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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.
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.
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I am the Tarrant wrote:
> I see what your saying, but you are looking at two extreme examples.
I think its like statistics, if you know how you can make them say what ever you want.
> I see what your saying, but you are looking at two extreme examples.
I think its like statistics, if you know how you can make them say what ever you want.
I think I was talking graphics and physics/ biology originally. Gameplay should not be grounded in "reality" because then we kind of lose the escapism - by reality, I mean it shouldn't mimic our lives (unless you want to play a do naff all, then go to work then sit on internet sim? me neither).
Fair point about the statistics thing, would have been a fine point too, but then evil nit-pickers like myself come along and ruin the whole facade.
Fair point about the statistics thing, would have been a fine point too, but then evil nit-pickers like myself come along and ruin the whole facade.
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