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Do we really want realistic games?
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You might think I'm about to spend a year talking about graphics, yet again, but in this instance, I'm not.
Think about most game's gameplay. Generally speaking, it is not completely, if at all, accurate. When we play a racing game, we know that, in real life, if a car goes that far away from the road, or is damaged too much, it will be fixed or retired.
Yet, in most games, we are allowed to continue, until the car generally explodes in the middle of the track.
In the Final Fantasy series, often acclaimed for it's "realistic" pre-rendered backdrops, when a battle comes along, the enemy very politely says, "I'm here. Come and fight me. But don't worry, I'll let you pause the game for as long as you like, and I won't do anything while you're killing me. I'll wait my turn, and I won't try to stop you doing whatever you like to me. Isn't this realistic?" ;-)
Again, I have played several adventure games where you are unable to do something at present. For example, it is raining, so you cannot use the boat. Or something is broken. Or the city has been destroyed by a madman with a rather vicious pet, conviniently called something verocious and scary sounding.
Despite the fact that, in my world at least, it does stop raining (I know, it's hard to believe), broken things do get fixed eventually (but not if I have anything to do with fixing them ;-) ), and cities slowly get rebuilt, if Tony Blair is feeling very generous.
However, in these games, despite the many people standing around and hitting the building with a hammer, there isn't any progress made. (I'm surprised they don't just do more damage)
In Monkey Island 4, very near to the end of the game, you have to climb a ladder and flick a switch, before the pirating world is destroyed by a rather odd looking thing, called an "Ultimate Insult".
Yet again, you can wait as long as you like before doing this, and it has no adverse effect on the game.
So why do games developers make such obvious and, surely detrimental "mistakes" when writing a game?
The answer, of course, is that, if it was realistic, it would be the most boring game in the world.
Can you imagine what it would be like if, in order to do something new in the game, you had to merely wait, and wait, and wait, for something to happen? Answer : It would be boring, and you'd go off and play something else.
RTS games, despite being dubbed "Real-time", aren't playing in "real-real-time" at all. We don't wait six months for a bunch of guys with mallets to build a factory.
In racing games, the reason cars are allowed to keep going, is because it's fun. Generally speaking, the thing that makes the sport interesting for competitors, is the thrill of actually being there, and going around a track at ridiculously high speeds.
Since that can't happen in games, the game has to be interesting in another way, and so an unrealistic engine is the way to do this.
Some games HAVE tried to be "realistic". And guess what? They (generally), end up being the most boring and uninspiring games around. They are also often far too hard.
It seems as though any attempt at real, real realism, is just going to lose any fun that exists in a game.
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I was recently in a local games store, and a pair of adults nearby, while letting their (presumably) son buy something, picked up a copy of "Black and White".
I was nearby, and I heard the phrase, "That's not very realistic, is it?"
Since I thought that B&W had some of the best graphics around, I wondered what they were talking about, and moved closer.
"In REAL life, you wouldn't be a god, would you?"
I almost felt like smacking him. That's the WHOLE POINT. What would be the point in a game that you can do in real life.
Have you ever seen a successful supermarket simulation? Of course not. (Have you ever seen any supermaket simulation?)
The whole point of games is to be unrealistic. If it was properly realistic, we could all do it in real life, and so there would be no need to play the game!
And so, next time you hear people complaining about violence, extravagance, and pure craziness in games, tell them,
"That's the whole point".
And that's the truth.
---------------------------- -----------------------------
Having said all this, do we REALLY want realistic games?
My answer to that question is, quite simply, NO!
---------------------------- ----------------------------
See Ya ;-)
PinkPig
-------------- --------------------
You might think I'm about to spend a year talking about graphics, yet again, but in this instance, I'm not.
Think about most game's gameplay. Generally speaking, it is not completely, if at all, accurate. When we play a racing game, we know that, in real life, if a car goes that far away from the road, or is damaged too much, it will be fixed or retired.
Yet, in most games, we are allowed to continue, until the car generally explodes in the middle of the track.
In the Final Fantasy series, often acclaimed for it's "realistic" pre-rendered backdrops, when a battle comes along, the enemy very politely says, "I'm here. Come and fight me. But don't worry, I'll let you pause the game for as long as you like, and I won't do anything while you're killing me. I'll wait my turn, and I won't try to stop you doing whatever you like to me. Isn't this realistic?" ;-)
Again, I have played several adventure games where you are unable to do something at present. For example, it is raining, so you cannot use the boat. Or something is broken. Or the city has been destroyed by a madman with a rather vicious pet, conviniently called something verocious and scary sounding.
Despite the fact that, in my world at least, it does stop raining (I know, it's hard to believe), broken things do get fixed eventually (but not if I have anything to do with fixing them ;-) ), and cities slowly get rebuilt, if Tony Blair is feeling very generous.
However, in these games, despite the many people standing around and hitting the building with a hammer, there isn't any progress made. (I'm surprised they don't just do more damage)
In Monkey Island 4, very near to the end of the game, you have to climb a ladder and flick a switch, before the pirating world is destroyed by a rather odd looking thing, called an "Ultimate Insult".
Yet again, you can wait as long as you like before doing this, and it has no adverse effect on the game.
So why do games developers make such obvious and, surely detrimental "mistakes" when writing a game?
The answer, of course, is that, if it was realistic, it would be the most boring game in the world.
Can you imagine what it would be like if, in order to do something new in the game, you had to merely wait, and wait, and wait, for something to happen? Answer : It would be boring, and you'd go off and play something else.
RTS games, despite being dubbed "Real-time", aren't playing in "real-real-time" at all. We don't wait six months for a bunch of guys with mallets to build a factory.
In racing games, the reason cars are allowed to keep going, is because it's fun. Generally speaking, the thing that makes the sport interesting for competitors, is the thrill of actually being there, and going around a track at ridiculously high speeds.
Since that can't happen in games, the game has to be interesting in another way, and so an unrealistic engine is the way to do this.
Some games HAVE tried to be "realistic". And guess what? They (generally), end up being the most boring and uninspiring games around. They are also often far too hard.
It seems as though any attempt at real, real realism, is just going to lose any fun that exists in a game.
-------------------------- ---------------------------------
I was recently in a local games store, and a pair of adults nearby, while letting their (presumably) son buy something, picked up a copy of "Black and White".
I was nearby, and I heard the phrase, "That's not very realistic, is it?"
Since I thought that B&W had some of the best graphics around, I wondered what they were talking about, and moved closer.
"In REAL life, you wouldn't be a god, would you?"
I almost felt like smacking him. That's the WHOLE POINT. What would be the point in a game that you can do in real life.
Have you ever seen a successful supermarket simulation? Of course not. (Have you ever seen any supermaket simulation?)
The whole point of games is to be unrealistic. If it was properly realistic, we could all do it in real life, and so there would be no need to play the game!
And so, next time you hear people complaining about violence, extravagance, and pure craziness in games, tell them,
"That's the whole point".
And that's the truth.
---------------------------- -----------------------------
Having said all this, do we REALLY want realistic games?
My answer to that question is, quite simply, NO!
---------------------------- ----------------------------
See Ya ;-)
PinkPig
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Well posted Pink Pig and I'll further it with a few views on my own.
The GT series as boasted the most realistic speeds, physics, cars etc which all very nice but what about realistic collisions and car damage.
What about the exciting parts to realism?
They're absent from the games. I think that if a game should be realistic it should retain all the FUN parts of realism.
I can think of a realistic racer that's much more fun than.
Take Micro Machines for example, make by the same Codemasters who produced Colin McRae Rally.
It's a sensible game about a group of Kids who like to play with their remote control cars around circuits they've made.
Whether they race around school desks or around the kitchen or even in the pond, the scenery stays realistic.
The cars handle like remote controlled machines and collisions are just like they would be.
Remote control cars don't do much when they collide, they just stop and that's what happens in micromachines.
The kids have characters and play in all sorts of competition including the head to head mode for which they've implemented their own rules.
Like all collectors, they even play for keeps sometimes.
It's far more realistic than Grand Tourismo's "Crash at 100MPH and bounce of harmlessly" nonsense.
Micro Machines. Clealy the most realistic racing game around.
The GT series as boasted the most realistic speeds, physics, cars etc which all very nice but what about realistic collisions and car damage.
What about the exciting parts to realism?
They're absent from the games. I think that if a game should be realistic it should retain all the FUN parts of realism.
I can think of a realistic racer that's much more fun than.
Take Micro Machines for example, make by the same Codemasters who produced Colin McRae Rally.
It's a sensible game about a group of Kids who like to play with their remote control cars around circuits they've made.
Whether they race around school desks or around the kitchen or even in the pond, the scenery stays realistic.
The cars handle like remote controlled machines and collisions are just like they would be.
Remote control cars don't do much when they collide, they just stop and that's what happens in micromachines.
The kids have characters and play in all sorts of competition including the head to head mode for which they've implemented their own rules.
Like all collectors, they even play for keeps sometimes.
It's far more realistic than Grand Tourismo's "Crash at 100MPH and bounce of harmlessly" nonsense.
Micro Machines. Clealy the most realistic racing game around.
Fisrt I feel I must congratulate Pinky on his ace topic.... top stuff...
Second I must say NO to realistic games....
I mean, who really wants to crash their car, go home, deal with the wife, phone Sky because your dish is shot, phone the insurance company, phone the sponsors, eat dinner, take a bath, watch Eastenders, go to bed, wake up, mow the lawn, have breakfast, deal with the wife, go shopping, back to the crash site, fill in a form, go through the car modificationes..... the list goes on... Me I'd rather race round a track at 200 Mph in a Ford GT90!
BUT, there is another side, and it isn't fair to leave it out. Imagine the limitless possibilities in an FPS, you could advance the Geo-Mod technology used in Red Faction... (yes, I know a PS2 game... don't rub it in...) and make it more accutare... accutare? I mean accurate... Not just blowing up walls but cutting the power and lighting to certain areas... and distracting guards...
The thing is, it isn't that far away. Rare have done it in a few of their games, AI is getting better. (Read Turbonutter's Post For That) Konami'#s Metal Gear Solid 2 is looking amazing and the interaction seems UNMATCHED! BUT with Perfect Dark 2 rumoured to be a 3rd Person MGS2 beater, who knows!
Realism is varied right across the board, and although some of it, like in The Sims can be good, sometimes you just wanna turn up the music and fly round a track in Wipeout!
Wipeout Fusion is gonna rock! can anyone lend me a PS2?
Game
Second I must say NO to realistic games....
I mean, who really wants to crash their car, go home, deal with the wife, phone Sky because your dish is shot, phone the insurance company, phone the sponsors, eat dinner, take a bath, watch Eastenders, go to bed, wake up, mow the lawn, have breakfast, deal with the wife, go shopping, back to the crash site, fill in a form, go through the car modificationes..... the list goes on... Me I'd rather race round a track at 200 Mph in a Ford GT90!
BUT, there is another side, and it isn't fair to leave it out. Imagine the limitless possibilities in an FPS, you could advance the Geo-Mod technology used in Red Faction... (yes, I know a PS2 game... don't rub it in...) and make it more accutare... accutare? I mean accurate... Not just blowing up walls but cutting the power and lighting to certain areas... and distracting guards...
The thing is, it isn't that far away. Rare have done it in a few of their games, AI is getting better. (Read Turbonutter's Post For That) Konami'#s Metal Gear Solid 2 is looking amazing and the interaction seems UNMATCHED! BUT with Perfect Dark 2 rumoured to be a 3rd Person MGS2 beater, who knows!
Realism is varied right across the board, and although some of it, like in The Sims can be good, sometimes you just wanna turn up the music and fly round a track in Wipeout!
Wipeout Fusion is gonna rock! can anyone lend me a PS2?
Game
Fisrt I feel I must congratulate Pinky on his ace topic.... top stuff...
Second I must say NO to realistic games....
I mean, who really wants to crash their car, go home, deal with the wife, phone Sky because your dish is shot, phone the insurance company, phone the sponsors, eat dinner, take a bath, watch Eastenders, go to bed, wake up, mow the lawn, have breakfast, deal with the wife, go shopping, back to the crash site, fill in a form, go through the car modificationes..... the list goes on... Me I'd rather race round a track at 200 Mph in a Ford GT90!
BUT, there is another side, and it isn't fair to leave it out. Imagine the limitless possibilities in an FPS, you could advance the Geo-Mod technology used in Red Faction... (yes, I know a PS2 game... don't rub it in...) and make it more accutare... accutare? I mean accurate... Not just blowing up walls but cutting the power and lighting to certain areas... and distracting guards...
The thing is, it isn't that far away. Rare have done it in a few of their games, AI is getting better. (Read Turbonutter's Post For That) Konami'#s Metal Gear Solid 2 is looking amazing and the interaction seems UNMATCHED! BUT with Perfect Dark 2 rumoured to be a 3rd Person MGS2 beater, who knows!
Realism is varied right across the board, and although some of it, like in The Sims can be good, sometimes you just wanna turn up the music and fly round a track in Wipeout!
Wipeout Fusion is gonna rock! can anyone lend me a PS2?
Game
Second I must say NO to realistic games....
I mean, who really wants to crash their car, go home, deal with the wife, phone Sky because your dish is shot, phone the insurance company, phone the sponsors, eat dinner, take a bath, watch Eastenders, go to bed, wake up, mow the lawn, have breakfast, deal with the wife, go shopping, back to the crash site, fill in a form, go through the car modificationes..... the list goes on... Me I'd rather race round a track at 200 Mph in a Ford GT90!
BUT, there is another side, and it isn't fair to leave it out. Imagine the limitless possibilities in an FPS, you could advance the Geo-Mod technology used in Red Faction... (yes, I know a PS2 game... don't rub it in...) and make it more accutare... accutare? I mean accurate... Not just blowing up walls but cutting the power and lighting to certain areas... and distracting guards...
The thing is, it isn't that far away. Rare have done it in a few of their games, AI is getting better. (Read Turbonutter's Post For That) Konami'#s Metal Gear Solid 2 is looking amazing and the interaction seems UNMATCHED! BUT with Perfect Dark 2 rumoured to be a 3rd Person MGS2 beater, who knows!
Realism is varied right across the board, and although some of it, like in The Sims can be good, sometimes you just wanna turn up the music and fly round a track in Wipeout!
Wipeout Fusion is gonna rock! can anyone lend me a PS2?
Game
Well, Microsoft have managed a train simulator, so "Supermarket Sim 2002" is surely only the next step!
See Ya
PinkPig
See Ya
PinkPig
Realism is a word that should never ever be connected with games. Games aren't realistic, they can never be. GT3 is supposed to be as realistic as you can get but this realism is purely based on what the programmers think it would be like to race this certain car around this certain track. The whole physics engine is based on guesses.
How can a game promtoe itself to be realistic and how are we supposed to know if it is. Ridge Vs GT, which is more realistic? Most people would say GT but why, have you ever raced a car round these tracks? No, so how is it realistic.
Realism is purely guess work around what we as gamers think an experience should be like. If we want a realistic fighting game we pick up one that looks like what we had imagined not one that mirrors a fight we had in the school playground with that boy from class 8RT.
Realistic games do not exist, we play games to escape from reality, to do things that would be near impossible in real life.
Supermarket Sim...Ha ha, sad thing is it probably won't be long before something along these lines gets released in Japan. My guess is a drugged up koala who has to locate his manga beans which are strewn among various supermarkets. His enemies are trolleys and irratating children who pick him up and puke on him.
How can a game promtoe itself to be realistic and how are we supposed to know if it is. Ridge Vs GT, which is more realistic? Most people would say GT but why, have you ever raced a car round these tracks? No, so how is it realistic.
Realism is purely guess work around what we as gamers think an experience should be like. If we want a realistic fighting game we pick up one that looks like what we had imagined not one that mirrors a fight we had in the school playground with that boy from class 8RT.
Realistic games do not exist, we play games to escape from reality, to do things that would be near impossible in real life.
Supermarket Sim...Ha ha, sad thing is it probably won't be long before something along these lines gets released in Japan. My guess is a drugged up koala who has to locate his manga beans which are strewn among various supermarkets. His enemies are trolleys and irratating children who pick him up and puke on him.
As for the supermarket sim, at least it would be original.
And sorry, er-no, I can't please everyone. ;-)
See Ya
PinkPig
And sorry, er-no, I can't please everyone. ;-)
See Ya
PinkPig
"The Sims is quite realistic"
I suppose you could say that this is about as realistic as games get.
However, there are plenty of things that are clearly wrong about the game.
Children never grow up, for example. There are no weekends of holidays. A Sim can marry whoever he/she likes, and nobody ever complains.
While the game has realistic ideas, on all these points Maxis decided to move away from reality in order to make the game more interesting.
See Ya
PinkPig
I suppose you could say that this is about as realistic as games get.
However, there are plenty of things that are clearly wrong about the game.
Children never grow up, for example. There are no weekends of holidays. A Sim can marry whoever he/she likes, and nobody ever complains.
While the game has realistic ideas, on all these points Maxis decided to move away from reality in order to make the game more interesting.
See Ya
PinkPig
I would just like to say that the topic you have done is really well written and i actually enjoyed reading it, this suprised me as i'm not usually one to read long topics.
Anyway, i think that it would be really boring to have a game simulation of life. I don't however think tnat it would be boring to have realistic simulations. Imagine in the future when tchnology is far more advanced than it is now and we're all playing virtual reality simulations. Imagine playing Perfect Dark 245 and a half, you would have the VR suit on and the visor thing over your eyes so that it would appears as you actually are Joanna Dark in a virtual world. If you look down at your hand you can see that it is actually gripping a Falcon 2 fixed with a silencer. In other words you are in Perfect Dark, that is your world, everything looks real, you are Joanna even if you used to be male you are now female. Anyway as you make you way through the level killing guards you can pick up their weapons and use them to your advantage. The game would also be realistic in the fact that if you took a headshot them you would instantly be killed in the game, but obviously fine in real life. You would have to sneak up on people and if you really accidentally coughed then the guars would see you, turn around and kill you. Although this would be extremel good and realistic, it still falls down on the fact that you mentioned earlier, it would be too hard. Imagine in real life trying to take out an army of guards on your own, it would be impossible. A way around this would be to make the artificial intelligence of the machine not function like a real life human would. Ok this would take a bit of the realistic effect away, but at least you would still have the realistic world of Perfect Dark to roam around.
I suppose like you said there wouldn't really be any point in making real real life games, but it would be very worthwhile making real virtual reality games where you are in control of a top spy, sneaking round military bases taking out villans. As i said earlier the AI of the computer would have to be knocked down slightly as not to make the game too hard to complete. I suppose another way around this would be to have different difficulty settings, just like todays games have. The AI on the hardest difficulty level would obviously be toward the closer en dof reality while the easiest difficulty level would be the one furthest from reality.
Anyway, i think that it would be really boring to have a game simulation of life. I don't however think tnat it would be boring to have realistic simulations. Imagine in the future when tchnology is far more advanced than it is now and we're all playing virtual reality simulations. Imagine playing Perfect Dark 245 and a half, you would have the VR suit on and the visor thing over your eyes so that it would appears as you actually are Joanna Dark in a virtual world. If you look down at your hand you can see that it is actually gripping a Falcon 2 fixed with a silencer. In other words you are in Perfect Dark, that is your world, everything looks real, you are Joanna even if you used to be male you are now female. Anyway as you make you way through the level killing guards you can pick up their weapons and use them to your advantage. The game would also be realistic in the fact that if you took a headshot them you would instantly be killed in the game, but obviously fine in real life. You would have to sneak up on people and if you really accidentally coughed then the guars would see you, turn around and kill you. Although this would be extremel good and realistic, it still falls down on the fact that you mentioned earlier, it would be too hard. Imagine in real life trying to take out an army of guards on your own, it would be impossible. A way around this would be to make the artificial intelligence of the machine not function like a real life human would. Ok this would take a bit of the realistic effect away, but at least you would still have the realistic world of Perfect Dark to roam around.
I suppose like you said there wouldn't really be any point in making real real life games, but it would be very worthwhile making real virtual reality games where you are in control of a top spy, sneaking round military bases taking out villans. As i said earlier the AI of the computer would have to be knocked down slightly as not to make the game too hard to complete. I suppose another way around this would be to have different difficulty settings, just like todays games have. The AI on the hardest difficulty level would obviously be toward the closer en dof reality while the easiest difficulty level would be the one furthest from reality.
Hmm, when I saw the title I groaned at another one, but at least it isnt about graphics!!!
:)
:)
A very well written topic, but sadly I lost interest after reading half od it and finding it to have been done before many times....
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