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Every year, games of all genres are gradually becoming more and more realistic. But ultimately, how far will this go, or more to the point, how far do we want it go. Do we actually want a perfect recreation of reality? How much longer would immense realism make the development of a game? Could we be looking at 10+ years for the development of a single game?
Before anything else I have tried to imagine what games with ultimate reality would be like. Many people long for ultimate reality, but you can make up your own mind when you have read what I imagine ultimate reality games would eventually be like.
Ultimate Reality Half-Life (2054)
It’s a hard job you know, making the earth a better place. You are on your way to the briefing room now, following one of the Barneys. He ambles along, limping slightly from where he broke his leg playing football only a few weeks ago. He stops outside the heavily guarded chamber and punches his access code into the machine. Damn, he typed it wrong, try again. That’s better, the door opens and you walk through. The commissioner is very busy indeed and doesn’t notice you at first, he is bending over a computer screen talking animatedly with an engineer. You sit down in a nearby chair while you wait, and doodle on a sketch-pad with a pencil. Oops, you broke the lead. The commissioner sees you at last and rushes over. Ouch, he spills his coffee in his haste and stains his clean white shirt.
An hour later, you are walking away from the chamber, having discussed in detail your next mission, and the best way of going about it. You are detained in the reception area by a pretty young secretary who has some papers for you. Except a page is missing, so she asks you to wait for a minute while she tries to find it in her office. She is taking her time, so you spot a friendly cat wandering about and start to stoke it. It hisses at you, so you take out your combat knife and slice it in half. You are just removing the guts from the cat and spreading them over the floor for your own amusement when the secretary comes back. She is horrified and starts screaming. You pull out your AK47 and shoot her down. Blood spills all over the desk and ruins a lot of the paperwork on it. You stroll out the front door and walk towards your Mercedes, waving your gun at Black Mesa workers and enjoying their shock and individual reactions. Bang, you are shot dead by a security officer.
Ultimate Reality FIFA 2046 (2046)
Your men are walking out of the tunnel, soaking up the applause from the crowd. A boy on the side is frantically calling out for an autograph from Owen, who ignores him, but Seaman takes pity on the lad and signs his book. The game is eventually underway. Beckham passes to Heskey, back to Beckham who fluffs his pass and misses the ball completely. Pheep, play is halted for a female streaker who has eluded the tight security and is running on the pitch. Officials and security charge after her and eventually catch her. She is covered in a blanket and escorted from the pitch. Play continues. Play is stopped again an opposing striker shoots and the speeding ball hits Neville in the face. Medics are called on and cart off Neville. His brother Phil is brought on his place, only he doesn’t seem to realise that his shirt is on the wrong way round. At the final whistle England lose 1-3 and are knocked out of Euro ‘46 in the qualifying stages.
Ultimate Reality Colin McCrae (2051)
The light turns green and you wheelspin on the wet grass. Seconds later a helicopter passes above you and races further on in the track where another racer has injured someone when their car overturned. You speed along and glance at Nicky Grist sitting to your left. He is frowning as he tries to make sense of the dirty map he is reading, the water splashing through the open window doesn’t help much either. A few minutes later, Nicky accidentally gives you a wrong direction, so you slide into a left hand corner facing right. You bump off the track and bash your side onto a tree. You try to reverse, but the car isn’t moving. You get out of your car, and only then do you notice that your wheel is inextricably attached to a branch. A few bystanders try and help but to no avail. Your race is over.
Playing these sort of games would be so tedious as to become unbearable. OK, some might like experimenting with what can actually be done, and have fun doing so. But to complete a specific objective would be almost impossible if realism was total.
Half-Life: Just imagine, all the AI would be as clever as you, one shot would probably kill you, and yet would be outnumbered about 10,000 to 1, as per usual.
FIFA: Each game would last for the full 90 minutes, players might refuse to play, stamina would drain very quickly, and all the nimble tricks that we are so used to pulling off by tapping a few buttons would rarely work, like in real life.
COLIN McCRAE
Just one bump could ruin your race if it mashed a vulnerable part of your car, a high speed collision would totally write off your car, also killing you, and total engine failures could occur, knocking you out of the race unfairly.
There are a few very simple formulas to remember when designing a game.
Realism=Good
Fun&Gameplay=Good
Realism+Fun&Gameplay=Very good
Realism+Realism=Bad
That’s right, although realism can make or break a game, too much realism will ruin a game for most. Some people would like to try ultimate realism, as indeed most of us would, but that couldn’t really be classed as a game. For a game that will appeal to the masses, the key is to fine tune the balance of realism and fun & gameplay.
The most important step is gauging how much realism you need in the game. Warren Spector hits the nail on the head in PCG104 when he says that he focused his efforts on believability rather than realism.
The actual aim of any game is to make the player believe that they are actually there, in a virtual world, being a hero. Obviously ultimate realism could create believability, but we’re not really interested in that since we don’t want to make ultimate reality games. What we do want to know is whether a genuinely good game that is fun to play requires total or near total realism to achieve believability? Thankfully, this is not the case. An immersive and believable game only requires so much realism to make you actually feel that you are there.
We have established that total realism is not required for perfect games, so what we now have to consider is how current games can improve so they can achieve this standard. I will now discuss this point, and address certain areas where I think attention is needed. Since there are so many genres though, I will be addressing my comments mainly, but not entirely, at First Person Shooters.
CONSISTENCY
I feel that one of the most important but sadly neglected areas of realism is the consistency of a game. If the grate to your right is breakable, then how come the grate to your left isn’t? This sort of thing occurs constantly in games, where developers base the realism of certain objects upon what they need to make a particular level, rather than what would be realistically possible. This should be abolished, and decisions should be made. For instance, it doesn’t matter whether the grates are breakable or not, so long as the same rules apply to all similar grates in the game. Have you also noticed that many games have computers, screens, buttons etc, yet never can you use them. The only buttons that you can press are the plot-essential ones, the rest just sit there like dummies and flash lights at you. It wouldn’t matter so much if there wasn’t even an effect when you pressed the button, just so long as it could be pressed and make a little beeping sound like all the others. It isn’t that interactive buttons are a necessary addition, but it goes a long way toward the believability of a game, which is the important factor.
PHYSICS
Another embarrassment in realism for most games is the physics. Isn’t it strange how your immensely powerful time bomb will wrench a huge pair of wrought iron gates in two, but won’t even take a splinter off a nearby wooden shelf. The problem is that most games excel at certain physics that are necessary to the completion of a game, but for the rest of the objects in a game, you couldn’t knock a candle over with a rocket launcher. I am not complaining that physics should be entirely accurate, but that there should be at least passable physics for all elements of the game, not just hyper-realistic physics for the plot-essential parts as many games seem to think. Operation Flashpoint went so far as to model the speed of sound, and things like this, although a bit extravagant, inspire believability, which is good. But when I laid a bomb under a tree in the same game, it merely blackened it. Passable physics for all objects would inspire believability, whereas the lazy indestructible physics for many objects don’t.
CHARACTER INTERACTION
This partially comes under consistency, but it’s such a major problem that it can be addressed as a fault in it’s own right. In just about any game ever made you will come across NPCs. Computer controlled characters that are either necessary for game completion, or just add colour to the scenery. Once again the problem lies in the fact that the only NPCs you can talk to or interact with in any depth are inevitably the plot-essential ones. Admittedly some games have made a real effort, Deus Ex comes to mind for it’s ability to talk to almost everyone in the game. And Unreal Tournament is just one of the many games that manages to effectively use orders for the team-based modes. But many, many games either lack such depth in interaction, or they fail to put interaction there in the first place. Even in Half-Life for example you can only give two basic commands, follow and stop.
But it’s also important not to overstep the mark a bit, as the Discworld series does in some cases. They give you so much dialogue to listen to that it becomes tedious just sitting listening to characters rambling on about some half-wit conversation of their’s. Long, tedious conversations do promote believability, but they sacrifice some of the Fun & Gameplay in the process. I think the nearest game to perfection in terms of character interaction has to be Deus Ex. It’s system of letting you speak a few lines with all the non-important characters yet have in-depth, but not tedious conversations with major characters has yet to be beaten. Creating believability without sacrificing other elements of the game is the key, and Deus Ex does that with near perfection. I salute it and point to it for any future game developers worried about character interaction.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI is one of the biggest, deciding factors on how good a game is. How frustrating was it back in the original Commandos when you turned your back on one of your men for just a minute and some enemies spotted them. Your men would start screaming at you for help, while they just stood there swallowing the lead that the Nazis were shooting at them. They didn’t even run for cover or defend themselves. That sort of niggle in a game’s AI really spoils the enjoyability in playing it, as you know that in real life your men wouldn’t be so pitifully, suicidally thick.
One of the games famous for it’s AI was Half-life. Battling the Marines was one of the most exhilarating experiences in gaming history. Why? Because heroically diving across hallways with your gun blasting while dodging their grenades and tactical advances created an immense amount of believability and immersion. How else can you explain the fact that everyone who has played Half-life comes away babbling “Red Team, Recon”, “Go go go”. The AI is actually an extremely long distance from total reality, but what does that matter if the believability is extreme? Half-life’s AI has been improved on with all the recently released FPSs to create even more intelligent AI. ‘Medal of Honour: Allied Assault’ probably holds the ‘Best AI’ flag at the moment because it manages to increase the intelligence of the AI considerably without affecting the Fun & Gameplay other than raising it.
The perfect AI then, as partially achieved by MOH, would consist of 4 main elements:
1. Different personalities for soldiers, aggressive, defensive etc.
2. A host of offensive and defensive tactics that they use appropriately to good effect.
3. Realistic shot accuracy.
4. Their reaction to the world around them.
That last element can add a great deal to the feeling of immersion in the game if implemented properly. The Nazis in MOH are a prime example of this, they react realistically to the physical world that they exist in, making use of obstacles, walls, open spaces etc, to aid them while fighting, or whatever else they are doing.
This idea would be expanded even further in the perfect game to cover use of darkness, shadows, colour camouflage, height, and also managing things like locking doors behind them if retreating into a building.
I feel that AI like this would create a huge amount of immersion and believability while managing to achieve maximum Fun & Gameplay.
That has covered a lot of the basic elements of a game that could improve on their realism, but there are many more advanced realisms, some of which involve social, historical and contextual implications. These are the less obvious parts of realism, but they are just as important, as their existence inspires a deeper sense of believability, which in turn gives greater pleasure and enjoyability in playing.
CHARACTER VIEWPOINT
In the majority of games you view your character(s) from one of three standard viewpoints. First-person, third-person and god.
First-person view is when you see just the person’s arms and anything that they may be carrying, weapons, tools, bodies etc.
Third-person is a view from directly behind the game character so you can see their every body movement when they perform actions.
God vision is from far above the game environment and is typically used for RTS (Real Time Strategy) titles so that you can command armies and large wars in a position where you can see all the action.
Although games such as the highly praised Deus Ex and Unreal Tournament are on the whole excellent, it just brings you back down to earth a bit when you look down and find that you have no legs. In fact, in every FPS that I can currently think of, a glance down at your means of movement reveals just a humanly shaped shadow with no legs to suspend your body. The developers obviously think that this is a very small niggle, and may have even deliberately chosen to omit legs as they might hinder your downward view somewhat. But this does shatter the illusion slightly.
Another issue about the first person camera view is the fact that you can never ever fall over. Whenever you are hit, shot or fall down somewhere, your character remains supernaturally upright. Written down, this fact may seem a glaringly obvious fault, but in the game it is so unnoticeable that I never even dreamt about it before I thoroughly analysed realism in games.
This would obviously need to be rectified in a total reality game; when punched or kicked you would fall over and the screen would face the ceiling, and if you tripped up you would fall flat on your face and get an excellent view of the daisies.
However, this niggle does not actually affect the believability of game, as I said, it had never even occurred to me before I thoroughly analysed it. Having the camera falling about all over the place would just frustrate you and detract from your enjoyability. So for a perfect game the camera would retain it’s upright position.
GAME CHARACTER
Lara Croft is easily the most popular icon in the gaming world. The creators of Tomb Raider wanted it so that rather than just being yourself in the game, you would control Lara. Playing as Lara isn’t just moving a nameless body around, it’s moving a living breathing virtual person. Having a specified hero for the game sometimes, and sometimes doesn’t work. In the case of Lara however, she is a ‘virtual babe’, a perfect female. To promote this idea further the game only lets you play in a third-person perspective, so you are made to feel that Lara is actually playing the game, but you are in control. Not only do you have a gorgeous babe to run around at your will, but the Tomb Raider series are actually very good games, a combination that is assured of success.
So although Tomb Raider relies partially on a hero for it’s success, you never feel that it is really you who is playing the game. A game that takes the opposite approach, among others, is Unreal Tournament. The focus here is on you, YOU must win the matches, YOU must win the tournament, YOU must defeat Xan. This change of focus means that the perspective has now changed to first-person, so when you win the match you truly feel like it is you who has won it, not some game character. It even allows you to build your own body to further personalise the experience.
So what stance would realism take, playing as a virtual hero, or playing as yourself?
Thankfully, they are two different styles of game, so realism wouldn’t favour one over another. Both are distinctly different and are fun in their own way. As long as they clearly distinguish which side they are on, the two can co-exist quite happily.
CUTSCENES
Cutscenes can be described as ‘Non-interactive sequences used to advance the plot’. They are usually used to start or end missions, and also occur in the middle if necessary events need to take place that wouldn’t definitely happen if you were still in control. Some developers use cutscenes to tell part of the story while the game is in progress. Sometimes this works well, but more often than not it is just another lazy excuse to make the story turn the way they want, and just leaves you feeling frustrated. I’ll give you an example:
‘You are playing a FPS and running down a corridor when suddenly a cutscene takes control of you. Rather than stopping to peer round the edge of a doorway and maybe lob a grenade in as you would have done, the character dumbly runs in oblivious of any danger. Ooh, what a surprise, it’s a trap, and you are taken captive by enemy forces who imprison you.’
The frustrating part is that it wasn’t YOU who got caught, it was the cutscene character. Why did YOU have to suffer through HIS actions? It’s so unfair, and it robs a game of enjoyment. The perfect game will rid of the awful, decision making abilities of the in-game cutscene, so if something has to happen it will be through your own fault or merit, not that of a pre-determined cutscene character.
STORYLINE
The storyline is one of the most important parts of realism in a game. A well-executed story with a good plot, a lot of depth, and many realistic occurrences will actually make you feel far more satisfied and give you far more enjoyment than a sub-standard story, which simply drags you from place to place, and ultimately becomes a chore to finish.
A good example of an excellent storyline is that of Final Fantasy VII, a Role Playing Game (RPG). It is slightly old now, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the story can really hit you like a punch to the chest. It is long, emotional, extremely deep, and provides many unexpected twists and turns which ensure that there is never a dull moment. Many people have actually cried when one of the main game characters tragically gets killed. There are also many sub-quests and plots within the main story, so you can be attempting many different objectives at the same time. Another important aspect is that the story progresses naturally and realistically.
So a perfect storyline would basically have to keep you hooked the whole way through, not an easy things for the developers to accomplish, but necessary for our gaming pleasure. I’d also like to take the aspect of natural progression a bit further, meaning that the storyline develops naturally.
All too often in games, the most unexpected events happen, that would literally never occur in real life. For instance, if your gaming character needs to cross the sea, when you come to the sea then suddenly ‘Wowee look, there just happens to be a fully armoured, heavily weaponed submarine just there that is only guarded by one light guard, how wonderfully handy.’
To be handed precisely the equipment you need, precisely when you need it is neither realistic nor fun. You should have to work for your rewards, complete objectives, find items or get enough money. If you had to first slay the mighty dragon of Gondor, find a rare herb for a druid, gain a certificate in basic seamanship, and then have to fight a tense and mighty battle to finally gain control of that submarine, then you would appreciate it so much more, unlike if it was just handed to you on a plate.
A conflict that would occur between a perfect game and a total reality one would be in the case of extraordinary events. Take the latest James Bond film as an example. JB has 5 seconds before a bomb explodes, so he jumps onto a chain attached to a rail and rides the explosion along the rail until his female accomplice handily shuts the metal doors behind him. Is that realistic? No, it would never happen in real life. But who cares, it’s a fabulous stunt, and everyone loves it. In that case enjoyability spat in realism’s face, but it got away with it, which is the important part.
Likewise, in a game’s storyline, realism can’t be clung to too tightly, because otherwise it won’t allow you to recreate fabulous scenes like the JB stunt, which although unrealistic, only actually add to the storyline, whereas total reality wouldn’t allow such luxuries.
LOCATION
The setting of most current games is on this wonderful planet of ours, earth. This is probably because it’s more fun to recreate certain aspects of earthly life rather than create a game that features nothing humans have ever done before. Just about every specialist niche in anything relating to life has been catered for by some game or other, from Zoo Tycoon and Microsoft Train Simulator to WWF Wrestling and Rally Championship. It’s an inherent human desire to play what they already know and are familiar with, that’s why FIFA football games will always sell more than any other non-existent futuristic sports game. This is the reason behind the fact that most games are set on our earth.
Total reality would require not only that all games be based on earth, space or some other realistic setting, but also that they be recognisable places. Every game must be set on a particular place in the world, no artificial places accepted, and the game must obviously show it’s location. If it was set in Egypt then the areas would be hot, dusty and sandy, and all the inhabitants would wear the correct mode of dress for that country. But total reality could cause some consternation here because if it created a game involving terrorists, pretty much any setting in New York would cause quite an uproar among critics. If a terrorist game were created, it would be much better suited to fictional locations within countries. Also there are some very good games that are not set on earth. So for these reasons, total reality would not be feasible in terms of location.
To find how much reality is needed in location, it would help a lot to look to other styles of media that have accepted realism, and see what they manage to get away with. This will include film, radio and books. For any of these media types to be realistic they must contain some elements of real life, anything that the audience can relate to is what makes up their perception of realism.
Firstly lets look at Lord of the Rings, which has recently been released on all three formats. The realism in LOTR is widely accepted, despite it’s fantasy setting. Why? Because it features both humans and a location that is similar to earth; trees, houses, taverns. Even though it contains ogres, goblins, wizards and loads of other weird monsters, it still manages to be realistic through it’s use of familiar elements.
So lets take a more extreme title ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. This series of books starts on earth and then ranges over the whole universe to totally fictional locations. Yet it still manages to remain realistic, or at least create a realistic perception in the minds of the viewers. Why? Because it starts in and constantly returns to well known locations on earth, and it’s star is a totally fallible human. Again using familiar elements to generate realism.
So the perfect game then should stretch realism to allow for other places than earth. But for the games that use earth as a setting anyway, in some cases these should attempt to recreate real locations as this really does enhance realism, but obviously this wouldn’t be applicable to all styles of game.
HISTORICAL ACCURACY
Surprisingly, historical accuracy takes quite a large degree of importance in some of the major recent games. Return to Castle Wolfenstein featured accurate representations of the German soldier’s uniforms that are modelled on real uniforms from the time period that the game was set in, and most of the weapons are the ones actually used by the Germans at that time.
Another example of historical accuracy is Age of Empires and it’s sequel. This is an RTS title that not only boasts accurate military units for around 8 different civilisations at the correct time period, but also provides you with real-life historical backgrounds on every unit and building. It’s worth pointing out that some historical accuracy is compromised for certain units that are purely fictional, but this is a deliberate choice so as to balance the civilisations and make the game more fun overall.
But does historical accuracy actually improve your gaming experience at all, or is it simply another pointless expense?
Turning again to television and video, you’ll no doubt remember some of the older films in which you could see obvious mistakes. I can recall one particular film that showed a scene with tribal warriors racing across a large patch of land to attack some other army, but in the background behind the natives you could clearly see the second camera crew, unaware that they were imposing in the shot. That shot people’s impression of historical accuracy and realism down to earth with a bump. Other examples could include a WW1 soldier wearing a digital watch, and a part of a sports car appearing in a Western.
The gaming equivalent to these jarring mistakes could be like the following:
You are playing a WW1 game and are fighting a Nazi officer who is chasing you with a Sten Gun. Having little success, he abandons his gun in favour of an infra-red missile launcher before leaping into his Puma assault helicopter. He then dons jeans and t-shirt, curses you with a torrent of modern swear words and drops a nuclear bomb on you, which doesn’t explode, being made in Taiwan.
Although that is wildly exaggerated, you can see that unrealistic historical accuracy would severely ruin a game’s playability.
Alternatively, a total reality game would include every last detail, whether it be the type and model of vehicles in the game, or the dress of game characters. This appears to present no immediate problems in theory, but put into practise would make for a very dull game. You would be strictly limited to the resources available in the game’s time period, and absolutely nothing else. This is partly why Age of Empires makes a conscious decision not to strictly adhere to historical accuracy, so it can liven the game considerably and let you enjoy it far more.
As with most game elements then, the mix is somewhere in between for the perfect game. Historical accuracy definitely enhances a game, but has to be limited strictly to believability status if it doesn’t want to rob other game elements.
LENGTH OF DEVELOPMENT
The current lengths of development range from about 1 year to sometimes over 4 years. To go to the lengths of creating an ultimate reality game in any genre would take a very long time. All possibilities would have to be accounted for, both visually, in the graphics, and physically, in the programming. I would estimate that an ultimate reality Half-Life would take approximately 10-16 years to create, and then at least another year or more QA testing. The final result would probably require up to 4 DVDs, and a whopping amount of hard drive usage. The extra time in development means that the price of the game would more than double to cover all the costs, and wages of the developers. Is that really what we want?
A Half-Life that met all the requirements of our perfect game however would require only 4 - 5 years development, 1-2 CDs and no unreasonable demands upon our gaming system. Game price might increase, but not by very much.
CONCLUSION
So that’s it ladies and gentlemen. You know my opinion of how realism in future gaming should turn out, but now it’s time to form your own. You have 2 paths to choose from.
1. Gaming should attain ultimate realism, ridding itself of anything that wouldn’t happen in the real world. Nothing should be spared to create total simulation. Development times will increase substantially as will game prices, meaning that we have to wait longer and pay more for our games.
2. Our gaming future will shun realism when other precious gaming elements are at stake to create a rounded out and more enjoyable game. The basic guidelines are: Believability is the essential part of a game rather than total realism, because total realism sacrifices a lot of the fun & gameplay. Intense believability, immersion, fun & gameplay are basically what compromise the perfect game, and so are to be strived for at all costs. Development times and prices will naturally increase, but only by small amounts.
Whatever happens, we are riding the tidal wave of technology, and we can look to the future with slavering anticipation. Half-Life 2 anyone.......?
Thanks for reading.
Brew
Before anything else I have tried to imagine what games with ultimate reality would be like. Many people long for ultimate reality, but you can make up your own mind when you have read what I imagine ultimate reality games would eventually be like.
Ultimate Reality Half-Life (2054)
It’s a hard job you know, making the earth a better place. You are on your way to the briefing room now, following one of the Barneys. He ambles along, limping slightly from where he broke his leg playing football only a few weeks ago. He stops outside the heavily guarded chamber and punches his access code into the machine. Damn, he typed it wrong, try again. That’s better, the door opens and you walk through. The commissioner is very busy indeed and doesn’t notice you at first, he is bending over a computer screen talking animatedly with an engineer. You sit down in a nearby chair while you wait, and doodle on a sketch-pad with a pencil. Oops, you broke the lead. The commissioner sees you at last and rushes over. Ouch, he spills his coffee in his haste and stains his clean white shirt.
An hour later, you are walking away from the chamber, having discussed in detail your next mission, and the best way of going about it. You are detained in the reception area by a pretty young secretary who has some papers for you. Except a page is missing, so she asks you to wait for a minute while she tries to find it in her office. She is taking her time, so you spot a friendly cat wandering about and start to stoke it. It hisses at you, so you take out your combat knife and slice it in half. You are just removing the guts from the cat and spreading them over the floor for your own amusement when the secretary comes back. She is horrified and starts screaming. You pull out your AK47 and shoot her down. Blood spills all over the desk and ruins a lot of the paperwork on it. You stroll out the front door and walk towards your Mercedes, waving your gun at Black Mesa workers and enjoying their shock and individual reactions. Bang, you are shot dead by a security officer.
Ultimate Reality FIFA 2046 (2046)
Your men are walking out of the tunnel, soaking up the applause from the crowd. A boy on the side is frantically calling out for an autograph from Owen, who ignores him, but Seaman takes pity on the lad and signs his book. The game is eventually underway. Beckham passes to Heskey, back to Beckham who fluffs his pass and misses the ball completely. Pheep, play is halted for a female streaker who has eluded the tight security and is running on the pitch. Officials and security charge after her and eventually catch her. She is covered in a blanket and escorted from the pitch. Play continues. Play is stopped again an opposing striker shoots and the speeding ball hits Neville in the face. Medics are called on and cart off Neville. His brother Phil is brought on his place, only he doesn’t seem to realise that his shirt is on the wrong way round. At the final whistle England lose 1-3 and are knocked out of Euro ‘46 in the qualifying stages.
Ultimate Reality Colin McCrae (2051)
The light turns green and you wheelspin on the wet grass. Seconds later a helicopter passes above you and races further on in the track where another racer has injured someone when their car overturned. You speed along and glance at Nicky Grist sitting to your left. He is frowning as he tries to make sense of the dirty map he is reading, the water splashing through the open window doesn’t help much either. A few minutes later, Nicky accidentally gives you a wrong direction, so you slide into a left hand corner facing right. You bump off the track and bash your side onto a tree. You try to reverse, but the car isn’t moving. You get out of your car, and only then do you notice that your wheel is inextricably attached to a branch. A few bystanders try and help but to no avail. Your race is over.
Playing these sort of games would be so tedious as to become unbearable. OK, some might like experimenting with what can actually be done, and have fun doing so. But to complete a specific objective would be almost impossible if realism was total.
Half-Life: Just imagine, all the AI would be as clever as you, one shot would probably kill you, and yet would be outnumbered about 10,000 to 1, as per usual.
FIFA: Each game would last for the full 90 minutes, players might refuse to play, stamina would drain very quickly, and all the nimble tricks that we are so used to pulling off by tapping a few buttons would rarely work, like in real life.
COLIN McCRAE
Just one bump could ruin your race if it mashed a vulnerable part of your car, a high speed collision would totally write off your car, also killing you, and total engine failures could occur, knocking you out of the race unfairly.
There are a few very simple formulas to remember when designing a game.
Realism=Good
Fun&Gameplay=Good
Realism+Fun&Gameplay=Very good
Realism+Realism=Bad
That’s right, although realism can make or break a game, too much realism will ruin a game for most. Some people would like to try ultimate realism, as indeed most of us would, but that couldn’t really be classed as a game. For a game that will appeal to the masses, the key is to fine tune the balance of realism and fun & gameplay.
The most important step is gauging how much realism you need in the game. Warren Spector hits the nail on the head in PCG104 when he says that he focused his efforts on believability rather than realism.
The actual aim of any game is to make the player believe that they are actually there, in a virtual world, being a hero. Obviously ultimate realism could create believability, but we’re not really interested in that since we don’t want to make ultimate reality games. What we do want to know is whether a genuinely good game that is fun to play requires total or near total realism to achieve believability? Thankfully, this is not the case. An immersive and believable game only requires so much realism to make you actually feel that you are there.
We have established that total realism is not required for perfect games, so what we now have to consider is how current games can improve so they can achieve this standard. I will now discuss this point, and address certain areas where I think attention is needed. Since there are so many genres though, I will be addressing my comments mainly, but not entirely, at First Person Shooters.
CONSISTENCY
I feel that one of the most important but sadly neglected areas of realism is the consistency of a game. If the grate to your right is breakable, then how come the grate to your left isn’t? This sort of thing occurs constantly in games, where developers base the realism of certain objects upon what they need to make a particular level, rather than what would be realistically possible. This should be abolished, and decisions should be made. For instance, it doesn’t matter whether the grates are breakable or not, so long as the same rules apply to all similar grates in the game. Have you also noticed that many games have computers, screens, buttons etc, yet never can you use them. The only buttons that you can press are the plot-essential ones, the rest just sit there like dummies and flash lights at you. It wouldn’t matter so much if there wasn’t even an effect when you pressed the button, just so long as it could be pressed and make a little beeping sound like all the others. It isn’t that interactive buttons are a necessary addition, but it goes a long way toward the believability of a game, which is the important factor.
PHYSICS
Another embarrassment in realism for most games is the physics. Isn’t it strange how your immensely powerful time bomb will wrench a huge pair of wrought iron gates in two, but won’t even take a splinter off a nearby wooden shelf. The problem is that most games excel at certain physics that are necessary to the completion of a game, but for the rest of the objects in a game, you couldn’t knock a candle over with a rocket launcher. I am not complaining that physics should be entirely accurate, but that there should be at least passable physics for all elements of the game, not just hyper-realistic physics for the plot-essential parts as many games seem to think. Operation Flashpoint went so far as to model the speed of sound, and things like this, although a bit extravagant, inspire believability, which is good. But when I laid a bomb under a tree in the same game, it merely blackened it. Passable physics for all objects would inspire believability, whereas the lazy indestructible physics for many objects don’t.
CHARACTER INTERACTION
This partially comes under consistency, but it’s such a major problem that it can be addressed as a fault in it’s own right. In just about any game ever made you will come across NPCs. Computer controlled characters that are either necessary for game completion, or just add colour to the scenery. Once again the problem lies in the fact that the only NPCs you can talk to or interact with in any depth are inevitably the plot-essential ones. Admittedly some games have made a real effort, Deus Ex comes to mind for it’s ability to talk to almost everyone in the game. And Unreal Tournament is just one of the many games that manages to effectively use orders for the team-based modes. But many, many games either lack such depth in interaction, or they fail to put interaction there in the first place. Even in Half-Life for example you can only give two basic commands, follow and stop.
But it’s also important not to overstep the mark a bit, as the Discworld series does in some cases. They give you so much dialogue to listen to that it becomes tedious just sitting listening to characters rambling on about some half-wit conversation of their’s. Long, tedious conversations do promote believability, but they sacrifice some of the Fun & Gameplay in the process. I think the nearest game to perfection in terms of character interaction has to be Deus Ex. It’s system of letting you speak a few lines with all the non-important characters yet have in-depth, but not tedious conversations with major characters has yet to be beaten. Creating believability without sacrificing other elements of the game is the key, and Deus Ex does that with near perfection. I salute it and point to it for any future game developers worried about character interaction.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI is one of the biggest, deciding factors on how good a game is. How frustrating was it back in the original Commandos when you turned your back on one of your men for just a minute and some enemies spotted them. Your men would start screaming at you for help, while they just stood there swallowing the lead that the Nazis were shooting at them. They didn’t even run for cover or defend themselves. That sort of niggle in a game’s AI really spoils the enjoyability in playing it, as you know that in real life your men wouldn’t be so pitifully, suicidally thick.
One of the games famous for it’s AI was Half-life. Battling the Marines was one of the most exhilarating experiences in gaming history. Why? Because heroically diving across hallways with your gun blasting while dodging their grenades and tactical advances created an immense amount of believability and immersion. How else can you explain the fact that everyone who has played Half-life comes away babbling “Red Team, Recon”, “Go go go”. The AI is actually an extremely long distance from total reality, but what does that matter if the believability is extreme? Half-life’s AI has been improved on with all the recently released FPSs to create even more intelligent AI. ‘Medal of Honour: Allied Assault’ probably holds the ‘Best AI’ flag at the moment because it manages to increase the intelligence of the AI considerably without affecting the Fun & Gameplay other than raising it.
The perfect AI then, as partially achieved by MOH, would consist of 4 main elements:
1. Different personalities for soldiers, aggressive, defensive etc.
2. A host of offensive and defensive tactics that they use appropriately to good effect.
3. Realistic shot accuracy.
4. Their reaction to the world around them.
That last element can add a great deal to the feeling of immersion in the game if implemented properly. The Nazis in MOH are a prime example of this, they react realistically to the physical world that they exist in, making use of obstacles, walls, open spaces etc, to aid them while fighting, or whatever else they are doing.
This idea would be expanded even further in the perfect game to cover use of darkness, shadows, colour camouflage, height, and also managing things like locking doors behind them if retreating into a building.
I feel that AI like this would create a huge amount of immersion and believability while managing to achieve maximum Fun & Gameplay.
That has covered a lot of the basic elements of a game that could improve on their realism, but there are many more advanced realisms, some of which involve social, historical and contextual implications. These are the less obvious parts of realism, but they are just as important, as their existence inspires a deeper sense of believability, which in turn gives greater pleasure and enjoyability in playing.
CHARACTER VIEWPOINT
In the majority of games you view your character(s) from one of three standard viewpoints. First-person, third-person and god.
First-person view is when you see just the person’s arms and anything that they may be carrying, weapons, tools, bodies etc.
Third-person is a view from directly behind the game character so you can see their every body movement when they perform actions.
God vision is from far above the game environment and is typically used for RTS (Real Time Strategy) titles so that you can command armies and large wars in a position where you can see all the action.
Although games such as the highly praised Deus Ex and Unreal Tournament are on the whole excellent, it just brings you back down to earth a bit when you look down and find that you have no legs. In fact, in every FPS that I can currently think of, a glance down at your means of movement reveals just a humanly shaped shadow with no legs to suspend your body. The developers obviously think that this is a very small niggle, and may have even deliberately chosen to omit legs as they might hinder your downward view somewhat. But this does shatter the illusion slightly.
Another issue about the first person camera view is the fact that you can never ever fall over. Whenever you are hit, shot or fall down somewhere, your character remains supernaturally upright. Written down, this fact may seem a glaringly obvious fault, but in the game it is so unnoticeable that I never even dreamt about it before I thoroughly analysed realism in games.
This would obviously need to be rectified in a total reality game; when punched or kicked you would fall over and the screen would face the ceiling, and if you tripped up you would fall flat on your face and get an excellent view of the daisies.
However, this niggle does not actually affect the believability of game, as I said, it had never even occurred to me before I thoroughly analysed it. Having the camera falling about all over the place would just frustrate you and detract from your enjoyability. So for a perfect game the camera would retain it’s upright position.
GAME CHARACTER
Lara Croft is easily the most popular icon in the gaming world. The creators of Tomb Raider wanted it so that rather than just being yourself in the game, you would control Lara. Playing as Lara isn’t just moving a nameless body around, it’s moving a living breathing virtual person. Having a specified hero for the game sometimes, and sometimes doesn’t work. In the case of Lara however, she is a ‘virtual babe’, a perfect female. To promote this idea further the game only lets you play in a third-person perspective, so you are made to feel that Lara is actually playing the game, but you are in control. Not only do you have a gorgeous babe to run around at your will, but the Tomb Raider series are actually very good games, a combination that is assured of success.
So although Tomb Raider relies partially on a hero for it’s success, you never feel that it is really you who is playing the game. A game that takes the opposite approach, among others, is Unreal Tournament. The focus here is on you, YOU must win the matches, YOU must win the tournament, YOU must defeat Xan. This change of focus means that the perspective has now changed to first-person, so when you win the match you truly feel like it is you who has won it, not some game character. It even allows you to build your own body to further personalise the experience.
So what stance would realism take, playing as a virtual hero, or playing as yourself?
Thankfully, they are two different styles of game, so realism wouldn’t favour one over another. Both are distinctly different and are fun in their own way. As long as they clearly distinguish which side they are on, the two can co-exist quite happily.
CUTSCENES
Cutscenes can be described as ‘Non-interactive sequences used to advance the plot’. They are usually used to start or end missions, and also occur in the middle if necessary events need to take place that wouldn’t definitely happen if you were still in control. Some developers use cutscenes to tell part of the story while the game is in progress. Sometimes this works well, but more often than not it is just another lazy excuse to make the story turn the way they want, and just leaves you feeling frustrated. I’ll give you an example:
‘You are playing a FPS and running down a corridor when suddenly a cutscene takes control of you. Rather than stopping to peer round the edge of a doorway and maybe lob a grenade in as you would have done, the character dumbly runs in oblivious of any danger. Ooh, what a surprise, it’s a trap, and you are taken captive by enemy forces who imprison you.’
The frustrating part is that it wasn’t YOU who got caught, it was the cutscene character. Why did YOU have to suffer through HIS actions? It’s so unfair, and it robs a game of enjoyment. The perfect game will rid of the awful, decision making abilities of the in-game cutscene, so if something has to happen it will be through your own fault or merit, not that of a pre-determined cutscene character.
STORYLINE
The storyline is one of the most important parts of realism in a game. A well-executed story with a good plot, a lot of depth, and many realistic occurrences will actually make you feel far more satisfied and give you far more enjoyment than a sub-standard story, which simply drags you from place to place, and ultimately becomes a chore to finish.
A good example of an excellent storyline is that of Final Fantasy VII, a Role Playing Game (RPG). It is slightly old now, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the story can really hit you like a punch to the chest. It is long, emotional, extremely deep, and provides many unexpected twists and turns which ensure that there is never a dull moment. Many people have actually cried when one of the main game characters tragically gets killed. There are also many sub-quests and plots within the main story, so you can be attempting many different objectives at the same time. Another important aspect is that the story progresses naturally and realistically.
So a perfect storyline would basically have to keep you hooked the whole way through, not an easy things for the developers to accomplish, but necessary for our gaming pleasure. I’d also like to take the aspect of natural progression a bit further, meaning that the storyline develops naturally.
All too often in games, the most unexpected events happen, that would literally never occur in real life. For instance, if your gaming character needs to cross the sea, when you come to the sea then suddenly ‘Wowee look, there just happens to be a fully armoured, heavily weaponed submarine just there that is only guarded by one light guard, how wonderfully handy.’
To be handed precisely the equipment you need, precisely when you need it is neither realistic nor fun. You should have to work for your rewards, complete objectives, find items or get enough money. If you had to first slay the mighty dragon of Gondor, find a rare herb for a druid, gain a certificate in basic seamanship, and then have to fight a tense and mighty battle to finally gain control of that submarine, then you would appreciate it so much more, unlike if it was just handed to you on a plate.
A conflict that would occur between a perfect game and a total reality one would be in the case of extraordinary events. Take the latest James Bond film as an example. JB has 5 seconds before a bomb explodes, so he jumps onto a chain attached to a rail and rides the explosion along the rail until his female accomplice handily shuts the metal doors behind him. Is that realistic? No, it would never happen in real life. But who cares, it’s a fabulous stunt, and everyone loves it. In that case enjoyability spat in realism’s face, but it got away with it, which is the important part.
Likewise, in a game’s storyline, realism can’t be clung to too tightly, because otherwise it won’t allow you to recreate fabulous scenes like the JB stunt, which although unrealistic, only actually add to the storyline, whereas total reality wouldn’t allow such luxuries.
LOCATION
The setting of most current games is on this wonderful planet of ours, earth. This is probably because it’s more fun to recreate certain aspects of earthly life rather than create a game that features nothing humans have ever done before. Just about every specialist niche in anything relating to life has been catered for by some game or other, from Zoo Tycoon and Microsoft Train Simulator to WWF Wrestling and Rally Championship. It’s an inherent human desire to play what they already know and are familiar with, that’s why FIFA football games will always sell more than any other non-existent futuristic sports game. This is the reason behind the fact that most games are set on our earth.
Total reality would require not only that all games be based on earth, space or some other realistic setting, but also that they be recognisable places. Every game must be set on a particular place in the world, no artificial places accepted, and the game must obviously show it’s location. If it was set in Egypt then the areas would be hot, dusty and sandy, and all the inhabitants would wear the correct mode of dress for that country. But total reality could cause some consternation here because if it created a game involving terrorists, pretty much any setting in New York would cause quite an uproar among critics. If a terrorist game were created, it would be much better suited to fictional locations within countries. Also there are some very good games that are not set on earth. So for these reasons, total reality would not be feasible in terms of location.
To find how much reality is needed in location, it would help a lot to look to other styles of media that have accepted realism, and see what they manage to get away with. This will include film, radio and books. For any of these media types to be realistic they must contain some elements of real life, anything that the audience can relate to is what makes up their perception of realism.
Firstly lets look at Lord of the Rings, which has recently been released on all three formats. The realism in LOTR is widely accepted, despite it’s fantasy setting. Why? Because it features both humans and a location that is similar to earth; trees, houses, taverns. Even though it contains ogres, goblins, wizards and loads of other weird monsters, it still manages to be realistic through it’s use of familiar elements.
So lets take a more extreme title ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. This series of books starts on earth and then ranges over the whole universe to totally fictional locations. Yet it still manages to remain realistic, or at least create a realistic perception in the minds of the viewers. Why? Because it starts in and constantly returns to well known locations on earth, and it’s star is a totally fallible human. Again using familiar elements to generate realism.
So the perfect game then should stretch realism to allow for other places than earth. But for the games that use earth as a setting anyway, in some cases these should attempt to recreate real locations as this really does enhance realism, but obviously this wouldn’t be applicable to all styles of game.
HISTORICAL ACCURACY
Surprisingly, historical accuracy takes quite a large degree of importance in some of the major recent games. Return to Castle Wolfenstein featured accurate representations of the German soldier’s uniforms that are modelled on real uniforms from the time period that the game was set in, and most of the weapons are the ones actually used by the Germans at that time.
Another example of historical accuracy is Age of Empires and it’s sequel. This is an RTS title that not only boasts accurate military units for around 8 different civilisations at the correct time period, but also provides you with real-life historical backgrounds on every unit and building. It’s worth pointing out that some historical accuracy is compromised for certain units that are purely fictional, but this is a deliberate choice so as to balance the civilisations and make the game more fun overall.
But does historical accuracy actually improve your gaming experience at all, or is it simply another pointless expense?
Turning again to television and video, you’ll no doubt remember some of the older films in which you could see obvious mistakes. I can recall one particular film that showed a scene with tribal warriors racing across a large patch of land to attack some other army, but in the background behind the natives you could clearly see the second camera crew, unaware that they were imposing in the shot. That shot people’s impression of historical accuracy and realism down to earth with a bump. Other examples could include a WW1 soldier wearing a digital watch, and a part of a sports car appearing in a Western.
The gaming equivalent to these jarring mistakes could be like the following:
You are playing a WW1 game and are fighting a Nazi officer who is chasing you with a Sten Gun. Having little success, he abandons his gun in favour of an infra-red missile launcher before leaping into his Puma assault helicopter. He then dons jeans and t-shirt, curses you with a torrent of modern swear words and drops a nuclear bomb on you, which doesn’t explode, being made in Taiwan.
Although that is wildly exaggerated, you can see that unrealistic historical accuracy would severely ruin a game’s playability.
Alternatively, a total reality game would include every last detail, whether it be the type and model of vehicles in the game, or the dress of game characters. This appears to present no immediate problems in theory, but put into practise would make for a very dull game. You would be strictly limited to the resources available in the game’s time period, and absolutely nothing else. This is partly why Age of Empires makes a conscious decision not to strictly adhere to historical accuracy, so it can liven the game considerably and let you enjoy it far more.
As with most game elements then, the mix is somewhere in between for the perfect game. Historical accuracy definitely enhances a game, but has to be limited strictly to believability status if it doesn’t want to rob other game elements.
LENGTH OF DEVELOPMENT
The current lengths of development range from about 1 year to sometimes over 4 years. To go to the lengths of creating an ultimate reality game in any genre would take a very long time. All possibilities would have to be accounted for, both visually, in the graphics, and physically, in the programming. I would estimate that an ultimate reality Half-Life would take approximately 10-16 years to create, and then at least another year or more QA testing. The final result would probably require up to 4 DVDs, and a whopping amount of hard drive usage. The extra time in development means that the price of the game would more than double to cover all the costs, and wages of the developers. Is that really what we want?
A Half-Life that met all the requirements of our perfect game however would require only 4 - 5 years development, 1-2 CDs and no unreasonable demands upon our gaming system. Game price might increase, but not by very much.
CONCLUSION
So that’s it ladies and gentlemen. You know my opinion of how realism in future gaming should turn out, but now it’s time to form your own. You have 2 paths to choose from.
1. Gaming should attain ultimate realism, ridding itself of anything that wouldn’t happen in the real world. Nothing should be spared to create total simulation. Development times will increase substantially as will game prices, meaning that we have to wait longer and pay more for our games.
2. Our gaming future will shun realism when other precious gaming elements are at stake to create a rounded out and more enjoyable game. The basic guidelines are: Believability is the essential part of a game rather than total realism, because total realism sacrifices a lot of the fun & gameplay. Intense believability, immersion, fun & gameplay are basically what compromise the perfect game, and so are to be strived for at all costs. Development times and prices will naturally increase, but only by small amounts.
Whatever happens, we are riding the tidal wave of technology, and we can look to the future with slavering anticipation. Half-Life 2 anyone.......?
Thanks for reading.
Brew
Congrats on the win, I managed to read all of it...eventually!
The reason it's so long is coz I spent all the days I was a newbie working on it. I wanted to post it in Prime, so it just kept growing until my name turned purple. It is a bit hefty, but all of it makes perfect sense, it really is worth reading.
Jeeeeeez that's like a book, you reckon Snuggly actually read the whole thing?
Well done on the win!
Well done on the win!
WO! That is one hell of a (LONG) post! Nice one :-D
Every year, games of all genres are gradually becoming more and more realistic. But ultimately, how far will this go, or more to the point, how far do we want it go. Do we actually want a perfect recreation of reality? How much longer would immense realism make the development of a game? Could we be looking at 10+ years for the development of a single game?
Before anything else I have tried to imagine what games with ultimate reality would be like. Many people long for ultimate reality, but you can make up your own mind when you have read what I imagine ultimate reality games would eventually be like.
Ultimate Reality Half-Life (2054)
It’s a hard job you know, making the earth a better place. You are on your way to the briefing room now, following one of the Barneys. He ambles along, limping slightly from where he broke his leg playing football only a few weeks ago. He stops outside the heavily guarded chamber and punches his access code into the machine. Damn, he typed it wrong, try again. That’s better, the door opens and you walk through. The commissioner is very busy indeed and doesn’t notice you at first, he is bending over a computer screen talking animatedly with an engineer. You sit down in a nearby chair while you wait, and doodle on a sketch-pad with a pencil. Oops, you broke the lead. The commissioner sees you at last and rushes over. Ouch, he spills his coffee in his haste and stains his clean white shirt.
An hour later, you are walking away from the chamber, having discussed in detail your next mission, and the best way of going about it. You are detained in the reception area by a pretty young secretary who has some papers for you. Except a page is missing, so she asks you to wait for a minute while she tries to find it in her office. She is taking her time, so you spot a friendly cat wandering about and start to stoke it. It hisses at you, so you take out your combat knife and slice it in half. You are just removing the guts from the cat and spreading them over the floor for your own amusement when the secretary comes back. She is horrified and starts screaming. You pull out your AK47 and shoot her down. Blood spills all over the desk and ruins a lot of the paperwork on it. You stroll out the front door and walk towards your Mercedes, waving your gun at Black Mesa workers and enjoying their shock and individual reactions. Bang, you are shot dead by a security officer.
Ultimate Reality FIFA 2046 (2046)
Your men are walking out of the tunnel, soaking up the applause from the crowd. A boy on the side is frantically calling out for an autograph from Owen, who ignores him, but Seaman takes pity on the lad and signs his book. The game is eventually underway. Beckham passes to Heskey, back to Beckham who fluffs his pass and misses the ball completely. Pheep, play is halted for a female streaker who has eluded the tight security and is running on the pitch. Officials and security charge after her and eventually catch her. She is covered in a blanket and escorted from the pitch. Play continues. Play is stopped again an opposing striker shoots and the speeding ball hits Neville in the face. Medics are called on and cart off Neville. His brother Phil is brought on his place, only he doesn’t seem to realise that his shirt is on the wrong way round. At the final whistle England lose 1-3 and are knocked out of Euro ‘46 in the qualifying stages.
Ultimate Reality Colin McCrae (2051)
The light turns green and you wheelspin on the wet grass. Seconds later a helicopter passes above you and races further on in the track where another racer has injured someone when their car overturned. You speed along and glance at Nicky Grist sitting to your left. He is frowning as he tries to make sense of the dirty map he is reading, the water splashing through the open window doesn’t help much either. A few minutes later, Nicky accidentally gives you a wrong direction, so you slide into a left hand corner facing right. You bump off the track and bash your side onto a tree. You try to reverse, but the car isn’t moving. You get out of your car, and only then do you notice that your wheel is inextricably attached to a branch. A few bystanders try and help but to no avail. Your race is over.
Playing these sort of games would be so tedious as to become unbearable. OK, some might like experimenting with what can actually be done, and have fun doing so. But to complete a specific objective would be almost impossible if realism was total.
Half-Life: Just imagine, all the AI would be as clever as you, one shot would probably kill you, and yet would be outnumbered about 10,000 to 1, as per usual.
FIFA: Each game would last for the full 90 minutes, players might refuse to play, stamina would drain very quickly, and all the nimble tricks that we are so used to pulling off by tapping a few buttons would rarely work, like in real life.
COLIN McCRAE
Just one bump could ruin your race if it mashed a vulnerable part of your car, a high speed collision would totally write off your car, also killing you, and total engine failures could occur, knocking you out of the race unfairly.
There are a few very simple formulas to remember when designing a game.
Realism=Good
Fun&Gameplay=Good
Realism+Fun&Gameplay=Very good
Realism+Realism=Bad
That’s right, although realism can make or break a game, too much realism will ruin a game for most. Some people would like to try ultimate realism, as indeed most of us would, but that couldn’t really be classed as a game. For a game that will appeal to the masses, the key is to fine tune the balance of realism and fun & gameplay.
The most important step is gauging how much realism you need in the game. Warren Spector hits the nail on the head in PCG104 when he says that he focused his efforts on believability rather than realism.
The actual aim of any game is to make the player believe that they are actually there, in a virtual world, being a hero. Obviously ultimate realism could create believability, but we’re not really interested in that since we don’t want to make ultimate reality games. What we do want to know is whether a genuinely good game that is fun to play requires total or near total realism to achieve believability? Thankfully, this is not the case. An immersive and believable game only requires so much realism to make you actually feel that you are there.
We have established that total realism is not required for perfect games, so what we now have to consider is how current games can improve so they can achieve this standard. I will now discuss this point, and address certain areas where I think attention is needed. Since there are so many genres though, I will be addressing my comments mainly, but not entirely, at First Person Shooters.
CONSISTENCY
I feel that one of the most important but sadly neglected areas of realism is the consistency of a game. If the grate to your right is breakable, then how come the grate to your left isn’t? This sort of thing occurs constantly in games, where developers base the realism of certain objects upon what they need to make a particular level, rather than what would be realistically possible. This should be abolished, and decisions should be made. For instance, it doesn’t matter whether the grates are breakable or not, so long as the same rules apply to all similar grates in the game. Have you also noticed that many games have computers, screens, buttons etc, yet never can you use them. The only buttons that you can press are the plot-essential ones, the rest just sit there like dummies and flash lights at you. It wouldn’t matter so much if there wasn’t even an effect when you pressed the button, just so long as it could be pressed and make a little beeping sound like all the others. It isn’t that interactive buttons are a necessary addition, but it goes a long way toward the believability of a game, which is the important factor.
PHYSICS
Another embarrassment in realism for most games is the physics. Isn’t it strange how your immensely powerful time bomb will wrench a huge pair of wrought iron gates in two, but won’t even take a splinter off a nearby wooden shelf. The problem is that most games excel at certain physics that are necessary to the completion of a game, but for the rest of the objects in a game, you couldn’t knock a candle over with a rocket launcher. I am not complaining that physics should be entirely accurate, but that there should be at least passable physics for all elements of the game, not just hyper-realistic physics for the plot-essential parts as many games seem to think. Operation Flashpoint went so far as to model the speed of sound, and things like this, although a bit extravagant, inspire believability, which is good. But when I laid a bomb under a tree in the same game, it merely blackened it. Passable physics for all objects would inspire believability, whereas the lazy indestructible physics for many objects don’t.
CHARACTER INTERACTION
This partially comes under consistency, but it’s such a major problem that it can be addressed as a fault in it’s own right. In just about any game ever made you will come across NPCs. Computer controlled characters that are either necessary for game completion, or just add colour to the scenery. Once again the problem lies in the fact that the only NPCs you can talk to or interact with in any depth are inevitably the plot-essential ones. Admittedly some games have made a real effort, Deus Ex comes to mind for it’s ability to talk to almost everyone in the game. And Unreal Tournament is just one of the many games that manages to effectively use orders for the team-based modes. But many, many games either lack such depth in interaction, or they fail to put interaction there in the first place. Even in Half-Life for example you can only give two basic commands, follow and stop.
But it’s also important not to overstep the mark a bit, as the Discworld series does in some cases. They give you so much dialogue to listen to that it becomes tedious just sitting listening to characters rambling on about some half-wit conversation of their’s. Long, tedious conversations do promote believability, but they sacrifice some of the Fun & Gameplay in the process. I think the nearest game to perfection in terms of character interaction has to be Deus Ex. It’s system of letting you speak a few lines with all the non-important characters yet have in-depth, but not tedious conversations with major characters has yet to be beaten. Creating believability without sacrificing other elements of the game is the key, and Deus Ex does that with near perfection. I salute it and point to it for any future game developers worried about character interaction.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI is one of the biggest, deciding factors on how good a game is. How frustrating was it back in the original Commandos when you turned your back on one of your men for just a minute and some enemies spotted them. Your men would start screaming at you for help, while they just stood there swallowing the lead that the Nazis were shooting at them. They didn’t even run for cover or defend themselves. That sort of niggle in a game’s AI really spoils the enjoyability in playing it, as you know that in real life your men wouldn’t be so pitifully, suicidally thick.
One of the games famous for it’s AI was Half-life. Battling the Marines was one of the most exhilarating experiences in gaming history. Why? Because heroically diving across hallways with your gun blasting while dodging their grenades and tactical advances created an immense amount of believability and immersion. How else can you explain the fact that everyone who has played Half-life comes away babbling “Red Team, Recon”, “Go go go”. The AI is actually an extremely long distance from total reality, but what does that matter if the believability is extreme? Half-life’s AI has been improved on with all the recently released FPSs to create even more intelligent AI. ‘Medal of Honour: Allied Assault’ probably holds the ‘Best AI’ flag at the moment because it manages to increase the intelligence of the AI considerably without affecting the Fun & Gameplay other than raising it.
The perfect AI then, as partially achieved by MOH, would consist of 4 main elements:
1. Different personalities for soldiers, aggressive, defensive etc.
2. A host of offensive and defensive tactics that they use appropriately to good effect.
3. Realistic shot accuracy.
4. Their reaction to the world around them.
That last element can add a great deal to the feeling of immersion in the game if implemented properly. The Nazis in MOH are a prime example of this, they react realistically to the physical world that they exist in, making use of obstacles, walls, open spaces etc, to aid them while fighting, or whatever else they are doing.
This idea would be expanded even further in the perfect game to cover use of darkness, shadows, colour camouflage, height, and also managing things like locking doors behind them if retreating into a building.
I feel that AI like this would create a huge amount of immersion and believability while managing to achieve maximum Fun & Gameplay.
That has covered a lot of the basic elements of a game that could improve on their realism, but there are many more advanced realisms, some of which involve social, historical and contextual implications. These are the less obvious parts of realism, but they are just as important, as their existence inspires a deeper sense of believability, which in turn gives greater pleasure and enjoyability in playing.
CHARACTER VIEWPOINT
In the majority of games you view your character(s) from one of three standard viewpoints. First-person, third-person and god.
First-person view is when you see just the person’s arms and anything that they may be carrying, weapons, tools, bodies etc.
Third-person is a view from directly behind the game character so you can see their every body movement when they perform actions.
God vision is from far above the game environment and is typically used for RTS (Real Time Strategy) titles so that you can command armies and large wars in a position where you can see all the action.
Although games such as the highly praised Deus Ex and Unreal Tournament are on the whole excellent, it just brings you back down to earth a bit when you look down and find that you have no legs. In fact, in every FPS that I can currently think of, a glance down at your means of movement reveals just a humanly shaped shadow with no legs to suspend your body. The developers obviously think that this is a very small niggle, and may have even deliberately chosen to omit legs as they might hinder your downward view somewhat. But this does shatter the illusion slightly.
Another issue about the first person camera view is the fact that you can never ever fall over. Whenever you are hit, shot or fall down somewhere, your character remains supernaturally upright. Written down, this fact may seem a glaringly obvious fault, but in the game it is so unnoticeable that I never even dreamt about it before I thoroughly analysed realism in games.
This would obviously need to be rectified in a total reality game; when punched or kicked you would fall over and the screen would face the ceiling, and if you tripped up you would fall flat on your face and get an excellent view of the daisies.
However, this niggle does not actually affect the believability of game, as I said, it had never even occurred to me before I thoroughly analysed it. Having the camera falling about all over the place would just frustrate you and detract from your enjoyability. So for a perfect game the camera would retain it’s upright position.
GAME CHARACTER
Lara Croft is easily the most popular icon in the gaming world. The creators of Tomb Raider wanted it so that rather than just being yourself in the game, you would control Lara. Playing as Lara isn’t just moving a nameless body around, it’s moving a living breathing virtual person. Having a specified hero for the game sometimes, and sometimes doesn’t work. In the case of Lara however, she is a ‘virtual babe’, a perfect female. To promote this idea further the game only lets you play in a third-person perspective, so you are made to feel that Lara is actually playing the game, but you are in control. Not only do you have a gorgeous babe to run around at your will, but the Tomb Raider series are actually very good games, a combination that is assured of success.
So although Tomb Raider relies partially on a hero for it’s success, you never feel that it is really you who is playing the game. A game that takes the opposite approach, among others, is Unreal Tournament. The focus here is on you, YOU must win the matches, YOU must win the tournament, YOU must defeat Xan. This change of focus means that the perspective has now changed to first-person, so when you win the match you truly feel like it is you who has won it, not some game character. It even allows you to build your own body to further personalise the experience.
So what stance would realism take, playing as a virtual hero, or playing as yourself?
Thankfully, they are two different styles of game, so realism wouldn’t favour one over another. Both are distinctly different and are fun in their own way. As long as they clearly distinguish which side they are on, the two can co-exist quite happily.
CUTSCENES
Cutscenes can be described as ‘Non-interactive sequences used to advance the plot’. They are usually used to start or end missions, and also occur in the middle if necessary events need to take place that wouldn’t definitely happen if you were still in control. Some developers use cutscenes to tell part of the story while the game is in progress. Sometimes this works well, but more often than not it is just another lazy excuse to make the story turn the way they want, and just leaves you feeling frustrated. I’ll give you an example:
‘You are playing a FPS and running down a corridor when suddenly a cutscene takes control of you. Rather than stopping to peer round the edge of a doorway and maybe lob a grenade in as you would have done, the character dumbly runs in oblivious of any danger. Ooh, what a surprise, it’s a trap, and you are taken captive by enemy forces who imprison you.’
The frustrating part is that it wasn’t YOU who got caught, it was the cutscene character. Why did YOU have to suffer through HIS actions? It’s so unfair, and it robs a game of enjoyment. The perfect game will rid of the awful, decision making abilities of the in-game cutscene, so if something has to happen it will be through your own fault or merit, not that of a pre-determined cutscene character.
STORYLINE
The storyline is one of the most important parts of realism in a game. A well-executed story with a good plot, a lot of depth, and many realistic occurrences will actually make you feel far more satisfied and give you far more enjoyment than a sub-standard story, which simply drags you from place to place, and ultimately becomes a chore to finish.
A good example of an excellent storyline is that of Final Fantasy VII, a Role Playing Game (RPG). It is slightly old now, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the story can really hit you like a punch to the chest. It is long, emotional, extremely deep, and provides many unexpected twists and turns which ensure that there is never a dull moment. Many people have actually cried when one of the main game characters tragically gets killed. There are also many sub-quests and plots within the main story, so you can be attempting many different objectives at the same time. Another important aspect is that the story progresses naturally and realistically.
So a perfect storyline would basically have to keep you hooked the whole way through, not an easy things for the developers to accomplish, but necessary for our gaming pleasure. I’d also like to take the aspect of natural progression a bit further, meaning that the storyline develops naturally.
All too often in games, the most unexpected events happen, that would literally never occur in real life. For instance, if your gaming character needs to cross the sea, when you come to the sea then suddenly ‘Wowee look, there just happens to be a fully armoured, heavily weaponed submarine just there that is only guarded by one light guard, how wonderfully handy.’
To be handed precisely the equipment you need, precisely when you need it is neither realistic nor fun. You should have to work for your rewards, complete objectives, find items or get enough money. If you had to first slay the mighty dragon of Gondor, find a rare herb for a druid, gain a certificate in basic seamanship, and then have to fight a tense and mighty battle to finally gain control of that submarine, then you would appreciate it so much more, unlike if it was just handed to you on a plate.
A conflict that would occur between a perfect game and a total reality one would be in the case of extraordinary events. Take the latest James Bond film as an example. JB has 5 seconds before a bomb explodes, so he jumps onto a chain attached to a rail and rides the explosion along the rail until his female accomplice handily shuts the metal doors behind him. Is that realistic? No, it would never happen in real life. But who cares, it’s a fabulous stunt, and everyone loves it. In that case enjoyability spat in realism’s face, but it got away with it, which is the important part.
Likewise, in a game’s storyline, realism can’t be clung to too tightly, because otherwise it won’t allow you to recreate fabulous scenes like the JB stunt, which although unrealistic, only actually add to the storyline, whereas total reality wouldn’t allow such luxuries.
LOCATION
The setting of most current games is on this wonderful planet of ours, earth. This is probably because it’s more fun to recreate certain aspects of earthly life rather than create a game that features nothing humans have ever done before. Just about every specialist niche in anything relating to life has been catered for by some game or other, from Zoo Tycoon and Microsoft Train Simulator to WWF Wrestling and Rally Championship. It’s an inherent human desire to play what they already know and are familiar with, that’s why FIFA football games will always sell more than any other non-existent futuristic sports game. This is the reason behind the fact that most games are set on our earth.
Total reality would require not only that all games be based on earth, space or some other realistic setting, but also that they be recognisable places. Every game must be set on a particular place in the world, no artificial places accepted, and the game must obviously show it’s location. If it was set in Egypt then the areas would be hot, dusty and sandy, and all the inhabitants would wear the correct mode of dress for that country. But total reality could cause some consternation here because if it created a game involving terrorists, pretty much any setting in New York would cause quite an uproar among critics. If a terrorist game were created, it would be much better suited to fictional locations within countries. Also there are some very good games that are not set on earth. So for these reasons, total reality would not be feasible in terms of location.
To find how much reality is needed in location, it would help a lot to look to other styles of media that have accepted realism, and see what they manage to get away with. This will include film, radio and books. For any of these media types to be realistic they must contain some elements of real life, anything that the audience can relate to is what makes up their perception of realism.
Firstly lets look at Lord of the Rings, which has recently been released on all three formats. The realism in LOTR is widely accepted, despite it’s fantasy setting. Why? Because it features both humans and a location that is similar to earth; trees, houses, taverns. Even though it contains ogres, goblins, wizards and loads of other weird monsters, it still manages to be realistic through it’s use of familiar elements.
So lets take a more extreme title ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. This series of books starts on earth and then ranges over the whole universe to totally fictional locations. Yet it still manages to remain realistic, or at least create a realistic perception in the minds of the viewers. Why? Because it starts in and constantly returns to well known locations on earth, and it’s star is a totally fallible human. Again using familiar elements to generate realism.
So the perfect game then should stretch realism to allow for other places than earth. But for the games that use earth as a setting anyway, in some cases these should attempt to recreate real locations as this really does enhance realism, but obviously this wouldn’t be applicable to all styles of game.
HISTORICAL ACCURACY
Surprisingly, historical accuracy takes quite a large degree of importance in some of the major recent games. Return to Castle Wolfenstein featured accurate representations of the German soldier’s uniforms that are modelled on real uniforms from the time period that the game was set in, and most of the weapons are the ones actually used by the Germans at that time.
Another example of historical accuracy is Age of Empires and it’s sequel. This is an RTS title that not only boasts accurate military units for around 8 different civilisations at the correct time period, but also provides you with real-life historical backgrounds on every unit and building. It’s worth pointing out that some historical accuracy is compromised for certain units that are purely fictional, but this is a deliberate choice so as to balance the civilisations and make the game more fun overall.
But does historical accuracy actually improve your gaming experience at all, or is it simply another pointless expense?
Turning again to television and video, you’ll no doubt remember some of the older films in which you could see obvious mistakes. I can recall one particular film that showed a scene with tribal warriors racing across a large patch of land to attack some other army, but in the background behind the natives you could clearly see the second camera crew, unaware that they were imposing in the shot. That shot people’s impression of historical accuracy and realism down to earth with a bump. Other examples could include a WW1 soldier wearing a digital watch, and a part of a sports car appearing in a Western.
The gaming equivalent to these jarring mistakes could be like the following:
You are playing a WW1 game and are fighting a Nazi officer who is chasing you with a Sten Gun. Having little success, he abandons his gun in favour of an infra-red missile launcher before leaping into his Puma assault helicopter. He then dons jeans and t-shirt, curses you with a torrent of modern swear words and drops a nuclear bomb on you, which doesn’t explode, being made in Taiwan.
Although that is wildly exaggerated, you can see that unrealistic historical accuracy would severely ruin a game’s playability.
Alternatively, a total reality game would include every last detail, whether it be the type and model of vehicles in the game, or the dress of game characters. This appears to present no immediate problems in theory, but put into practise would make for a very dull game. You would be strictly limited to the resources available in the game’s time period, and absolutely nothing else. This is partly why Age of Empires makes a conscious decision not to strictly adhere to historical accuracy, so it can liven the game considerably and let you enjoy it far more.
As with most game elements then, the mix is somewhere in between for the perfect game. Historical accuracy definitely enhances a game, but has to be limited strictly to believability status if it doesn’t want to rob other game elements.
LENGTH OF DEVELOPMENT
The current lengths of development range from about 1 year to sometimes over 4 years. To go to the lengths of creating an ultimate reality game in any genre would take a very long time. All possibilities would have to be accounted for, both visually, in the graphics, and physically, in the programming. I would estimate that an ultimate reality Half-Life would take approximately 10-16 years to create, and then at least another year or more QA testing. The final result would probably require up to 4 DVDs, and a whopping amount of hard drive usage. The extra time in development means that the price of the game would more than double to cover all the costs, and wages of the developers. Is that really what we want?
A Half-Life that met all the requirements of our perfect game however would require only 4 - 5 years development, 1-2 CDs and no unreasonable demands upon our gaming system. Game price might increase, but not by very much.
CONCLUSION
So that’s it ladies and gentlemen. You know my opinion of how realism in future gaming should turn out, but now it’s time to form your own. You have 2 paths to choose from.
1. Gaming should attain ultimate realism, ridding itself of anything that wouldn’t happen in the real world. Nothing should be spared to create total simulation. Development times will increase substantially as will game prices, meaning that we have to wait longer and pay more for our games.
2. Our gaming future will shun realism when other precious gaming elements are at stake to create a rounded out and more enjoyable game. The basic guidelines are: Believability is the essential part of a game rather than total realism, because total realism sacrifices a lot of the fun & gameplay. Intense believability, immersion, fun & gameplay are basically what compromise the perfect game, and so are to be strived for at all costs. Development times and prices will naturally increase, but only by small amounts.
Whatever happens, we are riding the tidal wave of technology, and we can look to the future with slavering anticipation. Half-Life 2 anyone.......?
Thanks for reading.
Brew
Before anything else I have tried to imagine what games with ultimate reality would be like. Many people long for ultimate reality, but you can make up your own mind when you have read what I imagine ultimate reality games would eventually be like.
Ultimate Reality Half-Life (2054)
It’s a hard job you know, making the earth a better place. You are on your way to the briefing room now, following one of the Barneys. He ambles along, limping slightly from where he broke his leg playing football only a few weeks ago. He stops outside the heavily guarded chamber and punches his access code into the machine. Damn, he typed it wrong, try again. That’s better, the door opens and you walk through. The commissioner is very busy indeed and doesn’t notice you at first, he is bending over a computer screen talking animatedly with an engineer. You sit down in a nearby chair while you wait, and doodle on a sketch-pad with a pencil. Oops, you broke the lead. The commissioner sees you at last and rushes over. Ouch, he spills his coffee in his haste and stains his clean white shirt.
An hour later, you are walking away from the chamber, having discussed in detail your next mission, and the best way of going about it. You are detained in the reception area by a pretty young secretary who has some papers for you. Except a page is missing, so she asks you to wait for a minute while she tries to find it in her office. She is taking her time, so you spot a friendly cat wandering about and start to stoke it. It hisses at you, so you take out your combat knife and slice it in half. You are just removing the guts from the cat and spreading them over the floor for your own amusement when the secretary comes back. She is horrified and starts screaming. You pull out your AK47 and shoot her down. Blood spills all over the desk and ruins a lot of the paperwork on it. You stroll out the front door and walk towards your Mercedes, waving your gun at Black Mesa workers and enjoying their shock and individual reactions. Bang, you are shot dead by a security officer.
Ultimate Reality FIFA 2046 (2046)
Your men are walking out of the tunnel, soaking up the applause from the crowd. A boy on the side is frantically calling out for an autograph from Owen, who ignores him, but Seaman takes pity on the lad and signs his book. The game is eventually underway. Beckham passes to Heskey, back to Beckham who fluffs his pass and misses the ball completely. Pheep, play is halted for a female streaker who has eluded the tight security and is running on the pitch. Officials and security charge after her and eventually catch her. She is covered in a blanket and escorted from the pitch. Play continues. Play is stopped again an opposing striker shoots and the speeding ball hits Neville in the face. Medics are called on and cart off Neville. His brother Phil is brought on his place, only he doesn’t seem to realise that his shirt is on the wrong way round. At the final whistle England lose 1-3 and are knocked out of Euro ‘46 in the qualifying stages.
Ultimate Reality Colin McCrae (2051)
The light turns green and you wheelspin on the wet grass. Seconds later a helicopter passes above you and races further on in the track where another racer has injured someone when their car overturned. You speed along and glance at Nicky Grist sitting to your left. He is frowning as he tries to make sense of the dirty map he is reading, the water splashing through the open window doesn’t help much either. A few minutes later, Nicky accidentally gives you a wrong direction, so you slide into a left hand corner facing right. You bump off the track and bash your side onto a tree. You try to reverse, but the car isn’t moving. You get out of your car, and only then do you notice that your wheel is inextricably attached to a branch. A few bystanders try and help but to no avail. Your race is over.
Playing these sort of games would be so tedious as to become unbearable. OK, some might like experimenting with what can actually be done, and have fun doing so. But to complete a specific objective would be almost impossible if realism was total.
Half-Life: Just imagine, all the AI would be as clever as you, one shot would probably kill you, and yet would be outnumbered about 10,000 to 1, as per usual.
FIFA: Each game would last for the full 90 minutes, players might refuse to play, stamina would drain very quickly, and all the nimble tricks that we are so used to pulling off by tapping a few buttons would rarely work, like in real life.
COLIN McCRAE
Just one bump could ruin your race if it mashed a vulnerable part of your car, a high speed collision would totally write off your car, also killing you, and total engine failures could occur, knocking you out of the race unfairly.
There are a few very simple formulas to remember when designing a game.
Realism=Good
Fun&Gameplay=Good
Realism+Fun&Gameplay=Very good
Realism+Realism=Bad
That’s right, although realism can make or break a game, too much realism will ruin a game for most. Some people would like to try ultimate realism, as indeed most of us would, but that couldn’t really be classed as a game. For a game that will appeal to the masses, the key is to fine tune the balance of realism and fun & gameplay.
The most important step is gauging how much realism you need in the game. Warren Spector hits the nail on the head in PCG104 when he says that he focused his efforts on believability rather than realism.
The actual aim of any game is to make the player believe that they are actually there, in a virtual world, being a hero. Obviously ultimate realism could create believability, but we’re not really interested in that since we don’t want to make ultimate reality games. What we do want to know is whether a genuinely good game that is fun to play requires total or near total realism to achieve believability? Thankfully, this is not the case. An immersive and believable game only requires so much realism to make you actually feel that you are there.
We have established that total realism is not required for perfect games, so what we now have to consider is how current games can improve so they can achieve this standard. I will now discuss this point, and address certain areas where I think attention is needed. Since there are so many genres though, I will be addressing my comments mainly, but not entirely, at First Person Shooters.
CONSISTENCY
I feel that one of the most important but sadly neglected areas of realism is the consistency of a game. If the grate to your right is breakable, then how come the grate to your left isn’t? This sort of thing occurs constantly in games, where developers base the realism of certain objects upon what they need to make a particular level, rather than what would be realistically possible. This should be abolished, and decisions should be made. For instance, it doesn’t matter whether the grates are breakable or not, so long as the same rules apply to all similar grates in the game. Have you also noticed that many games have computers, screens, buttons etc, yet never can you use them. The only buttons that you can press are the plot-essential ones, the rest just sit there like dummies and flash lights at you. It wouldn’t matter so much if there wasn’t even an effect when you pressed the button, just so long as it could be pressed and make a little beeping sound like all the others. It isn’t that interactive buttons are a necessary addition, but it goes a long way toward the believability of a game, which is the important factor.
PHYSICS
Another embarrassment in realism for most games is the physics. Isn’t it strange how your immensely powerful time bomb will wrench a huge pair of wrought iron gates in two, but won’t even take a splinter off a nearby wooden shelf. The problem is that most games excel at certain physics that are necessary to the completion of a game, but for the rest of the objects in a game, you couldn’t knock a candle over with a rocket launcher. I am not complaining that physics should be entirely accurate, but that there should be at least passable physics for all elements of the game, not just hyper-realistic physics for the plot-essential parts as many games seem to think. Operation Flashpoint went so far as to model the speed of sound, and things like this, although a bit extravagant, inspire believability, which is good. But when I laid a bomb under a tree in the same game, it merely blackened it. Passable physics for all objects would inspire believability, whereas the lazy indestructible physics for many objects don’t.
CHARACTER INTERACTION
This partially comes under consistency, but it’s such a major problem that it can be addressed as a fault in it’s own right. In just about any game ever made you will come across NPCs. Computer controlled characters that are either necessary for game completion, or just add colour to the scenery. Once again the problem lies in the fact that the only NPCs you can talk to or interact with in any depth are inevitably the plot-essential ones. Admittedly some games have made a real effort, Deus Ex comes to mind for it’s ability to talk to almost everyone in the game. And Unreal Tournament is just one of the many games that manages to effectively use orders for the team-based modes. But many, many games either lack such depth in interaction, or they fail to put interaction there in the first place. Even in Half-Life for example you can only give two basic commands, follow and stop.
But it’s also important not to overstep the mark a bit, as the Discworld series does in some cases. They give you so much dialogue to listen to that it becomes tedious just sitting listening to characters rambling on about some half-wit conversation of their’s. Long, tedious conversations do promote believability, but they sacrifice some of the Fun & Gameplay in the process. I think the nearest game to perfection in terms of character interaction has to be Deus Ex. It’s system of letting you speak a few lines with all the non-important characters yet have in-depth, but not tedious conversations with major characters has yet to be beaten. Creating believability without sacrificing other elements of the game is the key, and Deus Ex does that with near perfection. I salute it and point to it for any future game developers worried about character interaction.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI is one of the biggest, deciding factors on how good a game is. How frustrating was it back in the original Commandos when you turned your back on one of your men for just a minute and some enemies spotted them. Your men would start screaming at you for help, while they just stood there swallowing the lead that the Nazis were shooting at them. They didn’t even run for cover or defend themselves. That sort of niggle in a game’s AI really spoils the enjoyability in playing it, as you know that in real life your men wouldn’t be so pitifully, suicidally thick.
One of the games famous for it’s AI was Half-life. Battling the Marines was one of the most exhilarating experiences in gaming history. Why? Because heroically diving across hallways with your gun blasting while dodging their grenades and tactical advances created an immense amount of believability and immersion. How else can you explain the fact that everyone who has played Half-life comes away babbling “Red Team, Recon”, “Go go go”. The AI is actually an extremely long distance from total reality, but what does that matter if the believability is extreme? Half-life’s AI has been improved on with all the recently released FPSs to create even more intelligent AI. ‘Medal of Honour: Allied Assault’ probably holds the ‘Best AI’ flag at the moment because it manages to increase the intelligence of the AI considerably without affecting the Fun & Gameplay other than raising it.
The perfect AI then, as partially achieved by MOH, would consist of 4 main elements:
1. Different personalities for soldiers, aggressive, defensive etc.
2. A host of offensive and defensive tactics that they use appropriately to good effect.
3. Realistic shot accuracy.
4. Their reaction to the world around them.
That last element can add a great deal to the feeling of immersion in the game if implemented properly. The Nazis in MOH are a prime example of this, they react realistically to the physical world that they exist in, making use of obstacles, walls, open spaces etc, to aid them while fighting, or whatever else they are doing.
This idea would be expanded even further in the perfect game to cover use of darkness, shadows, colour camouflage, height, and also managing things like locking doors behind them if retreating into a building.
I feel that AI like this would create a huge amount of immersion and believability while managing to achieve maximum Fun & Gameplay.
That has covered a lot of the basic elements of a game that could improve on their realism, but there are many more advanced realisms, some of which involve social, historical and contextual implications. These are the less obvious parts of realism, but they are just as important, as their existence inspires a deeper sense of believability, which in turn gives greater pleasure and enjoyability in playing.
CHARACTER VIEWPOINT
In the majority of games you view your character(s) from one of three standard viewpoints. First-person, third-person and god.
First-person view is when you see just the person’s arms and anything that they may be carrying, weapons, tools, bodies etc.
Third-person is a view from directly behind the game character so you can see their every body movement when they perform actions.
God vision is from far above the game environment and is typically used for RTS (Real Time Strategy) titles so that you can command armies and large wars in a position where you can see all the action.
Although games such as the highly praised Deus Ex and Unreal Tournament are on the whole excellent, it just brings you back down to earth a bit when you look down and find that you have no legs. In fact, in every FPS that I can currently think of, a glance down at your means of movement reveals just a humanly shaped shadow with no legs to suspend your body. The developers obviously think that this is a very small niggle, and may have even deliberately chosen to omit legs as they might hinder your downward view somewhat. But this does shatter the illusion slightly.
Another issue about the first person camera view is the fact that you can never ever fall over. Whenever you are hit, shot or fall down somewhere, your character remains supernaturally upright. Written down, this fact may seem a glaringly obvious fault, but in the game it is so unnoticeable that I never even dreamt about it before I thoroughly analysed realism in games.
This would obviously need to be rectified in a total reality game; when punched or kicked you would fall over and the screen would face the ceiling, and if you tripped up you would fall flat on your face and get an excellent view of the daisies.
However, this niggle does not actually affect the believability of game, as I said, it had never even occurred to me before I thoroughly analysed it. Having the camera falling about all over the place would just frustrate you and detract from your enjoyability. So for a perfect game the camera would retain it’s upright position.
GAME CHARACTER
Lara Croft is easily the most popular icon in the gaming world. The creators of Tomb Raider wanted it so that rather than just being yourself in the game, you would control Lara. Playing as Lara isn’t just moving a nameless body around, it’s moving a living breathing virtual person. Having a specified hero for the game sometimes, and sometimes doesn’t work. In the case of Lara however, she is a ‘virtual babe’, a perfect female. To promote this idea further the game only lets you play in a third-person perspective, so you are made to feel that Lara is actually playing the game, but you are in control. Not only do you have a gorgeous babe to run around at your will, but the Tomb Raider series are actually very good games, a combination that is assured of success.
So although Tomb Raider relies partially on a hero for it’s success, you never feel that it is really you who is playing the game. A game that takes the opposite approach, among others, is Unreal Tournament. The focus here is on you, YOU must win the matches, YOU must win the tournament, YOU must defeat Xan. This change of focus means that the perspective has now changed to first-person, so when you win the match you truly feel like it is you who has won it, not some game character. It even allows you to build your own body to further personalise the experience.
So what stance would realism take, playing as a virtual hero, or playing as yourself?
Thankfully, they are two different styles of game, so realism wouldn’t favour one over another. Both are distinctly different and are fun in their own way. As long as they clearly distinguish which side they are on, the two can co-exist quite happily.
CUTSCENES
Cutscenes can be described as ‘Non-interactive sequences used to advance the plot’. They are usually used to start or end missions, and also occur in the middle if necessary events need to take place that wouldn’t definitely happen if you were still in control. Some developers use cutscenes to tell part of the story while the game is in progress. Sometimes this works well, but more often than not it is just another lazy excuse to make the story turn the way they want, and just leaves you feeling frustrated. I’ll give you an example:
‘You are playing a FPS and running down a corridor when suddenly a cutscene takes control of you. Rather than stopping to peer round the edge of a doorway and maybe lob a grenade in as you would have done, the character dumbly runs in oblivious of any danger. Ooh, what a surprise, it’s a trap, and you are taken captive by enemy forces who imprison you.’
The frustrating part is that it wasn’t YOU who got caught, it was the cutscene character. Why did YOU have to suffer through HIS actions? It’s so unfair, and it robs a game of enjoyment. The perfect game will rid of the awful, decision making abilities of the in-game cutscene, so if something has to happen it will be through your own fault or merit, not that of a pre-determined cutscene character.
STORYLINE
The storyline is one of the most important parts of realism in a game. A well-executed story with a good plot, a lot of depth, and many realistic occurrences will actually make you feel far more satisfied and give you far more enjoyment than a sub-standard story, which simply drags you from place to place, and ultimately becomes a chore to finish.
A good example of an excellent storyline is that of Final Fantasy VII, a Role Playing Game (RPG). It is slightly old now, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the story can really hit you like a punch to the chest. It is long, emotional, extremely deep, and provides many unexpected twists and turns which ensure that there is never a dull moment. Many people have actually cried when one of the main game characters tragically gets killed. There are also many sub-quests and plots within the main story, so you can be attempting many different objectives at the same time. Another important aspect is that the story progresses naturally and realistically.
So a perfect storyline would basically have to keep you hooked the whole way through, not an easy things for the developers to accomplish, but necessary for our gaming pleasure. I’d also like to take the aspect of natural progression a bit further, meaning that the storyline develops naturally.
All too often in games, the most unexpected events happen, that would literally never occur in real life. For instance, if your gaming character needs to cross the sea, when you come to the sea then suddenly ‘Wowee look, there just happens to be a fully armoured, heavily weaponed submarine just there that is only guarded by one light guard, how wonderfully handy.’
To be handed precisely the equipment you need, precisely when you need it is neither realistic nor fun. You should have to work for your rewards, complete objectives, find items or get enough money. If you had to first slay the mighty dragon of Gondor, find a rare herb for a druid, gain a certificate in basic seamanship, and then have to fight a tense and mighty battle to finally gain control of that submarine, then you would appreciate it so much more, unlike if it was just handed to you on a plate.
A conflict that would occur between a perfect game and a total reality one would be in the case of extraordinary events. Take the latest James Bond film as an example. JB has 5 seconds before a bomb explodes, so he jumps onto a chain attached to a rail and rides the explosion along the rail until his female accomplice handily shuts the metal doors behind him. Is that realistic? No, it would never happen in real life. But who cares, it’s a fabulous stunt, and everyone loves it. In that case enjoyability spat in realism’s face, but it got away with it, which is the important part.
Likewise, in a game’s storyline, realism can’t be clung to too tightly, because otherwise it won’t allow you to recreate fabulous scenes like the JB stunt, which although unrealistic, only actually add to the storyline, whereas total reality wouldn’t allow such luxuries.
LOCATION
The setting of most current games is on this wonderful planet of ours, earth. This is probably because it’s more fun to recreate certain aspects of earthly life rather than create a game that features nothing humans have ever done before. Just about every specialist niche in anything relating to life has been catered for by some game or other, from Zoo Tycoon and Microsoft Train Simulator to WWF Wrestling and Rally Championship. It’s an inherent human desire to play what they already know and are familiar with, that’s why FIFA football games will always sell more than any other non-existent futuristic sports game. This is the reason behind the fact that most games are set on our earth.
Total reality would require not only that all games be based on earth, space or some other realistic setting, but also that they be recognisable places. Every game must be set on a particular place in the world, no artificial places accepted, and the game must obviously show it’s location. If it was set in Egypt then the areas would be hot, dusty and sandy, and all the inhabitants would wear the correct mode of dress for that country. But total reality could cause some consternation here because if it created a game involving terrorists, pretty much any setting in New York would cause quite an uproar among critics. If a terrorist game were created, it would be much better suited to fictional locations within countries. Also there are some very good games that are not set on earth. So for these reasons, total reality would not be feasible in terms of location.
To find how much reality is needed in location, it would help a lot to look to other styles of media that have accepted realism, and see what they manage to get away with. This will include film, radio and books. For any of these media types to be realistic they must contain some elements of real life, anything that the audience can relate to is what makes up their perception of realism.
Firstly lets look at Lord of the Rings, which has recently been released on all three formats. The realism in LOTR is widely accepted, despite it’s fantasy setting. Why? Because it features both humans and a location that is similar to earth; trees, houses, taverns. Even though it contains ogres, goblins, wizards and loads of other weird monsters, it still manages to be realistic through it’s use of familiar elements.
So lets take a more extreme title ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. This series of books starts on earth and then ranges over the whole universe to totally fictional locations. Yet it still manages to remain realistic, or at least create a realistic perception in the minds of the viewers. Why? Because it starts in and constantly returns to well known locations on earth, and it’s star is a totally fallible human. Again using familiar elements to generate realism.
So the perfect game then should stretch realism to allow for other places than earth. But for the games that use earth as a setting anyway, in some cases these should attempt to recreate real locations as this really does enhance realism, but obviously this wouldn’t be applicable to all styles of game.
HISTORICAL ACCURACY
Surprisingly, historical accuracy takes quite a large degree of importance in some of the major recent games. Return to Castle Wolfenstein featured accurate representations of the German soldier’s uniforms that are modelled on real uniforms from the time period that the game was set in, and most of the weapons are the ones actually used by the Germans at that time.
Another example of historical accuracy is Age of Empires and it’s sequel. This is an RTS title that not only boasts accurate military units for around 8 different civilisations at the correct time period, but also provides you with real-life historical backgrounds on every unit and building. It’s worth pointing out that some historical accuracy is compromised for certain units that are purely fictional, but this is a deliberate choice so as to balance the civilisations and make the game more fun overall.
But does historical accuracy actually improve your gaming experience at all, or is it simply another pointless expense?
Turning again to television and video, you’ll no doubt remember some of the older films in which you could see obvious mistakes. I can recall one particular film that showed a scene with tribal warriors racing across a large patch of land to attack some other army, but in the background behind the natives you could clearly see the second camera crew, unaware that they were imposing in the shot. That shot people’s impression of historical accuracy and realism down to earth with a bump. Other examples could include a WW1 soldier wearing a digital watch, and a part of a sports car appearing in a Western.
The gaming equivalent to these jarring mistakes could be like the following:
You are playing a WW1 game and are fighting a Nazi officer who is chasing you with a Sten Gun. Having little success, he abandons his gun in favour of an infra-red missile launcher before leaping into his Puma assault helicopter. He then dons jeans and t-shirt, curses you with a torrent of modern swear words and drops a nuclear bomb on you, which doesn’t explode, being made in Taiwan.
Although that is wildly exaggerated, you can see that unrealistic historical accuracy would severely ruin a game’s playability.
Alternatively, a total reality game would include every last detail, whether it be the type and model of vehicles in the game, or the dress of game characters. This appears to present no immediate problems in theory, but put into practise would make for a very dull game. You would be strictly limited to the resources available in the game’s time period, and absolutely nothing else. This is partly why Age of Empires makes a conscious decision not to strictly adhere to historical accuracy, so it can liven the game considerably and let you enjoy it far more.
As with most game elements then, the mix is somewhere in between for the perfect game. Historical accuracy definitely enhances a game, but has to be limited strictly to believability status if it doesn’t want to rob other game elements.
LENGTH OF DEVELOPMENT
The current lengths of development range from about 1 year to sometimes over 4 years. To go to the lengths of creating an ultimate reality game in any genre would take a very long time. All possibilities would have to be accounted for, both visually, in the graphics, and physically, in the programming. I would estimate that an ultimate reality Half-Life would take approximately 10-16 years to create, and then at least another year or more QA testing. The final result would probably require up to 4 DVDs, and a whopping amount of hard drive usage. The extra time in development means that the price of the game would more than double to cover all the costs, and wages of the developers. Is that really what we want?
A Half-Life that met all the requirements of our perfect game however would require only 4 - 5 years development, 1-2 CDs and no unreasonable demands upon our gaming system. Game price might increase, but not by very much.
CONCLUSION
So that’s it ladies and gentlemen. You know my opinion of how realism in future gaming should turn out, but now it’s time to form your own. You have 2 paths to choose from.
1. Gaming should attain ultimate realism, ridding itself of anything that wouldn’t happen in the real world. Nothing should be spared to create total simulation. Development times will increase substantially as will game prices, meaning that we have to wait longer and pay more for our games.
2. Our gaming future will shun realism when other precious gaming elements are at stake to create a rounded out and more enjoyable game. The basic guidelines are: Believability is the essential part of a game rather than total realism, because total realism sacrifices a lot of the fun & gameplay. Intense believability, immersion, fun & gameplay are basically what compromise the perfect game, and so are to be strived for at all costs. Development times and prices will naturally increase, but only by small amounts.
Whatever happens, we are riding the tidal wave of technology, and we can look to the future with slavering anticipation. Half-Life 2 anyone.......?
Thanks for reading.
Brew