW2 (and won't until they stop charging $60 for the PC version), but I was kind of
Or play Roulette (Score:2)
Well, you know what? True skill is the ability to win the game that actually exists
How skilled are you at the game of Roulette [wikipedia.org]? Because that's what items turn a fighting game into. When the championship is decided by whether powerful items spawn next to you or next to your opponent, you see why tournament players turn off the game-breaking [tvtropes.org] items.
Re: (Score:2)
Then play a game which doesn't have those things. Otherwise, you're having an event which supposedly tests your skill at Smash Bros, but you aren't actually playing Smash Bros.
I also disagree that items turn Smash Bros into roulette. They're simply another factor to contend with, and you can overcome unfavorable item distribution with skillful play.
Re: (Score:2)
you can overcome unfavorable item distribution with skillful play.
Not when the item is Smash Ball, and some characters' Final Smashes are overpowered. As "Brawl Taunts" put it, "I'm too cheap!"
you can overcome unfavorable item distribution with skillful play.
Beat a tournament-level player while allowing the other player to get all the items, including all the Starman and Smash Ball power-ups, and I'll believe you. It's not like Tetris, where since 2001, all players are guaranteed to get an even distribution of pieces over the short run [pineight.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Poker is also a game where your hand depends on luck, yet other people manage to consistently win more than they lose, while others are those who supply those wins.
No championship should be decided by a single game. Even if chance plays no part in the game itself, even the most skilled people sometimes make dumb mistakes; "Know you not that even the very doughtiest of the doughty may run afoul of a day most bad?"
In other words, simply have an even and greater than one number of rounds, and the one who win
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep, I hate when games restrict your environment. Operation Flashpoint possibly still ranks as my favourite game experience ever. I started playing Just Cause 2 yesterday and it's amazing too, you can go anywhere, and while you can't do all the same things you can do in say GTA: San Andreas, you have some even cooler stuff like a grappling hook and an infinite amount of paragliders, which you can use together as a very unique mode of transport.. there are a lot of realistic elements to the game, but it is c
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it's wxtremely immersive. I felt like I was right there.
Re: (Score:2)