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"A previously unforseen downside to realism in games...."

I should take a quick pause to say that by "unforseen", I meant unforseen by me. I am not speaking for you all.

You'll all no doubt be aware of the next generation consoles push for graphical and behavioural realism in forthcoming games and I must say that, up until this morning, I was all for it. Now before you get scared, this isn't another of those "bring quirkyness back to gaming" topics, instead I'm think what affect "realism" might actually have on games and the market they'd be suitable for.

We've all whooped at the graphical supremacy and realistic handling in GT3. More so at the graphical and interactive realism of the MGS2 demo. Well, this got the cogs in my brain a turning and I started thinking "what is the ultimate goal here?". It seems to me that both fans of gaming and games developers are wanting the same thing. Games that imitate life. This doesn't mean that we all want to play "Eastenders" or any of those other things on TV that "mimic life". What we want is for the characters and their movements, actions and reactions to convincingly portray human (or whatever) movements. But its not just this either. GT3 convincingly portrayed cars and their movements. Where we happy? Well not far off, but it didn't take long for complaints to come;
"When your car crashes, it doesn't suffer any damage. You call this realistic? Pah!"

And its a fair point. I know there were reasons beyond Polyphony's control for this, but even I was still left thinking; "Its a ashame".

Well, if this is the ultimate agenda, then surely a lot of games are going end up being for "older audiences" only.
What the devil am I talking about? I hear you inquire.
Ask your self this. You're hurtling along on a realistic race track in a shiny CG car and... oops, you lose control and wrap round a near-by (probably still badly drawn) CG tree. Well, in "the real world" when this happens, yes your car smashes. Easy enough to put into a game. Oh, but thats not all that happens, quite often drivers are minced inside, blood fills the windscreen, the car explodes, charred limbs fly out onto the race track, etc. BLING BLING your game now carries an 18 certificate.

Ok, thats an extreme case. But you get the idea. What got me thinking like this was asseeing a preview for "Kengo 2" in OPSM2. I thought "Hmm I quite like that whole Bushido blade type genre, realistic gameplay with its no energy bar formula"... then I started wondering about the "realism" of the game and thinking that as in Bushido blade your characters will probably carry injuries and fight on, I wondered if you'd be able to see these injuries.... suddenly my minds eye witnesses a horrendous CG image of one man in Kengo 2, slicing open the belly of another man and man 2's guts spilling out all over the screen.

Come now, is this really what we want from gaming? Ok, some of you probably do. But ultimately most games involve putting your characters (and many others characters) lives in danger, the more graphic this gets, the smaller the audience for the game gets. This could eventually result in the death of gaming (or at least a descent back into the realms of "geekyness" that its only just escaped, only this time with an added "snuff" quality. Yipes!)

Realism bad.

I should take a quick pause to say that by "unforseen", I meant unforseen by me. I am not speaking for you all.

You'll all no doubt be aware of the next generation consoles push for graphical and behavioural realism in forthcoming games and I must say that, up until this morning, I was all for it. Now before you get scared, this isn't another of those "bring quirkyness back to gaming" topics, instead I'm think what affect "realism" might actually have on games and the market they'd be suitable for.

We've all whooped at the graphical supremacy and realistic handling in GT3. More so at the graphical and interactive realism of the MGS2 demo. Well, this got the cogs in my brain a turning and I started thinking "what is the ultimate goal here?". It seems to me that both fans of gaming and games developers are wanting the same thing. Games that imitate life. This doesn't mean that we all want to play "Eastenders" or any of those other things on TV that "mimic life". What we want is for the characters and their movements, actions and reactions to convincingly portray human (or whatever) movements. But its not just this either. GT3 convincingly portrayed cars and their movements. Where we happy? Well not far off, but it didn't take long for complaints to come;
"When your car crashes, it doesn't suffer any damage. You call this realistic? Pah!"

And its a fair point. I know there were reasons beyond Polyphony's control for this, but even I was still left thinking; "Its a ashame".

Well, if this is the ultimate agenda, then surely a lot of games are going end up being for "older audiences" only.
What the devil am I talking about? I hear you inquire.
Ask your self this. You're hurtling along on a realistic race track in a shiny CG car and... oops, you lose control and wrap round a near-by (probably still badly drawn) CG tree. Well, in "the real world" when this happens, yes your car smashes. Easy enough to put into a game. Oh, but thats not all that happens, quite often drivers are minced inside, blood fills the windscreen, the car explodes, charred limbs fly out onto the race track, etc. BLING BLING your game now carries an 18 certificate.

Ok, thats an extreme case. But you get the idea. What got me thinking like this was asseeing a preview for "Kengo 2" in OPSM2. I thought "Hmm I quite like that whole Bushido blade type genre, realistic gameplay with its no energy bar formula"... then I started wondering about the "realism" of the game and thinking that as in Bushido blade your characters will probably carry injuries and fight on, I wondered if you'd be able to see these injuries.... suddenly my minds eye witnesses a horrendous CG image of one man in Kengo 2, slicing open the belly of another man and man 2's guts spilling out all over the screen.

Come now, is this really what we want from gaming? Ok, some of you probably do. But ultimately most games involve putting your characters (and many others characters) lives in danger, the more graphic this gets, the smaller the audience for the game gets. This could eventually result in the death of gaming (or at least a descent back into the realms of "geekyness" that its only just escaped, only this time with an added "snuff" quality. Yipes!)

Realism bad.

I think that maybe you're taking the meaning of 'realism' a bit too far. I agree with your sentiments towards the beginning of your post; realism in regard to mimicing human locomotion and behaviour. However, a bit later, you seem to get yourself into a lather over images of burnt corpses, in an attempt to inject the ultimate realism. Let's take a step back for a sec. In an ultimately realistic game, you wouldn't wrap your car around a lampost, as most of us would be driving mediocre or worse cars (I drive a rusty bottom of the range Escort). We'd be too scared to drive like a loon in case the police caught us, or we wrapped said car around aforementioned tree.

You see, the point of games is not to mimic real situations, but to weave beliveable, but fantastic stories based in outlandish situations THAT WE CAN IDENTIFY WITH. (sorry, didn't mean to shout, just tryint to empahsise the last bit). Take Red Faction. Realism? My a**e. You're on Mars. Not very real for one. However, the structure and rules of the gameworld are the realistic bit. We understand how the characters move, and behave, and it makes perfect sense that if you shoot a rickerty piece of scenery with a rocket, it will be vaporised. However, you'll note there's a huge number of logical inconsistancies, or unreal-bits. You swim vertically, not horizontally like most ordinary people. Someone injects you with something, and all of a sudden, you're healthier. The very concept of character 'health' is completely unreal anyway. It's just a means to an end for the game, a way of accomplishing a game mechanic.

The realism you speak of should be beneath the surface of the game, most of the time where you don't notice it immediately. The realism of GT is not that you see your own brains on the windscreen when you stack it into a corner, but that the handling of the car 'feels right'.

There's an excellant book that deals with this subject, and many other game related things. Makes for an interesting read. Trigger Happy by Stephen Poole. Give it a whirl....

I wasn't talking about ultimate realism, as you call it, hence the "we don't want to play games that mimic life" bit that you seem to have missed.

Also, I was talking about GT3 esque games when I mentioned crashing your car into a tree. I didn't mean a life simulator in which you may go joy riding.

Yes, we don't all do it. But it does happen, for it to be included in a game (charred limbs 'n all) the certification would have to be upped.

You seem to have taken my post a little wrong and and questioned statements I have not made.

So you're saying you like realism but not up to the point that it's too real? Like say on Goldeneye (I don't know about this Kengo 2 see) when you shoot someone you want them to jold their arm or whatever it is you hit but you don't want them to start swearing or to see his chestal cavity ripped open displaying his insides, if so then I agree.

You should get a Nintendo then mate :-)

Gaming is supposed to be our escape from reality.

All I'm saying is that, IF games become more and more real, they'll cut out some of the market.

And no, personally, I wouldn't want to see someones chest cavity ripped open and watch there immaculately presented CG innards fall to the floor. Swearing when you shoot there limbs is fine, but still cuts out the youngsters.

At least you seem to have a vague understanding of what I've written. :-)

i would hate it if the energy bar goes away and you dies first shot.

i'm 18 anyway so if all this guts and chest cavity being displayed on the screen does happen it won't affect me cause i'll be able to buy what i want. ahhh censorships great innit?

*Bangs head on table*

That does it! I shall take my topic elsewhere!

Hmm... Bolivia perhaps?

Now if i read correctly, i think what you were saying was that the more realistic games get the less there audience may become.

I have to disagree though, i feel that the amount of players will grow and grow, and this is because they are starting to play something that resembles a part of life. Ok, sports games may be one of the most obvious, the better the AI comes and the better the graphics become the more realistic the look and feel will become. This will attract many people as they may never get to get an expereince of certain aspects of the real game.

As you though enter more, different subjects such as death, true, with the power of the new consoles these would become more graphic and show much detail that some may find offensive and obviosly not meant to be seen by certain ages. But rather than these groups of people leaving the games industry, i think they will just choose not to buy the game in question. Thats what i do, im not interested in strategy games, so i dont by them, but that does not make me leave the industry, i just stick to what i like. In this case its a different subject, but if you dont like the gore, you dont buy that game. Therefor instead of loosing people, we gain more as the ones into the gore will be attracted.

In all, it depends on how you look at it.

I am the Tarrant wrote:
> *Bangs head on table*

That does it! I shall take my topic
> elsewhere!

Hmm... Bolivia perhaps?

LOL, i know what you mean.