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Why are 'realistic' games getting more and more popular these days ?
In my opinion, there are a number of factors that contribute to realism in videogames. Lets just take a look at each to try to understand what it is that we really are looking for in a game...
Graphical realism:
Do more realistic graphics make a game better ? GT3 looks great and acts great, but in my opinion as a racing game it cannot touch the likes of Mario kart on SNES for pure gaming enjoyment.
Violence:
Does the fact that a videogame has more violence in it mean that it is automatically more realistic and therefore a better game ?
Why do we get such a buzz from playing very violent games ? Is it because we know this is something morally wrong, something that we'd normally never do in the course of our lives ? I think so.
Take MGS2 for example. I read a report recently that states that MGS2 will be toned down, and that we won't get the same level of violence in this game as we were initially led to believe. To a lot of people, myself included, this is very dissapointing. But why ? I believe that deep deep down we get a sick little thrill from being able to decide if an in game character lives or dies.
Who out there has played the MGS2 demo, knocked out a guard and then shot him in the head, just for the 'laugh' ? I have.
Are we really living in such a society that, without violence, games no longer hold the attraction that they used to ?
Look at Mario 64, the most violent thing in that game was jumping on an enemy's head ! But it is still rated as a great game. However these days we see a lot of arguements that the gamecube is just for kids, because of the non-violent and non-realistic game content.
Does that mean we think we are more mature gamers since we play violent games ? Surely the reverse is the case, i.e. we are less mature by the very fact we play these violent games, and so escape into our fantasy worlds whilst playing.
But surely there is another question, how can a violent game be called realistic ? Most of our lives are played out withouth the levels of violence that we encounter in our gameplay. If a game was to be truly realistic then really nothing much would happen.
We could start a level, get our screen character to get up, go to work, eat food, sleep. End of story. How exciting is that.
Therefore I put forward the case that the more unrealistic a game is, the more we like it !
Of course many of you can argue the case that we can have realistic games without violence. For example, racing games are getting more realistic all the time, but that is another arguement.
The real question here is does violence in reality make a game more unrealistic ?
Comments ?
In my opinion, there are a number of factors that contribute to realism in videogames. Lets just take a look at each to try to understand what it is that we really are looking for in a game...
Graphical realism:
Do more realistic graphics make a game better ? GT3 looks great and acts great, but in my opinion as a racing game it cannot touch the likes of Mario kart on SNES for pure gaming enjoyment.
Violence:
Does the fact that a videogame has more violence in it mean that it is automatically more realistic and therefore a better game ?
Why do we get such a buzz from playing very violent games ? Is it because we know this is something morally wrong, something that we'd normally never do in the course of our lives ? I think so.
Take MGS2 for example. I read a report recently that states that MGS2 will be toned down, and that we won't get the same level of violence in this game as we were initially led to believe. To a lot of people, myself included, this is very dissapointing. But why ? I believe that deep deep down we get a sick little thrill from being able to decide if an in game character lives or dies.
Who out there has played the MGS2 demo, knocked out a guard and then shot him in the head, just for the 'laugh' ? I have.
Are we really living in such a society that, without violence, games no longer hold the attraction that they used to ?
Look at Mario 64, the most violent thing in that game was jumping on an enemy's head ! But it is still rated as a great game. However these days we see a lot of arguements that the gamecube is just for kids, because of the non-violent and non-realistic game content.
Does that mean we think we are more mature gamers since we play violent games ? Surely the reverse is the case, i.e. we are less mature by the very fact we play these violent games, and so escape into our fantasy worlds whilst playing.
But surely there is another question, how can a violent game be called realistic ? Most of our lives are played out withouth the levels of violence that we encounter in our gameplay. If a game was to be truly realistic then really nothing much would happen.
We could start a level, get our screen character to get up, go to work, eat food, sleep. End of story. How exciting is that.
Therefore I put forward the case that the more unrealistic a game is, the more we like it !
Of course many of you can argue the case that we can have realistic games without violence. For example, racing games are getting more realistic all the time, but that is another arguement.
The real question here is does violence in reality make a game more unrealistic ?
Comments ?
wrote:
> For some reason when I want to reply to a post, if I click on 'reply', write my message, then click 'post this message', I always get an error back either saying I made a mistake in my post, or that I'm using bad language !!!
Weird eh !
But if I reply buy clicking 'reply quoting this message' then the 'wrote' gets inserted automatically and I can post away without problems....
DOes anyone else have this problem ??!
> For some reason when I want to reply to a post, if I click on 'reply', write my message, then click 'post this message', I always get an error back either saying I made a mistake in my post, or that I'm using bad language !!!
Weird eh !
But if I reply buy clicking 'reply quoting this message' then the 'wrote' gets inserted automatically and I can post away without problems....
DOes anyone else have this problem ??!
kevd, why do you keep writing
wrote
It is beyond me.
Anyway not on the subject of computer games, but on the subject of films. As you may all well know, the 2 year old boy, I forget his name, was killed and tortured by two 11 year olds which they copied from the film Childs Play.
A few years ago some teenagers copied Scream, so is it now dangerous to produce a film that gives people ideas? Well I hope not, if it's not suitable for them then they shouldn't really be watching it in the first place. I don't watch Arnie films then think it's fine to go out and kill people and get away with it. But there are some people out there who might.
With computer games though I can't really see how you can get the same idea from it? Like you said the more realistic they get then there is more chance of this accouring. But in the time being I don't think anyone would go out and kill someone after playing Tomb Raider.
wrote
It is beyond me.
Anyway not on the subject of computer games, but on the subject of films. As you may all well know, the 2 year old boy, I forget his name, was killed and tortured by two 11 year olds which they copied from the film Childs Play.
A few years ago some teenagers copied Scream, so is it now dangerous to produce a film that gives people ideas? Well I hope not, if it's not suitable for them then they shouldn't really be watching it in the first place. I don't watch Arnie films then think it's fine to go out and kill people and get away with it. But there are some people out there who might.
With computer games though I can't really see how you can get the same idea from it? Like you said the more realistic they get then there is more chance of this accouring. But in the time being I don't think anyone would go out and kill someone after playing Tomb Raider.
wrote:
> Just to clarify about Mario Kart.
What I mean here is that in terms of having a great laugh with a few friends, it is very hard to find a 'racing' game better than Mario kart.
Having a red shell chase your opponent around a track is hard to beat !
Obviously GT3 is far superior in terms of graphics and car physics...
> Just to clarify about Mario Kart.
What I mean here is that in terms of having a great laugh with a few friends, it is very hard to find a 'racing' game better than Mario kart.
Having a red shell chase your opponent around a track is hard to beat !
Obviously GT3 is far superior in terms of graphics and car physics...
I think that there are two types of reality being discussed in your initial post. There is the realism of presentation (how the graphics and sound and gameplay combine to make you feel as if you are really there), and the content itself: are we in a fantasy world (Skies of Arcadia/Pirates/Flying Ships) or in a world that tries to mimic reality as much as possible (Shenmue)?
When it comes to games, the most important thing to bear in mind is that the hand/eye coordination that goes into playing a game has to be enjoyable.
Technically poor games which suffer slow frame rates due to the amount of onscreen action can be frustrating, poorly depicted scenery can detract you from the actual fun of playing, and unrealistic sounds can sometimes grate on the nerves. So the realism of presentation can only add to the enjoyment, whether the scenes being portrayed are a racing circuit or a flesh eating zombie, the truer to 'life' that these can be made the more immersive the gameplay can be.
With specific reference to violence in games, I think this is where personal choice of a gamer comes in. Some gamers like to shoot apples out of a hand held spring gun in order to make worms squeak and bounce of the screen thereby opening up further levels, and other gamers like to shoot Tie-Fighters in deep space and see the explosions and debris hurtle past their X-Wing as they take part in a dogfight, and still other gamers take great delight in pulling of a well orchestrated assassination from a mile away with a true to life hi powered sniper rifle, complete with the option of headshot, heartshot, gore/no gore etc.
I think all 3 types of violent games could be enjoyed by gamers of all ages (allowing for censorship on the more 'graphically' violent titles); for example Fur Fighters, X-Wing and Hidden and Dangerous are all real games involving differing depictions of shooting something, and gamers of all ages could enjoy all 3 games. But if we had to pick just one, gamers would differ in choice because they get differing levels of personal enjoyment from their preferred gaming genre.
Whether in fact the inclusion of violence in any game makes it more real or not doesn't seem to be an issue, people play the types of games they do because they enjoy a particular style or genre. Tetris was a worldwide hit with most gamers, and it had no basis in any reality, it was pure gameplay, and very addictive. There was no violence, the graphics were not depicting anything other than differently shaped blocks, and the sound wasn't exactly an orchestrated masterpiece, yet most gamers loved it.
Now that the next generation consoles are with us however, the tendency for realistic graphics IS noticeable, and I think the reason that these types of games are more popular are two-fold:
1) Casual gamers who play only now and again will quite naturally buy a title if it 'looks' good. They may be influenced by screenshots in a magazine, by the fact that it's the most 'realistic' looking game ever, or by a targetted marketing campaign by the game's publisher. GT3 being a good example of this.
2) The shifting demographics of gamers means that there is a whole generation of gamers now in their late twenties early thirties who started out on the NES and Megadrive, and for the last 15 years they've been exposed to most types of games, and the cute and cuddly stuff WAS fun, they still enjoy the Marios and the Sonics of today's games, not because they look good but because of the guaranteed fun gameplay that they are familiar with. But they also need something new, because the cute and cuddly stuff can only last so long, so when Zombies and Shotguns are proferred or the opportunity to lead a squad of soldiers onto a battlefield, complete with immersive graphics/gore and 'realistic' violence, this is something different.
However, I wouldn't say that 'realistic' games were becoming more and more popular these days, just that there tend to be more of them because these days consoles are capable of mimicking reality to a high degree with their power.
The important factor with any game is 'do you have fun playing it?' If the answer is yes, then it matters not whether you are squashing spiders with plumbers or setting C4 explosive in a weapons plant, as long as you are smiling when you press the button then the levels of violence being depicted are irrelevant.
(Unless, of course, you are smiling for all the wrong reasons...)
:-)
When it comes to games, the most important thing to bear in mind is that the hand/eye coordination that goes into playing a game has to be enjoyable.
Technically poor games which suffer slow frame rates due to the amount of onscreen action can be frustrating, poorly depicted scenery can detract you from the actual fun of playing, and unrealistic sounds can sometimes grate on the nerves. So the realism of presentation can only add to the enjoyment, whether the scenes being portrayed are a racing circuit or a flesh eating zombie, the truer to 'life' that these can be made the more immersive the gameplay can be.
With specific reference to violence in games, I think this is where personal choice of a gamer comes in. Some gamers like to shoot apples out of a hand held spring gun in order to make worms squeak and bounce of the screen thereby opening up further levels, and other gamers like to shoot Tie-Fighters in deep space and see the explosions and debris hurtle past their X-Wing as they take part in a dogfight, and still other gamers take great delight in pulling of a well orchestrated assassination from a mile away with a true to life hi powered sniper rifle, complete with the option of headshot, heartshot, gore/no gore etc.
I think all 3 types of violent games could be enjoyed by gamers of all ages (allowing for censorship on the more 'graphically' violent titles); for example Fur Fighters, X-Wing and Hidden and Dangerous are all real games involving differing depictions of shooting something, and gamers of all ages could enjoy all 3 games. But if we had to pick just one, gamers would differ in choice because they get differing levels of personal enjoyment from their preferred gaming genre.
Whether in fact the inclusion of violence in any game makes it more real or not doesn't seem to be an issue, people play the types of games they do because they enjoy a particular style or genre. Tetris was a worldwide hit with most gamers, and it had no basis in any reality, it was pure gameplay, and very addictive. There was no violence, the graphics were not depicting anything other than differently shaped blocks, and the sound wasn't exactly an orchestrated masterpiece, yet most gamers loved it.
Now that the next generation consoles are with us however, the tendency for realistic graphics IS noticeable, and I think the reason that these types of games are more popular are two-fold:
1) Casual gamers who play only now and again will quite naturally buy a title if it 'looks' good. They may be influenced by screenshots in a magazine, by the fact that it's the most 'realistic' looking game ever, or by a targetted marketing campaign by the game's publisher. GT3 being a good example of this.
2) The shifting demographics of gamers means that there is a whole generation of gamers now in their late twenties early thirties who started out on the NES and Megadrive, and for the last 15 years they've been exposed to most types of games, and the cute and cuddly stuff WAS fun, they still enjoy the Marios and the Sonics of today's games, not because they look good but because of the guaranteed fun gameplay that they are familiar with. But they also need something new, because the cute and cuddly stuff can only last so long, so when Zombies and Shotguns are proferred or the opportunity to lead a squad of soldiers onto a battlefield, complete with immersive graphics/gore and 'realistic' violence, this is something different.
However, I wouldn't say that 'realistic' games were becoming more and more popular these days, just that there tend to be more of them because these days consoles are capable of mimicking reality to a high degree with their power.
The important factor with any game is 'do you have fun playing it?' If the answer is yes, then it matters not whether you are squashing spiders with plumbers or setting C4 explosive in a weapons plant, as long as you are smiling when you press the button then the levels of violence being depicted are irrelevant.
(Unless, of course, you are smiling for all the wrong reasons...)
:-)
Why are 'realistic' games getting more and more popular these days ?
In my opinion, there are a number of factors that contribute to realism in videogames. Lets just take a look at each to try to understand what it is that we really are looking for in a game...
Graphical realism:
Do more realistic graphics make a game better ? GT3 looks great and acts great, but in my opinion as a racing game it cannot touch the likes of Mario kart on SNES for pure gaming enjoyment.
Violence:
Does the fact that a videogame has more violence in it mean that it is automatically more realistic and therefore a better game ?
Why do we get such a buzz from playing very violent games ? Is it because we know this is something morally wrong, something that we'd normally never do in the course of our lives ? I think so.
Take MGS2 for example. I read a report recently that states that MGS2 will be toned down, and that we won't get the same level of violence in this game as we were initially led to believe. To a lot of people, myself included, this is very dissapointing. But why ? I believe that deep deep down we get a sick little thrill from being able to decide if an in game character lives or dies.
Who out there has played the MGS2 demo, knocked out a guard and then shot him in the head, just for the 'laugh' ? I have.
Are we really living in such a society that, without violence, games no longer hold the attraction that they used to ?
Look at Mario 64, the most violent thing in that game was jumping on an enemy's head ! But it is still rated as a great game. However these days we see a lot of arguements that the gamecube is just for kids, because of the non-violent and non-realistic game content.
Does that mean we think we are more mature gamers since we play violent games ? Surely the reverse is the case, i.e. we are less mature by the very fact we play these violent games, and so escape into our fantasy worlds whilst playing.
But surely there is another question, how can a violent game be called realistic ? Most of our lives are played out withouth the levels of violence that we encounter in our gameplay. If a game was to be truly realistic then really nothing much would happen.
We could start a level, get our screen character to get up, go to work, eat food, sleep. End of story. How exciting is that.
Therefore I put forward the case that the more unrealistic a game is, the more we like it !
Of course many of you can argue the case that we can have realistic games without violence. For example, racing games are getting more realistic all the time, but that is another arguement.
The real question here is does violence in reality make a game more unrealistic ?
Comments ?
In my opinion, there are a number of factors that contribute to realism in videogames. Lets just take a look at each to try to understand what it is that we really are looking for in a game...
Graphical realism:
Do more realistic graphics make a game better ? GT3 looks great and acts great, but in my opinion as a racing game it cannot touch the likes of Mario kart on SNES for pure gaming enjoyment.
Violence:
Does the fact that a videogame has more violence in it mean that it is automatically more realistic and therefore a better game ?
Why do we get such a buzz from playing very violent games ? Is it because we know this is something morally wrong, something that we'd normally never do in the course of our lives ? I think so.
Take MGS2 for example. I read a report recently that states that MGS2 will be toned down, and that we won't get the same level of violence in this game as we were initially led to believe. To a lot of people, myself included, this is very dissapointing. But why ? I believe that deep deep down we get a sick little thrill from being able to decide if an in game character lives or dies.
Who out there has played the MGS2 demo, knocked out a guard and then shot him in the head, just for the 'laugh' ? I have.
Are we really living in such a society that, without violence, games no longer hold the attraction that they used to ?
Look at Mario 64, the most violent thing in that game was jumping on an enemy's head ! But it is still rated as a great game. However these days we see a lot of arguements that the gamecube is just for kids, because of the non-violent and non-realistic game content.
Does that mean we think we are more mature gamers since we play violent games ? Surely the reverse is the case, i.e. we are less mature by the very fact we play these violent games, and so escape into our fantasy worlds whilst playing.
But surely there is another question, how can a violent game be called realistic ? Most of our lives are played out withouth the levels of violence that we encounter in our gameplay. If a game was to be truly realistic then really nothing much would happen.
We could start a level, get our screen character to get up, go to work, eat food, sleep. End of story. How exciting is that.
Therefore I put forward the case that the more unrealistic a game is, the more we like it !
Of course many of you can argue the case that we can have realistic games without violence. For example, racing games are getting more realistic all the time, but that is another arguement.
The real question here is does violence in reality make a game more unrealistic ?
Comments ?