"What role does realism play in videogames I ask myself. Is this image more interesting? Sometimes.. however, what if a "detailed" hand with 5 fingers is catching a bottle but the fingers pass right through it? Is this still realistic? Rather than to show each meticulous and tiny detail of a finger, it is more important to make the end action look more credible by working on the movement and functionality of the arms and the hand in relation to the object."
~Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development
~Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development
This is a rant, just typing without thinking
Chasing reality is unavoidable for game developers, being the most realistic and on the bleeding edge of technology gets you a lot of clout. There a constant battle amongst middleware developers to see who can push the most polygons and most realistic lighting, who can best replicate what we see out our windows. Despite all these bells and whistles and new graphical techniques, realism is something that cannot be achieved now or the future. Until displays are fully 3d and graphics capabilities can render every hair and pore on a human head there is no way. Even then, the sheer cost of such a development will be so enormous as to make it not worth while.
Every generation you will see developers or gamers touting a game as being most realistic, and often times that is the games only saving grace, with few exceptions. Virtual Realism fades, it is a novelty that wears thin far too quickly. This does not mean it's a bad game underneath, but more often than not it is a passable or decent game with so much emphasis put on the graphical technology the rest of the game suffers.
The other problem is we all know what reality looks like, we know a human face looks like, we know how sun illuminates skin, and how the eyes move and look, but that is near impossible to replicate in a game. As a result the game might look good, but it isn't going to look real, and the further behind the bleeding edge the game becomes, the older it gets, the less it will look great and might end up looking absolutely horrible.
One of the realistic games a couple generations ago was Goldeneye 007 on the N64, and yet I doubt anyone would say it looks good today, it just plays well for it's time. Super Mario 64 on the other hand is still bearable to look at, you can play it and not be annoyed at the graphics. It is not realistic and therefore ages much better.
Call of Duty some years later also tried to achieve realism, as did Metal Sear Solid 2 and yet something like Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker or Timesplitters 2 ages much better and still can look good today.
Jump forward to today and other realistic games like Fallout 3 have come out trying to achieve realism. Fallout 3 has many problems, the most apparent being people don't move correctly. The faces have emotion, but their body usually don't match up (especially in dialogue when someone is screaming but their body is posed devoid of emotion). Not chasing realism and such detail might have given a little more time to fix other issues with the game.
Fallout 3 has a glaringly horrible ending that leaves you feeling cheated, even if the rest of the game was great. You just feel like the story was just getting started when you got to the end, pacing is a major problem here. If they went with an art style other than realistic we might have had an actually fleshed out storyline, rather than having to pay money for expansion packs to tell said story. I know, that's a bit of a leap, but you have to wonder how many games will benefit from realistic graphics when compared to a game that is enjoyable for years visually and gameplay wise.
If it was reality, I would be able to go over that pile of rubble rather than have it be the edge of the level (no levels in reality). If it was reality, I'd be allowed to make radically different changes to the game world with my actions. If it was reality I wouldn't be tied to your linear story.
There is nothing wrong with good graphics, but a good art style can go a lot further and age much better than realism. It's weird, but realism is as much a cliche as bald space marines and gansters now. As for my first suggested title for this post "I Dream In Color" this is a shot to game developers and artists who feel that reality is drab and comes in 3 colors, brown, grey, and blue, all desaturated to some degree.
I am frankly sick that all the top selling games involve bald space marines, gangsters, zombies, and anything that doesn't involve guns, sports, or cars is too kiddy to be taken seriously. It seems strange but core gamers need to grow up to enjoy all games, and it just isn't happening enough.
Hopefully with this economic downturn developers will stop spending million upon millions on chasing realism and making gritty crime and war dramas and focus on making something fun to play. That is what gaming was about right? After all, if I wanted reality, I would be outside.
And so ends my rant, I feel better.
Chasing reality is unavoidable for game developers, being the most realistic and on the bleeding edge of technology gets you a lot of clout. There a constant battle amongst middleware developers to see who can push the most polygons and most realistic lighting, who can best replicate what we see out our windows. Despite all these bells and whistles and new graphical techniques, realism is something that cannot be achieved now or the future. Until displays are fully 3d and graphics capabilities can render every hair and pore on a human head there is no way. Even then, the sheer cost of such a development will be so enormous as to make it not worth while.
Every generation you will see developers or gamers touting a game as being most realistic, and often times that is the games only saving grace, with few exceptions. Virtual Realism fades, it is a novelty that wears thin far too quickly. This does not mean it's a bad game underneath, but more often than not it is a passable or decent game with so much emphasis put on the graphical technology the rest of the game suffers.
The other problem is we all know what reality looks like, we know a human face looks like, we know how sun illuminates skin, and how the eyes move and look, but that is near impossible to replicate in a game. As a result the game might look good, but it isn't going to look real, and the further behind the bleeding edge the game becomes, the older it gets, the less it will look great and might end up looking absolutely horrible.
One of the realistic games a couple generations ago was Goldeneye 007 on the N64, and yet I doubt anyone would say it looks good today, it just plays well for it's time. Super Mario 64 on the other hand is still bearable to look at, you can play it and not be annoyed at the graphics. It is not realistic and therefore ages much better.
Call of Duty some years later also tried to achieve realism, as did Metal Sear Solid 2 and yet something like Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker or Timesplitters 2 ages much better and still can look good today.
Jump forward to today and other realistic games like Fallout 3 have come out trying to achieve realism. Fallout 3 has many problems, the most apparent being people don't move correctly. The faces have emotion, but their body usually don't match up (especially in dialogue when someone is screaming but their body is posed devoid of emotion). Not chasing realism and such detail might have given a little more time to fix other issues with the game.
Fallout 3 has a glaringly horrible ending that leaves you feeling cheated, even if the rest of the game was great. You just feel like the story was just getting started when you got to the end, pacing is a major problem here. If they went with an art style other than realistic we might have had an actually fleshed out storyline, rather than having to pay money for expansion packs to tell said story. I know, that's a bit of a leap, but you have to wonder how many games will benefit from realistic graphics when compared to a game that is enjoyable for years visually and gameplay wise.
If it was reality, I would be able to go over that pile of rubble rather than have it be the edge of the level (no levels in reality). If it was reality, I'd be allowed to make radically different changes to the game world with my actions. If it was reality I wouldn't be tied to your linear story.
There is nothing wrong with good graphics, but a good art style can go a lot further and age much better than realism. It's weird, but realism is as much a cliche as bald space marines and gansters now. As for my first suggested title for this post "I Dream In Color" this is a shot to game developers and artists who feel that reality is drab and comes in 3 colors, brown, grey, and blue, all desaturated to some degree.
I am frankly sick that all the top selling games involve bald space marines, gangsters, zombies, and anything that doesn't involve guns, sports, or cars is too kiddy to be taken seriously. It seems strange but core gamers need to grow up to enjoy all games, and it just isn't happening enough.
Hopefully with this economic downturn developers will stop spending million upon millions on chasing realism and making gritty crime and war dramas and focus on making something fun to play. That is what gaming was about right? After all, if I wanted reality, I would be outside.
And so ends my rant, I feel better.
Posts
Good Rant!
ReplyDeleteSuch complaints are pretty common with any game that tries to depict reality, or for that matter, fantasy. Even in a board game or role playing game, players will argue about rules not being "realistic". For instance, I've heard countless discussions among Battletech players (my favorite board game) of how certain rules are wrong because "that's not how it works in the real world". Everything we know about physics and economics tells us that giant walking tanks are a completely impractical idea, but these same people don't bat an eye at the thought they are arguing nonsense.
Games are an abstraction of reality; at some level they must simplify the actual thing they are depicting, otherwise we might as well actually be doing it for ourselves. Last I looked, those bald space-marines have a life expectancy measured in minutes, and that reality just wouldn't be much fun.
I'm more arguing that chasing realism in graphical qualities is a fruitless effort that can at times hamper enjoyment of games by sacrificing other aspects of said game.
ReplyDeleteIf a developer goes for a non realistic style it makes unrealistic elements more easily believed, and can still look good, age well, and be bleeding edge.
For instance, Pixar doesn't do realism, and yet they are constantly on the bleeding edge of CGI, their films age well, and even their earliest ones still look good. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within looked good, but hasn't aged as well, and spent a great deal more in animation and development, and it still doesn't look real. The same can be said for the recent Beowulf movie.