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As the platforms advance then the capabilities of the machines to impress us also increase, but what is it that we truly want?
Hideo Kojima and his team have worked long and hard to produce a game that is as realistic as they can manage but many gamers are finding that after going through the game that they don't want to go through it again. Even on the first attempt many find their attention waning or the need to skip through dialogue. What's gone wrong?
There is no denying that the game is an astonishing feat of design, a claim which is supported by the attention to detail on the levels, from the accurately shattering bottles to the wet footprints after you emerge from swimming, but do we really want reality on a computer? Is it even morally defensible to give additional reality to games that involve teh killing of countless faceless enemies?
T S Elliot once said that mankind cannot bear much reality, and computer games are demonstrating this. The problem is not merely as simple as a less realistic game makes for more enjoyable gaming, it is down to the need for internal coherence.
A game may strive for reality, but it will never suceed. No matter how many details the game-designers can pack into a level, it is not possible to recreate a physically accurate simulation of our lived experience and so we can hide behind a corner as we would in life, we can open a locker as we would in life, and the game feels good, but then we find that we cannot jump over a railing because it is the wrong type of railing and the internal logic of the game disappears, the illusion of reality is dispersed and the gamer is left sitting on their sofa staring at a screen. This can only happen so many times before the gamer feels disjointed from the gaming experience.
So what is required? Details are great and always bring a smile to the face of a gamer ('wow, the ice cubes even melt after a while!') but these do not make a game. William Gibson first thought of the idea of cyberspace when he was watching children playing on arcade machines, they were so utterly immersed in the logic and rules of the game that he knew that they had gone to another place. The same is true twenty years later; this immersion is only possible when the rules of a game remain consistent. Games such as Metal Gear Solid 2 frequently break their own rules leaving what is ultimately an unsatisfactory gaming experience. We can appreciate the effort and enjoy it when the game flows well but the lack of coherence leaves it feeling sterile.
Currently reality is too demanding for designers to replicate, and will probably remain so for many years yet, in the meantime I suspect that we will have to face the fact that the more complex a game attempts to be the more jarring this problem will become when it occurs.
Mata
Hideo Kojima and his team have worked long and hard to produce a game that is as realistic as they can manage but many gamers are finding that after going through the game that they don't want to go through it again. Even on the first attempt many find their attention waning or the need to skip through dialogue. What's gone wrong?
There is no denying that the game is an astonishing feat of design, a claim which is supported by the attention to detail on the levels, from the accurately shattering bottles to the wet footprints after you emerge from swimming, but do we really want reality on a computer? Is it even morally defensible to give additional reality to games that involve teh killing of countless faceless enemies?
T S Elliot once said that mankind cannot bear much reality, and computer games are demonstrating this. The problem is not merely as simple as a less realistic game makes for more enjoyable gaming, it is down to the need for internal coherence.
A game may strive for reality, but it will never suceed. No matter how many details the game-designers can pack into a level, it is not possible to recreate a physically accurate simulation of our lived experience and so we can hide behind a corner as we would in life, we can open a locker as we would in life, and the game feels good, but then we find that we cannot jump over a railing because it is the wrong type of railing and the internal logic of the game disappears, the illusion of reality is dispersed and the gamer is left sitting on their sofa staring at a screen. This can only happen so many times before the gamer feels disjointed from the gaming experience.
So what is required? Details are great and always bring a smile to the face of a gamer ('wow, the ice cubes even melt after a while!') but these do not make a game. William Gibson first thought of the idea of cyberspace when he was watching children playing on arcade machines, they were so utterly immersed in the logic and rules of the game that he knew that they had gone to another place. The same is true twenty years later; this immersion is only possible when the rules of a game remain consistent. Games such as Metal Gear Solid 2 frequently break their own rules leaving what is ultimately an unsatisfactory gaming experience. We can appreciate the effort and enjoy it when the game flows well but the lack of coherence leaves it feeling sterile.
Currently reality is too demanding for designers to replicate, and will probably remain so for many years yet, in the meantime I suspect that we will have to face the fact that the more complex a game attempts to be the more jarring this problem will become when it occurs.
Mata
As the platforms advance then the capabilities of the machines to impress us also increase, but what is it that we truly want?
Hideo Kojima and his team have worked long and hard to produce a game that is as realistic as they can manage but many gamers are finding that after going through the game that they don't want to go through it again. Even on the first attempt many find their attention waning or the need to skip through dialogue. What's gone wrong?
There is no denying that the game is an astonishing feat of design, a claim which is supported by the attention to detail on the levels, from the accurately shattering bottles to the wet footprints after you emerge from swimming, but do we really want reality on a computer? Is it even morally defensible to give additional reality to games that involve teh killing of countless faceless enemies?
T S Elliot once said that mankind cannot bear much reality, and computer games are demonstrating this. The problem is not merely as simple as a less realistic game makes for more enjoyable gaming, it is down to the need for internal coherence.
A game may strive for reality, but it will never suceed. No matter how many details the game-designers can pack into a level, it is not possible to recreate a physically accurate simulation of our lived experience and so we can hide behind a corner as we would in life, we can open a locker as we would in life, and the game feels good, but then we find that we cannot jump over a railing because it is the wrong type of railing and the internal logic of the game disappears, the illusion of reality is dispersed and the gamer is left sitting on their sofa staring at a screen. This can only happen so many times before the gamer feels disjointed from the gaming experience.
So what is required? Details are great and always bring a smile to the face of a gamer ('wow, the ice cubes even melt after a while!') but these do not make a game. William Gibson first thought of the idea of cyberspace when he was watching children playing on arcade machines, they were so utterly immersed in the logic and rules of the game that he knew that they had gone to another place. The same is true twenty years later; this immersion is only possible when the rules of a game remain consistent. Games such as Metal Gear Solid 2 frequently break their own rules leaving what is ultimately an unsatisfactory gaming experience. We can appreciate the effort and enjoy it when the game flows well but the lack of coherence leaves it feeling sterile.
Currently reality is too demanding for designers to replicate, and will probably remain so for many years yet, in the meantime I suspect that we will have to face the fact that the more complex a game attempts to be the more jarring this problem will become when it occurs.
Mata
Hideo Kojima and his team have worked long and hard to produce a game that is as realistic as they can manage but many gamers are finding that after going through the game that they don't want to go through it again. Even on the first attempt many find their attention waning or the need to skip through dialogue. What's gone wrong?
There is no denying that the game is an astonishing feat of design, a claim which is supported by the attention to detail on the levels, from the accurately shattering bottles to the wet footprints after you emerge from swimming, but do we really want reality on a computer? Is it even morally defensible to give additional reality to games that involve teh killing of countless faceless enemies?
T S Elliot once said that mankind cannot bear much reality, and computer games are demonstrating this. The problem is not merely as simple as a less realistic game makes for more enjoyable gaming, it is down to the need for internal coherence.
A game may strive for reality, but it will never suceed. No matter how many details the game-designers can pack into a level, it is not possible to recreate a physically accurate simulation of our lived experience and so we can hide behind a corner as we would in life, we can open a locker as we would in life, and the game feels good, but then we find that we cannot jump over a railing because it is the wrong type of railing and the internal logic of the game disappears, the illusion of reality is dispersed and the gamer is left sitting on their sofa staring at a screen. This can only happen so many times before the gamer feels disjointed from the gaming experience.
So what is required? Details are great and always bring a smile to the face of a gamer ('wow, the ice cubes even melt after a while!') but these do not make a game. William Gibson first thought of the idea of cyberspace when he was watching children playing on arcade machines, they were so utterly immersed in the logic and rules of the game that he knew that they had gone to another place. The same is true twenty years later; this immersion is only possible when the rules of a game remain consistent. Games such as Metal Gear Solid 2 frequently break their own rules leaving what is ultimately an unsatisfactory gaming experience. We can appreciate the effort and enjoy it when the game flows well but the lack of coherence leaves it feeling sterile.
Currently reality is too demanding for designers to replicate, and will probably remain so for many years yet, in the meantime I suspect that we will have to face the fact that the more complex a game attempts to be the more jarring this problem will become when it occurs.
Mata
Nice post. Gibson and Eliot references are a shocking bit of high-brow erudition though.
Bloody students.
Bloody students.
yes we do want realism. Hideo did not just aim to make MGS2 as realistic as possible, he wanted to create a cinematic/ video game hybrid.