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."

Comments

Re:Oh how I hate NY Times

[ultraw]

l/p: nologin/nologin

Re:Oh how I hate NY Times

[Trencher]

Here ya go. It's not that good from the neck up, though. Looks like the facial damage engine has already been liberally applied.

RIT

[Merk00]

RIT does not have a Master's Program in Video Game Programming. There is, however, a Master's level class in Video Game Programming. There's a bit of a distinction there. It is part of the Information Technology department.

RIT degree

[D_Fresh]

The initiator of this concentration, Prof. Andy Phelps, also happens to be my thesis advisor, and he's done some pretty wicked illustrations and 3D modeling. Check out his RIT Page to see some of his work (use Netscape if you're on a Mac - he refuses to code the JavaScript to play well with IE as he claims it's "broken" :).

He's also very into creating virtual terrains and raytraced scenes using Macromedia Director - talented fellow, both artistically and in the programming sense.

we need to stop linking to nytimes directly

[Khopesh]

yahoo has a nytimes mirror that contains all the stories with NO REGISTRATION.

Here's the link with no registration required a la Yahoo!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nyt / 0020406/tc_nyt/realism_may_be_taking_the_fun_out_o f_games

Re:Link to RIT

[psychosis]

Just saw this story on CNN that talks about the program...

Re:Link to RIT

[Crakor]

http://www.rit.edu/~930www/webnews/viewstory.php3? id=500

Thats our colleges little introduction to the program. It's part of the IT department currently (www.it.rit.edu) and they dont' have all that much explanation currently. Basically one or our professor's was big into game development and after starting it as a concentration in the IT program has branched it off into it's own degree

Diablo is dead. All hail Dungeon Siege

[Wraithlyn]

"For now, I'll stick with the PC and games like diablo2"

Dude... run out and get a copy of Dungeon Siege. (In stores as of yesterday)

THIS is the game Diablo II should have been. I haven't been this instantly addicted to a game in years.

The graphics are phenomenal, and the game is by Chris Taylor (Total Annihilation guy) so the mechanics and interface are just perfect.

Some gameplay features:

• ZERO loading once in game. You can walk from one end of the earth to the other, up the highest tower or to the deepest dungeon, without ever seeing a load screen. Perfectly seamless.
  
• Control up to 8 characters, you can hotkey different weapon configurations and party groupings. Multiple, expandable formation types. 27 combat AI options (3 movement settings x 3 attack settings x 3 targetting settings)
  
• Packmules!!! You can buy mules that follow you around. They are like regular characters, but with no stats, and 3 times the inventory space. They try to stay out of combat, but will kick with hind legs if they get cornered.
  
• The map is so good you can play the entire game from it... it's like a subset of the graphics engine that just looks straight down.
  
• No classes. You just choose what your character looks like and start playing. Whatever you do, you get better at.
  
• It actually runs smooth at 640x480x32, low detail on a Celery 400 + TNT1. (But runs much better on my Athlon 1200 + GF2 :)
  
• Co-operative campaign multiplayer
  
• Extremely moddable. The community for this game is going to be HUGE. They're releasing all the tools they used to build the campaign for free in May. AI scripting language (Skrit), even a scriptable special effects engine (Siege FX)
  

OK enough gushing. Back to the game... :)

Re:Realism?

[CausticPuppy]

Oh, I forgot, the game producers are so afraid of realism that they removed the possibility to crash into buildings, once that was done IRL.

That option is turned off by default in FS2002, but you can easily turn it back on.