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Is Realism Destroying Video Games?
zdburke writes "An interesting article at the NYTimes looks at two poles in video game development: the quest for the real (think flight simulators and things like a boxing game's "facial damage engine") vs. the quest for the unreal, "elaborate world with its own regulations and peculiarities". The included PlayStation screenshot of Britney Spears may alone tip the balance in favor of the fantasy folks. It also mentions that RIT has a master's program in video game development."
... to britney's face?
Life sucks.
Because I know it's the only part of the article most people will care about...
The spirit of violation is built into the video game; so is a demand for submission.
That should have been the caption for the Britney Spears screencap.
Yet again, another issue which everyone thinks has to be resolved one way or another.
Why can't I have a mix of realism and fantasy? Carmageddon - cartoonish environment but realistic physics; not necessarily the physics of real-life - but deterministic behaviour that felt right. Or ID games, realistic environment (and getting more realistic with each revision) but a fantastic game - Return to Castle Wolfenstein had zombies and stuff
0xB
Come on... be honest!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Why? Is her severed head on a stick?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
> I've yet to see an RPG in which characters need
... uh ... still working on the bowel module
> to, er, use the facilities, which would be even
> worse ('tho realistic!).
Well, while not an RPG, in Black & White, my ape has been crapping all over Eden.
There was some real bathroom fetishist working on that game. I can imagine:
Programmer #1: Okay, we need to finish the AI routine for the opposing deity
Programmer #2: Hang on-- I'm
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
No, you're correct. We all have 10" wangs and get all the chicks. Sucks to be you.
No way, no no no no way. Dreamcast has some of the greatest games ever created. First off, you've got some really excellent RPGs, like Skies of Arcadia, Phantasy STar Online, Grandia 2, and more. They've got sports titles that can't be beat, some really great fighers (Soul Calibur) and now, with it pretty much "dead", you can buy games at rockbottom prices. I still love my Dreamcast more than my Gamecube... until RE remake comes out for Cube :D
If I wasn't so lazy, I'd have a sig.
I'm in a misanthropic mood today, so....
Close, but no cigar. The Yahoo screenshot beats Rainbow Six hands-down.
- Better stun grenade damage rendering on the Yahoo screenshot. Observe area where smoke damage didn't adhere to wall.
- Way better gibs on Yahoo - dig the way the gibs follow the bullet traces and get embedded in the wall. Rainbow Six has bullet holes in the wall, but they're all identical, and contain no trace of gibs.
- Dig the floor texture on Yahoo. (Though that's probably the result of better hardware, not better software... The Yahoo player must have assloads of texture RAM on their video card. Check out the lighting effects from the flashbulb and all that floor debris! Wow!)
- Long as we're talking textures - love the way they rendered the metal at the back of the room in Yahoo. Very nicely-done. Makes me want to jump up and down just to watch the reflections render in real time, as well as the transparent chunk of gibs on the left-hand metal texture.
- Gravity, folks! What's up with that weapon sticking up in mid-air in Rainbow Six? (Rigor mortis doesn't set in that quickly!) C'mon, we know you can do better than that!
- More gravity - look at the way the pools of blood on the Yahoo screenshot follow the joints between the tiles on the floor texture. So it's not all from better hardware for the floor textures - the floor is actually a 3-D object, and the Yahoo software accurately models liquid flow, which has gotta be a first for an FPS.
- Facial/body textures - the dead guys in the Yahoo screenshot are really nicely rendered. Their uniforms look like they're made of cloth, not polygon/textures, and even things like their headgear and sunglasses are rendered separately - dig the way the foreground guy's k00l shadez have fallen off.
- Better armor modelling. Look around sunglass-guy's head. "Kevlar helmet good, turban bad."
Yeah, I had to do a double-take, too. The Yahoo engine's pretty good, but I think it's still gonna be a few years before we have enough CPU power (and hardware) to get it on the desktop.But there's the most important difference: According to rumors, unlike Rainbow Six, when you frag a terrorist in the Yahoo game, he stays fragged. We're not just talking about no-respawn, we're talking "Once fragged, he stays the fuck out of your LAN party!"
Now That, kids, is realism! *evil grin*
They ARENT real, they [are] clearly as fake, they are more fun...
Are we still talking about Britney? If so, I agree, completely.
Agreed. Sometimes this:can be just as terrifying as seeing a picture of a beautifully-rendered 3d monster.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
Hey, speaking of Nazis, Return to Castle Wolfenstein rocks!!!
I think they used more polygons to model her cleavage than they did for her face...
I'm a 2000 man.