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Realism. Something that’s been talked about around here for as long as games have advanced so much that they can be constructed on real life objects and portray real life situations to a point we have to ask ourselves is this real. That’s how far things have come in such a short space of time. As the power of the consoles improve so do the graphics and the games AI which all means that this growth of realism never stops, and grows and grows all the time. There’s and endless list of games out there that we could slam into this category of games that aim to be the most realistic of games, all the simulators for example, the flight games, tycoon games and even the likes of GT, not forgetting Pro Evo and many more. These games along with all the adventure games aim to bring situations that represent real life to us in our armchairs from a safe distance, and most of them do a good job.
The question is, how real do things get before we turn off the consoles?
Is it not right that by definition ‘gaming’ is seen as a past time to ‘get away’ from the real world, to get away from everyday life and come home to sit at your console and play a game that’s going to take you away to a fantasy of the games genre? If this is correct then surely the idea of coming home to play a game that relies on the realistic physiques of life shouldn’t be the one main thing we are after. Throughout life the brain thinks about doing the impossible within its limits, who wants to drive a car with 4 wheels when its most peoples dream to drive one that can fly? Who wants to play a game where you are a soldier and the first time you get shot that’s it for you kiddo, you lie on the floor in a pool of your own blood as the game over sign comes up. Gaming is about getting away from things, leaving real life and its limits behind for a few hours. So why are so many games focusing in on making things as real as possible, and having all the limits of life within them?
The answer could be that we want to experience things that we never will get to in our life’s, such as being a soldier or a rally driver or even a footballer, so these games that come along to give us this chance is all fine and good. It’s giving us what we want. Games such as Operation Flashpoint for example let us experience first hand what its really like to be a soldier, at times it feels so real its scary as your wandering though a forest with your ears pricked listening for the sounds of your foes…only to be shot in the back by a hidden sniper, very cunning, but real. Of course other games such as F1 games and Pro Evo gives us the chance to be someone we never will be able to become, we can go out there and get a little piece of the action that we could never before. You want to be Colin McRae? You can. Fancy being Becks for a game? You can. Doesn’t stop there either, the stories may be fictional but games such as Tomb Raider and MGS are focusing in on real life with all its limits of the human anatomy. If you fall too far you break a leg, if u stand by a grenade you get killed. There is always that fear of danger and that you must keep yourself alive…but in your mind there is always the notion that it’s only a game. That’s all great.
The thing is, as games come to improve and become more realistic all the time views on the realism of games may change. It goes hand in hand that as games come to mimic events of real life that that sense of escapism that we use to get from games will slowly but surely disappear. We all play games to get away from the world, what happens when the games become a parallel to certain events of the real world? Will we still be playing the likes of Operation Flashpoint and GT when all we are doing is living out life in another world doing something slightly different. Of course though as games become more realistic so does the content of the games, as in violence and gore ect. Maybe we are going to see things that we really don’t want to see.
In all, if games are coming so realistic is there a point when we are going to turn off, and if so, is there anything that can be done now to stop this rapid growth of realism in games? Maybe.
You only have to look at the sheer success of games like Final Fantasy (fantasy being the main word there) and other things like Resident Evil ect and dare I say it…Pokemon. These are the type of games that when you pop in the disc it grabs you by the thick of your fur and drops you right in the middle on another, new, and unlike world that vastly differs from this. The perfect escapism. FF is one of the kings that manage to pull this off. Square have got the talents to take a player and put them in a world that has a mixture of the limits of life...but it also takes them and put a spin on them making the world a truly magical place to live in, a place where you can do things that you could never do in real life. Even games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill do this, even though the thought of monsters ect may be thought and compared to in life, its really not, and these games have worlds of there own as much as FF games do.
So is this the solution?
Is there even a problem in your minds?
Are games getting too realistic that soon we wont be wanting to play them as they offer us nothing new, and they don’t really do what we are wanting them to do? And if there is a problem, are games such as FF that takes us to places unlike our own world the way to go?
If so, that could have a massive impact on the look of gaming as we know it, would the likes of Nintendo lead the market with there advantage in the ratio of fantasy games over Sony and Microsoft?
This could be a very important issue that needs to be addressed soon.
The question is, how real do things get before we turn off the consoles?
Is it not right that by definition ‘gaming’ is seen as a past time to ‘get away’ from the real world, to get away from everyday life and come home to sit at your console and play a game that’s going to take you away to a fantasy of the games genre? If this is correct then surely the idea of coming home to play a game that relies on the realistic physiques of life shouldn’t be the one main thing we are after. Throughout life the brain thinks about doing the impossible within its limits, who wants to drive a car with 4 wheels when its most peoples dream to drive one that can fly? Who wants to play a game where you are a soldier and the first time you get shot that’s it for you kiddo, you lie on the floor in a pool of your own blood as the game over sign comes up. Gaming is about getting away from things, leaving real life and its limits behind for a few hours. So why are so many games focusing in on making things as real as possible, and having all the limits of life within them?
The answer could be that we want to experience things that we never will get to in our life’s, such as being a soldier or a rally driver or even a footballer, so these games that come along to give us this chance is all fine and good. It’s giving us what we want. Games such as Operation Flashpoint for example let us experience first hand what its really like to be a soldier, at times it feels so real its scary as your wandering though a forest with your ears pricked listening for the sounds of your foes…only to be shot in the back by a hidden sniper, very cunning, but real. Of course other games such as F1 games and Pro Evo gives us the chance to be someone we never will be able to become, we can go out there and get a little piece of the action that we could never before. You want to be Colin McRae? You can. Fancy being Becks for a game? You can. Doesn’t stop there either, the stories may be fictional but games such as Tomb Raider and MGS are focusing in on real life with all its limits of the human anatomy. If you fall too far you break a leg, if u stand by a grenade you get killed. There is always that fear of danger and that you must keep yourself alive…but in your mind there is always the notion that it’s only a game. That’s all great.
The thing is, as games come to improve and become more realistic all the time views on the realism of games may change. It goes hand in hand that as games come to mimic events of real life that that sense of escapism that we use to get from games will slowly but surely disappear. We all play games to get away from the world, what happens when the games become a parallel to certain events of the real world? Will we still be playing the likes of Operation Flashpoint and GT when all we are doing is living out life in another world doing something slightly different. Of course though as games become more realistic so does the content of the games, as in violence and gore ect. Maybe we are going to see things that we really don’t want to see.
In all, if games are coming so realistic is there a point when we are going to turn off, and if so, is there anything that can be done now to stop this rapid growth of realism in games? Maybe.
You only have to look at the sheer success of games like Final Fantasy (fantasy being the main word there) and other things like Resident Evil ect and dare I say it…Pokemon. These are the type of games that when you pop in the disc it grabs you by the thick of your fur and drops you right in the middle on another, new, and unlike world that vastly differs from this. The perfect escapism. FF is one of the kings that manage to pull this off. Square have got the talents to take a player and put them in a world that has a mixture of the limits of life...but it also takes them and put a spin on them making the world a truly magical place to live in, a place where you can do things that you could never do in real life. Even games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill do this, even though the thought of monsters ect may be thought and compared to in life, its really not, and these games have worlds of there own as much as FF games do.
So is this the solution?
Is there even a problem in your minds?
Are games getting too realistic that soon we wont be wanting to play them as they offer us nothing new, and they don’t really do what we are wanting them to do? And if there is a problem, are games such as FF that takes us to places unlike our own world the way to go?
If so, that could have a massive impact on the look of gaming as we know it, would the likes of Nintendo lead the market with there advantage in the ratio of fantasy games over Sony and Microsoft?
This could be a very important issue that needs to be addressed soon.
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Excluding AJ's :d
Pro Evo wrote:
> I actually thought that was going to be a decent reply when i clicked
> in....
---
Well, at least there were a few decent replies at the start....
> I actually thought that was going to be a decent reply when i clicked
> in....
---
Well, at least there were a few decent replies at the start....
I actually thought that was going to be a decent reply when i clicked in....
Pro Evo wrote:
> Pop to the......erm.....top /\
once you pop you go to the top
> Pop to the......erm.....top /\
once you pop you go to the top
Pop to the......erm.....top /\
Great post!
I agree, Pro Evolution is just simply a mix of everything, the only bad bit is the commentry but the gameplay sure makes up for it.
Games definately shouldn't be too realistic, as characters basically wouldn't survive in games. Take Adventure games, you don't die after get hit by a Bullet which you would do in real life, Games would then be impossible and boring. Simple!
I agree, Pro Evolution is just simply a mix of everything, the only bad bit is the commentry but the gameplay sure makes up for it.
Games definately shouldn't be too realistic, as characters basically wouldn't survive in games. Take Adventure games, you don't die after get hit by a Bullet which you would do in real life, Games would then be impossible and boring. Simple!
The original title question of 'Too Real'? is a valid one. Despite being my favourite game, Shenmue on Dreamcast was 'too real' in the sense that you had to do mundane things like stand at a virtual bus stop. Who wants to do that in their spare time? Not me. I'm not really a fan of excessive realism, because I WANT my games to be unreal and unbelievable - if I can do those things in real life, then why play games at all? I appreciate the increased realism in games like Pro Evo, but in other cases it does seem to have been taken too far.
Good post.
:D
Good post.
:D
The only simulation game i really play now is also Pro Evo, the rest of the games that i play now are all the games like FF and other fictional games that i have, purely because they offer things that none of the simulation games do. Plus the fact is, these realistic games get boring too fast as the realism is there from the start, where has the game got to go to expand on from what it gives you right away?
A game fully based on realism will not do well, unless there are a large amount of people who love games to be as real as possible, and I don't think there are a large amount of people that like that. A game fully based on invented and fictional features too can be a bad idea, as Natbuc pointed out. Basically, a nice blend of the 2 is needed for a brilliant game.
I quote Ortega when he said all he plays on the PS2 now is Pro Evo, and I agree with him. I don't think I've touched any of my other games recently, except SmackDown, in which I had a nice 4 player with some mates the other day, but besides that it's been Pro Evo all the way. The reason for this is that Pro Evo is a nice mix of realism and a little of fictional gameplay. The game looks real, plays very well, but it's set out so that not everything looks like it really should, and everything plays like it really should. Pro Evo is the best game on the PS2.
Brilliant post!
I quote Ortega when he said all he plays on the PS2 now is Pro Evo, and I agree with him. I don't think I've touched any of my other games recently, except SmackDown, in which I had a nice 4 player with some mates the other day, but besides that it's been Pro Evo all the way. The reason for this is that Pro Evo is a nice mix of realism and a little of fictional gameplay. The game looks real, plays very well, but it's set out so that not everything looks like it really should, and everything plays like it really should. Pro Evo is the best game on the PS2.
Brilliant post!
Very good post there. I think the perfect game has to have a balance of realism and fiction. If a game can put, say, reallistic people into a fantasy world then thats good. This is because the people want to play realistic games but like you say not realism to an extreme. After all it would be boring just having a world that you could pretend to live in with all the rules and features of planet Earth. But if you add some sort of twist into the mix then you have a good game. GTA3 did this putting you in a real world but allowing you to break rules and generally mess the world up. If GTA3 was in a more realistic city and you had to spend say 28 hours in gaming time in prison then that would be stupid. So adding that unrealistic blend of being let out of prison a second later made the game more enjoyable. Hopefully producers will see this and try and make the games reallistic while still adding that make beleive feel.
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