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Heavy Rain - Playing a Story
Edge Magazine is running a piece about Heavy Rain, a thriller by Quantic Dream that's been in development for a few years now. Edge spoke with David Cage, the game's writer and director, about using graphics technology not simply for breathtaking landscapes or realistic lighting, but to bring the characters to life and make them more believable. Cage walked the folks at Kotaku through a demo, and they provided details on how the controls will work. From Edge:
"'We worked very hard on motion capture, especially facial motion capture,' explains Cage. 'As you know, eyes are incredibly hard to do: the minute movements they constantly make mean you can tell whether something is human or not. We created a technology to motion-capture that from actors.' The shaders applied to the lead character's eyes and the skin that surrounds them also conspire to nudge Heavy Rain's characters closer to believability. The 'deadness' that so often afflicts such digital mannequins has been significantly chipped away, and we are presented with Madison, a character whose facial features, though attractive in an expectedly unnatural sort of way, also carry blemishes that succeed in breaking down her artificiality."
PS3 only. Good quality visuals. It is a detective story/game.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
All this realism stuff gets on my nerves. Sure it looks more realistic but is it actually a better game? Are the graphics on the Wii "realistic" hell no, they are basically cartoons but the games play well and I don't care about the graphics. So the eyes flicker around in this new game like the eyes of people in a meeting just waiting for it to finish, flicking to the clock, back to the notes and then gazing out of the window in a day-dream before flicking back into the room in case they are asked a question.
Realism isn't always the best way to convey the most emotion and impact, look at the finest paintings from the likes of Rembrandt, and its that impact that games companies should concentrate on rather than on yet another way to make a dull game look pretty.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I'm more impressed by Chocolate Rain.
?ho immediately thinks of the production of "Chubby Rain" from that Steve Martin/Eddie Murphy comedy Bowfinger? heh. Off topic. Mod me down.
I think you probably do need to say it. What's your point? That every attempt to improve facial features is doomed because of the uncanny valley? That this technology shows that the uncanny valley worries are unjustified? That this project has achieved a lot but still fails due to the uncanny valley? That despite suffering from the uncanny valley, this project nevertheless has achieved a remarkable level of empathy?
"Realism isn't always the best way to convey the most emotion and impact"
Emoticons work much better.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Unexpectedly in a unnatural sort of way i am thinkin touch screen, Madison and me go in at at it.All the more reason not to go outside
Not to be confused with "Chubby Rain".
The games industry is becoming more and more like Hollywood. They think pretty pictures, famous names & loud noise will make up for a lack of story.
Games were more playable on the 8-bit computers & consoles than on today's supercomputers/superconsoles. Yeah the graphics were shitty at times but you still got more immersed in the game than you do these days. Its hard to get too involved in an 'interactive movie' with a few decisions/actions.
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
Agreed.
However, looking at the development of art history, the masters first worked toward realism. Caravaggio with his tenebrism (dramatic shading, where 3D games begin to take off with better shading and lighting) really began to bring things to life. When they reached that pinnacle of realism, other forms began to emerge. I imagine gaming will do something similar as we become bored of perfectly realistic games, even if they are masterpieces of both art and game design.
Anybody else with a more extensive art background have any other comments on this?
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Good lord, when I first saw the title of this thing I thought of that movie with Christian Slater from about ten years ago, "Hard Rain", and thought they were making a game out of it. It was at that point that I cried out in fear and pain, thrashing my keyboard into the wall and curling up in the corner, a whimpering smudge of a geek. "Make it stop...." was all I could be heard to say...
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Anyone can talk about realistic characters and show screenshots. It's the animations that makes human characters seem real.
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
This is the first console generation where you have a single console that is so far beyond its competitors.
Last gen the PS2,GameCube, and XBox all put out roughly the same number of polys. The GameCube was gimped by its disc format like the 360 is this gen. But all three consoles had games with graphics that were of the same level of quality. GameCube had the incredible Metroid Prime, PS2 had God of War and Gran Turismo, and the Xbox had various games with more multipass rendering aka 'bumpy/shiny'
Microsoft has really utterly botched the 360 graphics hardware if all the system has to compete is a game running the painfully outdated Unreal Engine 3 with its overreliance on normal maps on every single surface to fake detail. Fine for fake marketing screenshots with the detail and AA ramped up but the actual in game graphics look like shit.
Its still around 10 months from when Microsoft pulled the plug on the first Xbox, still way too early to dump the 360 and try again.
Microsoft should really get Sony to help them design the graphics hardware and show them how to make good console development tools or just go back to letting PC manufacturers handle the hardware like Microsoft did before they made their disasterous entry to the console market.
...shoots the editor who decided to put em tags in the title
Most of you won't remember, but Quantic Dream is the studio that brought us Omikron: The Nomad Soul. That game had a soundtrack with David Bowie on it.
They also brought us Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy.
I'm a fan of their immersive adventure style games. Hard Rain ought to be a knockout.
They're using their grammar skills there.
If it's a QTE-fest like Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit was, with a peyote-inspired plot wrap-up, count me out.
While I *completely* understand where you are coming from (and I'm somewhat sympathetic to your view), I have to respond and say that the progress you get from folks who push the envelope, even if its only in one specific part/element of a "game", is worth having bad game play and/or even a failure in the long wrong if in the next game/attempt its no longer difficult to do. Meaning even if someone loses their shirt because they focused on only that one element at the expense of the others, for someone it will pay off in time.
For example, look at Peter Molyneux. This guy is notorious for having games that have a specific element that blows everything that came before it out of the park -- at the expense of the rest of the game he is trying to produce. Which really does suck for him, but in the end it pushes the envelope for everything that comes after that uses those same elements.
Its not hard to see that over and over if you look at games in hindsight. The most popular current games are the ones that take all these elements that pushed the envelope and put them all together in a way that works. See ultra successful endeavors like World of Warcraft (the best of Everquest and Ultima Online), Bioshock (the best of System Shock, Ultima Underworld, and Doom), any RTS (Command and Conquer), and so on.
And you can take all those games listed and go back further to games like Rogue, Empire, and Adventure.
So really, I have to say you should give kudos to people willing to go out on a limb and push the realism if thats what they want to do. If no one did you would still be using a monochrome monitor to play your text adventure or blow up asteroids with vector graphics. If they want to push the realism that's fine with me. Someone will take the technology and make a better game with it sooner or later.
took art history way back when. but i have nothing to add. think i will hold my excitement until non-lethal (if such exists) hologram games exists. also agree with OP about mainly gameplay > graphics. Already we know that machines are capable of doing realism. and honestly, first thought comes into my mind when i see the screenshot (silent hill..) yet, i have no doubt that it'll be a good game.
I hate to say it, but this game--like others before it--fails to render some of the most important aspects of conveying human emotion: facial expressions. Until animators begin to properly recreate the musculature changes that go with various emotions as a whole, any claims of realism in this regard fall flat.
Watching the demo for this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyubR1rknBM) I can agree that they did a great job on the eye movement and motion capture, but that realistic movement only serves to highlight that the virtual actor's face is not realistically animated. More than the motion of the eyes, it is the set of the jaw, creasing of the forehead, raising/lowering of the eyebrows, etc. that convey emotion and meaning.
Don't get me wrong, this looks to be a great game, and their work on the on the lighting, texturing and overall animation is superb; however, regarding the expressions of their virtual actors: no realism biscuit.
This is so cool. An article about an adventure game on /.. Adventure games are not dead, as everyone thinks. They're getting more and more mainstream.
-- Cheers!
I think that's a helluva good point and one I've never considered before. I've got to admit, I like games primarily for the graphics... though I'm not much of a gamer, so I suppose I'm probably the typical eye candy gamer.
However, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I love technology... I like to watch it advance before my eyes... and in no other place is that quite as startlingly evident than video games.
Of course, I can get hooked on a good video game with ok graphics (I LOVED Alpha-Centauri for years), but great graphics done properly can add quite a bit to a game, IMHO.
And in terms of parent's comment, I'd say that's a very good point... the obvious place to push the envelope (and the easiest, in certain respects) is graphics. Once we've reached the threshold of "realism", the creative impulses can move in other directions.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Titian is often considered the master of "old school realism". In the end, however, realism gave way to Van Gogh, Impressionism, and alternative "representations" - which ultimately culminated in abstract art, and afterwards, representation became mixed. Indeed , the choice of representation became art itself. It is similar to how we had a realistic push in gaming for a few years, and then suddenly cel shading became very popular. I don't think we have come full circle yet, however.
Realism counts a lot! Not everything, but still.
Take Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, for example. It's gameplay is so-so, the plot feels scripted because the entire thing is so cinematic and the game doesn't try to hide that fact. The few English and Japanese words that get shouted by the bots are repetitive.
However, the realistic sounds and graphics do work on me. I felt totally immersed because the jungle cover is beautiful, the enemies are camouflaged, the damage is severe, and my heart rate jumps when the other side bonzai-rushed. When I let myself slip into the game for brief moments, I really felt that I was really there (and realized gee, sux to be in war).
Day of Defeat did not have the same effect. It was just another team deathmatch. MOHPA was much more immersive due to the better technology.
From Edge:
We worked very hard on bodily functions, especially sweat and bathroom breaks,' explains Cage. 'As you know, sweat is incredibly hard to do: fluid dynamics interacting with the characters polygonal surface and clothing shaders. We created a technology to yellow the cloth shaders in sweat prone areas.' The shaders applied to the lead character's armpits and upper abdomen also conspire to nudge Heavy Rain's characters closer to believability. The 'cleanness' that so often afflicts such digital mannequins has been significantly chipped away, and we are presented with Madison, a character whose hygiene, though not below average, breaks down over time as she runs, jumps, farts and craps--breaking down her artificiality.
I tend to disagree with the idea of adding blemishes to the characters to make them realistic. Sometimes perfection is better than reality.
Realism isn't always the best way to convey the most emotion and impact, look at the finest paintings from the likes of Rembrandt, and its that impact that games companies should concentrate on rather than on yet another way to make a dull game look pretty.
The desire to turn an easy profit will win over the desire to make a better game for some companies after the first few companies start exploring a new area in visualisation methods.
Seen TF2? Awesome cartooning, quality abounds, its a whole new look for games of that type, and it works really well. Seen the new Battlefield? a cheap imitation, graphics wise which looks unpolished (Well, awful in comparison to TF2), but close enough to make people think it's breaking new ground too..
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
It's not that games were somehow better back then, it's that you were younger and had more time to spend selecting and learning to play video games - and that you're comparing random games from today with your best memories of the best games of the past.
My best memories of, say, Deus Ex are much better than Crysis was... but I'm sure they're much better than Deus Ex actually was too.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
How many other stories have an italic proportion in the headline?
All this realism stuff gets on my nerves. Sure it looks more realistic but is it actually a better game?
Sometimes, yes.
I don't care about the graphics.
Yes, you do, you just don't realize it.
I've said it before, and probably better, but every part of the game affects gameplay, and can make a game better or worse. More realistic graphics can, in fact, make a game better.
Now, granted, Crysis was mostly about pretty pictures and who's got the bigger dic^Wvideo card. But that doesn't mean this particular game is going to be another Crysis.
Realism isn't always the best way to convey the most emotion and impact,
Not always, but sometimes.
Look at film. Certainly, there's a place for anime, and it often does a better job than a summer flick which is focused purely on pretty pictures. But there are also films which are vividly realistic, both in video ("graphics") and in story and dialog -- downright gritty. And everything in between.
Taking your example:
So the eyes flicker around in this new game like the eyes of people in a meeting just waiting for it to finish,
Have you never seen a movie which makes good use of facial expressions, even eyes?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
They threw little trees at you?
Quote: "the obvious place to push the envelope is graphics"
The main problems in games is not graphics. Good 3D models and high resolution textures are common and realistic lighting is being pushed more and more.
The two main problems are lack of detail and lack of realistic physics. The lack of detail is evident in just about any game. I am not aware of any game for instance where dust is modeled as individual particles. Outside scenes are even worse. Roads are often textured rather than modeled meaning that if you see an imperfection in the road and look at it from different angles up close you do not see different lighting conditions and shadows. Foliage is still not realistic despite much progress. Etc...
Physics is in some ways doing better. Many games define their own and that's the way the game works. But we do expect people and animals to move a certain way (regardless of what the game tells us about its physics) and to have certain facial expressions. Those have to be dead on. And so far, no game can even make a human being walk right, let alone respond to a wound realistically. Grimacing is horrible.
So to recap, there is much more to a game than "graphics", whether you mean polygon counts and shaders or simply pretty still shots. There are many places in dire need of pushing the envelope and graphics is not the main one of them. In fact, with so much in need of improvement I honestly doubt we will see truly realistic games in my lifetime (next 30-50 years).
Agreed.
However, looking at the development of art history... I imagine gaming will do something similar as we become bored of perfectly realistic games, even if they are masterpieces of both art and game design.
Anybody else with a more extensive art background have any other comments on this?
Interesting thought, but not one that persuades me. Many games have already made a virtue of deliberately non-photo-realistic visuals. Molyneux' games, for example, have cartoonish visuals not because he doesn't have the graphic sophistication to go for near photo-real but because he chooses not to.
I think the visual aesthetic has a lot to do with the entire experience the director is trying to impart. I really love The Witcher (my review here) for its immersiveness, and part of that immersiveness is the beautiful visuals which are clearly aiming towards (although not, at least on my hardware, quite achieving it). You really can, in The Witcher, just stop and watch the moon rise and be blown away by the beauty of the scene.
Photorealism also suits stories which build on the 'film noir' genre, as it's clear that Heavy Rain does - but black-and-white might work better (it's noticeable that the palette in those Heavy Rain screenshots is pretty subdued).
However, in the game I'm trying to work on I want to end up with a 'charcoal and wash' visual - very little colour and not a lot of detail. I don't - yet - know how to do this - near photo real would be a lot easier and may be what I eventually end up with. But the reason for that choice is partly to make the game look distinctive, but it's also to comment on the culture of the people I'm trying to tell a story about.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Normally I'd agree with you, however, from what I just read this is more like a book or a movie than a video game. And with that in mind context gameplay goes right out the window.
What helps make a book or movie more enjoyable is willful suspension of disbelief, and greater realism will help exactly that.
Judging from the screenshots, the 3d characters are no more believable than Alyx from HL2. And that particular game is already 4 years old.
Immersive story/puzzle games are nothing particularly new.
Remember Phantasmagoria? Spent weeks finishing that one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasmagoria_(computer_game)
This seems to be doing the same thing better with much more realistic reactions and interface (of course Phantasmagoria had no choice as it used filmed section on 7 CDs) - and what is really noteworthy is that they are moving away from forcing the character down set pathways and decisions and allowing the player to choose their own route more.
I wonder if the 360 is up to this? Smaller disc drive and less processing.
Why don't you wait and see? Producing a compelling game is a fine art and it might suck for a multitude of reasons, but I fail to see why you pour hate on it because it strives for realism and a strong narrative.
Fahrenheit was quite an interesting experience, I really enjoyed it...for the first half.
Then the story went AWOL with tonnes of unnecessary additions, conspiracies and needless complexity.
I hope this time he's had some advice from a competent writer.
Oh, and a slightly more intelligent interactive interface might be nice too.
Just because graphics don't matter in Wii Tennis doesn't mean they don't matter in an adventure game. Advanced graphics can only be a good thing for adventure games. Sounds to me like you're just pretending to be some sort of pseudo-hardcore gamer by performing the same old routine about how graphics are the devil and we should all go back to Pong.
Really? Wolfenstein 3D immersed you more than Crysis? Yeah, ok...
What are these interactive movies that you're referring to? I haven't played an interactive movie since the mid-nineties when they were still being made. I've heard people say MGS4 is an interactive movie, but that's just one game out of thousands.
When discussing the present state of video gaming, there are two extremes. On one side you've got the drooling, slack-jawed idiots who are easily distracted by pretty colors and shiny things that go boom, and one the other side you've got posers who want to appear hardcore (or what they perceive to be hardcore) by damning modern games as heresy because they aren't Pong. Both camps are equally worthless.
This is really just a myth. Crysis has very good gameplay, and the narrative is quite engrossing too. The large environments and foliage aren't just there for appearance, they actually affect the gameplay. Enemies can see you from far away, and you can hide in bushes and behind trees, and crawl through tall grass to remain unseen. There's also a sense of distance and scale because going on foot to the next objective can often take a very long time.
Craps? I'm sure the world is ready for that. We don't need another "Hot Toffee" scandal...
I have to respectfully disagree. While I will admit that the nostalgia effect you describe is real and affects me too, it is not the whole explanation.
Far too many games have way too bland gameplay nowadays. Anyone having played assassins creed will know what I mean, although the story was quite intriguing. F.E.A.R. also suffered from shoot-the-same-guy-a-hundred-times-in-some-hallway-syndrome. Absolutely boring rubbish, although the paranormal events made it quite intriguing at the beginning. Half-life 2 had absolutely shitty gameplay in spite of an intriguing story and good graphics. I could go on and on, but you get the point.
But I also recognize some real good titles, which almost disprove your nostalgia effect theory. Portal was absolutely stunning for example, or Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy was very interesting, and most importantly: different. They stand out from the crowd.
But too many games nowadays focus on graphics and being "epic" and whatever, and the gameplay and/or story suffer as a result. It pisses me off.
TF2 was not the first shooter game to have that kind of visual style. XIII was released in 2003, and Killer7 in 2005. There are probably even earlier examples. TF2 also doesn't hold a candle to Eternal Sonata.
Are you serious? Maybe there is something wrong with me after all. Crysis was acceptable, but it sure as hell did not have much of a story. It had a bit of a background "story", after all they needed some explanation for why you run around on a island shooting koreans, but it sure as hell didn't have what I would call a real story. The story was at all times placed firmly in the background of running around and blowing stuff up. And the graphics of course.
The gameplay is ok, but after shooting the goddamn same korean guy in the jungle over and over again it gets boring after a while. They did ok by me with variations (different settings, driving a tank, inside the alien structure) but it could have been far better. And more immersive.
Crysis is an combat simulator with a certain arcade style to it. But it isn't really very engaging. All in all this is one of the few games that I would consider worth spending money on, but it sure as hell cannot compare to the best of games like the original half-life, portal, and deus-ex.
There's also a sense of distance and scale because going on foot to the next objective can often take a very long time.
Due to the 10 cut-scenes you have the pleasure to watch while trying to get from A to B.
Realistic graphics in a game don't make a good game. They can help make a game better. If a game is 90% cutscenes, intercut with "now press the A-,X-, up-, up- buttons, then pause exactly 4.5 secs, and press Y to get to the next 10 minute long cutscene" interaction, then they are the equivalent to a (BAD) Steve Jackson Gamebook or, more accurately, one of the old Laserdisc-based games. They are not games. They are movies with an interactive element thrown in.
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
Quantic promises a whole lot with the titles that they hype, and ends up giving very little beyond what they shine up for demo releases. They did it with Omikron, they did it with Fahrenheit (though anyone familiar with 'indigo children' might have suspected the clusterfuck that the story would turn into), and they've done it with their other adventure titles.
And with all respect, you seem to have this very "black and white" view of the world of gamers.
I speak from 25+ years experience of gaming when I say that a game only needs to be entertaining and immersive, not necessarily realistic. And when it comes to adventure games, then the prime requirement is to have a big wedge of logical puzzle solving along with the gradual revealing of an underlying plot.
The problem with many of the games today is that the focus is *far too much* on pretty graphics without putting equivalent effort into the gameplay itself, plus the attitude of many games developers these days seems to be to sell shorter and shorter games (with additional expansions) with easy-to-solve puzzles because the teenage gamers of today don't have long attention spans.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
"Are the graphics on the Wii "realistic" hell no, they are basically cartoons but the games play well and I don't care about the graphics."
Which games are these?
I have yet to find anything on the Wii I enjoy, other than the initial "Sports" game. The fact the graphics are primitive is a minor incovenience compared to how bad the game library seems to be.
Nobody ever said it has to be realistic.
And advanced, cinematic graphics are somehow mutually exclusive with puzzle solving and a plot?
I didn't say it has the storyline of Lost, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a story (which I had no trouble keeping up with). It's a fairly basic "oh shit aliens attack" plot, but it's told effectively.
Nonsense. Cutscenes don't occur that often. The reason why it takes you time to go on foot is because - get this - the environments are huge.
Ok, and what does this have to do with Crysis, or modern games in general? MGS4 may have lots of cutscenes but MGS4 is one game.
I have to disagree with you on this. Impressive graphics are a tool for artists and whether or not they choose to use them depends on the artistic vision they are trying to convey. Some artists like Pablo Picasso are fine with abstract shapes (Wii) while others prefer highly detailed works of art Da Vinci (PS3). It's when the graphics are used as a sole motivating factor to sell a game, with no substance behind it all that it fails. The same goes with a big blockbuster film with awesome SFX with no plot, which can be trumped by a low budget indie film.
If you say so... I found the story rather easy to ignore, it was filled with clichés, predictable and bland. The characters never developed enough for you to care about them in the slightest. To me the story was purely an excuse for the action going on, not something I could be immersed in.
The best part probably was during the assault on the harbour. Only - as is so damn typical in these games - the military didn't do jack shit to attack the harbor, it was only your own actions. The first two minutes were very immersive, but after that it was once again just you against the entire korean army. Not very believable, and not very immersive. And that was the BEST part of crysis, no less (to me anyway).
From the trailers and TFA, heavy rain will be MGS4-like in that it's about pressing the right buttons at the right time. Thus the relevance
Crysis ... I honestly can't say I played it long. I tried it at a friend's who had the gear to run it. My experience went like this : .. uiii .. shiny clouds... I land and run for 30 sec. first cutscene. I run a bit more, shoot 2 enemies, next cutscene ... I run a bit more ... cutscene ... I run a tiny bit more ... the sun goes up .. uhh .. cutscene.
I am in a plane, I can move my head around, I jump out of the plane, I can move my head around a bit
That's where I gave up.
Interestingly, the best game of the last few years in my opinion used a relatively old (but quite good) engine and had exactly TWO cutscenes. The first one when you woke up, and the last one where you were not served cake. Somehow it was able to convey a complex and interesting story all the same.
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
Were you seriously expecting characterization and originality?
You're a one man army, so why would they launch an assault on the harbor when one guy is enough? Since VTOLs are their method of transportation, they can't even assault the harbor due to the AA gun that's stationed there. You do fight alongside regular forces later on.
F.E.A.R. suffered from repetitious level design. But otherwise the story was presented well. Now "Beyond Good and Evil" presented a good story and the graphics were excellent in a cartoon sort of way. Psychonauts was the same way.
As the studio manager of a motion capture studio (http://motekentertainment.com), we find that the amount of work involved in capturing and recreating human realism is terribly difficult and ultimately unrewarding since you never quite get there (yet). When doing high-level realism, we often use mocap to get 90% there and finish up with a traditional animation pass. For most productions, we try to steer more towards a stylized product since you will get better and typically less freaky results.
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. - Will Rogers
Resident Evil 4 also has quicktime events, but that doesn't make it an interactive movie.
You're making shit up. After you've parachuted down, there isn't a cutscene until you find Aztec. Cutscenes are few and far between in the game.
Yes, because somehow cutscenes are the devil and can never be used to tell a story because of (insert arbitrary reason here) and because the Half-Life method of storytelling works for every imaginable kind of storyline and gameplay.
Ironically enough, Crysis uses the Half-Life method quite a lot.
Deus Ex was an outstanding game because it had good storytelling combined with interesting gameplay. The different ways the player could build his character and achieve his goals were definitely above the norm for a shooter.
Also, the graphics had reached a level I consider sufficient to support a good game:
-full 3D engine
-Characters and items were clearly recognizable, not reduced to a crude bunch of pixels like in DOOM due to limited computing resources
-the supported resolutions allowed to check out things at a distance, where earlier games (DOOM again) would make things unrecognizable because they shrinked to a few pixels.
Together with Half Life 1, I think Deus Ex introduced graphics that were "good enough". Anything that came later is nice as eyecandy but does not make better games.
C - the footgun of programming languages
All that work for nothing, because the game will be terrible. How can you tell? A focus on 'quick time' events. This type of game play is not even remotely fun. Please developers, stop using this aged and pointless game mechanic.
Some people on Slashdot are trying to define in a concrete manner what does and does not qualify as art.
You know what qualifies as art?
Anything you want.
It's totally subjective.
Different groups (an art class, a museum, a society) try to say some things are and are not art, and eventually form a "standard" of what qualifies as art, but it's just the effect of groupthink (on different scales).
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The Rose Tinting Effect of Memory. You remember the games/movies/albums you liked in those days, and tend to forget the rest. The signal to noise ratio has always been the same, you're just forgetting the noise. Also, your tastes and standards change over time. As a kid, Tron was orgasmic to me. Watching it now i could see more flaws and not be as entertained by this or that.
Wish i had mod points for ya.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Actors should have full control over their body and will not behave like you just described. If they would just don't care about eye movement in such a scenario, why would the produce hire them at all?
I thought that the move away from realism wasn't due so much to having hit a pinnacle of realism in painting, but more as a reaction against photography, which provided cheap, easy, and quick realism. The painters then went after things the camera couldn't do.
Everything you state is in the realm of graphics, you had to solve things to be able to get quake graphics on a 90MHz PC in the same way you have to solve things to get dust to settle in an artificial environment.
It's just effects, but it has come a long way in the last 30 years since Zork was released.
When you take a breath?
No, that would be 'bonsai'. Completely different from 'banzai'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
However, looking at the development of art history, the masters first worked toward realism.
They didn't have photography.
My whole being exists in a formless void.
Just because realism isn't the only way to convey emotion and drama in a video game doesn't mean it's an ineffective way. Your comment about Wii games "playing well" tells me that you have little experience with the three major consoles other than reading about them. The Wii does have it's upsides - Wii Fit, sports games, quirky games - but it has yet to release a story driven game which is convincingly artistic (the closest thing is Okami, a port).
Both the PS3 and 360 have games which make the art argument. Games for both which do so utilize photorealism but they don't necessarily depend on it. Look at Metal Gear Solid 4 and BioShock as examples. Furthermore, Quantic Dream, the developer of this title, is known for innovation which far exceeds pretty visuals. Indigo Prophecy is one of the most original game out there.
It's so ironic that you should mention Rembrandt because that only weakens your argument. Rembrandt combined realism with style and substance, just as the developers you're criticizing are attempting to do. Quantic Dream is a French studio. France is one of the only countries which has a government that funds aesthetics and classifies video games as an art form.
Just because better graphics don't make a game good doesn't mean they make it bad.
Suppose I really enjoy a well played game of checkers. A sparse and simple presentation that allows me to focus on my next move would be preferable to some realistic immersive presentation playing against uncle Joe on the porch of the old general store with the sounds of boots stomping up the steps behind me and old Zeek creaking back and forth on a rocking chair.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
"Playing a Story"?
It's about time western game companies jump on the Visual Novel bandwagen.
Wait... Assassin's Creed had bland gameplay? Did you play the same game I did? The gameplay in AC kicked so many levels of ass, it wasn't even funny.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Seen TF2? Awesome cartooning, quality abounds, its a whole new look for games of that type, and it works really well.
I've seen TF2, but ironically, this is a counterexample to me of the "gameplay > graphics" argument. I hate TF2's graphics. I think they suck, I think that Valve's developers are, quite frankly, idiotic for marrying such crappy graphics to a good game. Because my hate for their graphics is so strong, I don't play TF2, even though it's a good game otherwise.
So, I would have to disagree that TF2's style "works really well", because their graphics choices actually drive me to not play the game.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Heavy Rain, he told us, was an adventure game devoid of traditional "interactivity"
Almost word for word the same sales pitch they gave for Indigo Prohesy. I expect this one will fail too.
Tried Metroid Prime 3? I find it to be an extremely fun game that makes excellent use of the Wii controller.
I also think Mario Kart and Smash Bros Brawl are excellent games, but they don't really utilize Wii controls, so they're not great examples. Great games, though.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I decided to check wikipedia (though not that from it should flow all Truth)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(arts)
It seems that Realism grew as a result of photography, though I'm sure the reaction to it was eventually toward the abstract.
However, the other side of this is that Realism grew up, so to speak, in the mid 19th century.
Titian was alive during the 15th and 16th centuries.
As my art history knowedge has dimmed over the years, I don't really remember what happened in the interim.
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That really depends on whether you are basing judgment solely from memory, or if you can actually play the old game right now and still be entertained by it.
Your Tron example is good, because I feel basically the same way about it but I can also name some truly timeless games that nothing else before or since can compare to (to me at least). Deus Ex is certainly one of them. Star Control 2, Mechwarrior 2, Syndicate, Monkey Island 1/2, The Longest Journey, Anachronox, Thief, System Shock 1/2 and Street Fighter 2 are a few more. I could play any of those right now and still be impressed with how well they were made.
"More realistic graphics can, in fact, make a game better."
Of course, but not always. Heroes of Might & Magic 5 is IMHO a counter-example: full 3D when you're not supposed to be immerged only get in the way of the game interface and when zooming out enough to see a reasonable area, gold and ore would almost look like the same. That game is not that bad per se, but it would have been far better if done in 2D.
"But that doesn't mean this particular game is going to be another Crysis."
From the trailer I have seen, I was thinking of a new Dragon's Lair instead.
"Have you never seen a movie which makes good use of facial expressions, even eyes?"
Yes, "The Mask" :)
Ok, the particular word I'd go for in this case (as well as with F.E.A.R.) is repetitive. The whole world had a completely synthetic feel to it because, well it was synthetic. Now I did enjoy assassins creed, and they had some very intriguing explanations for the game mechanics, but nevertheless it was very artificial. I did not feel like I was an assassin, but rather that I was performing an endless series of mini-games. There was no real game there.
Are you asking me if I seriously expected a "good" game to have an immersive story, believable and interesting characters, a feeling of really being there and everything being real?
Hell yes, I was expecting the damn game to be good. Don't come to me saying that a thoroughly hyped game like crysis should be allowed to get away with shiny graphics and only so-so gameplay.
I guess we're just going to have to disagree, then. The gameplay in Assassin's Creed, for me, never got old, and always succeeded in making me feel like I was an assassin stalking my target, then taking him down. Brilliant game.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
The phrase "numerous Dragon's Lair-style reflex focused button presses" was all I needed to read about this game to know that the developers have no idea what makes for a satisfying control scheme.
If people wanted to play "Simon" they would still be doing that. Canned sequences that are basically "Press A, B or C to see the cut-scene" is just idiotic, and in direct opposition to their "WE'RE SO REAL! LOOK HOW REAL WE ARE!" hype.
People seem to forget that this company seems to have made... one game. They have spent the majority of their time since opening announcing games without actually making them. So for a "game developer" that has been around for over a decade their output is practically non-existent.
I love well rendered characters and backgrounds but these guys are basically creating a very nice looking version of the old Gabriel Knight games and passing it off as paradigm-breaking innovation.
Crysis is from the guys who made Far Cry. I sure as hell wasn't expecting much, and I was actually suprised by how much better the narrative was compared to Far Cry. I don't understand how the feeling of really being there is related to any of this.
Huh? You're moving the goal posts. We're talking about characterization and the originality of the storyline, not gameplay.
I think they work well because they drive you to not play the game ;).
TF2 is a team oriented game, best to have people playing that concentrate more on the gameplay than the graphics.
Okay. It's like this. . .
You've got this. . , I don't know, say a city, right? Picture it as some kind of SIM City kind of arrangement for now. We'll let the art and design departments bring it up to today's standards. You know, so that it looks cool. Okay. . .
So you've got this digital city. And it's set in, say 1920 America. Okay, and you have control over it in some way. Either you are a character walking around in it affecting things, or you're a hovering cursor playing civic engineer. I'll leave that up to the game play department. I'm not to the NEW idea yet. Hang with me. . .
So you build some buildings and do some city maintenance, and you have to stop crooks and gangsters, right? Okay. So you play around in this environment for a while and then the game shifts. You're no longer in 1920. Now it's 1950. Same city, but different decade. And all the stuff you did to the city 30 years ago is still there, but older. If you built a school, or a group of office buildings, then they'll have affected the way the city grew. We'll have to get the guys in the programming department to come up with some kind of fractal math or something. That'll win the game the smart awards, and you'll see why in a minute. . .
So there you've got the same city in 1950, and you keep going. You build stuff and catch crooks or whatever, and you do that for a while. Then the time frame flips again. Cue the award-winning fractal programming, and now you're in the year 2010. Awesome! Same effect. Buildings you put up are still there, or have been added to, or they've been torn down, and there's new highways and stuff. Whatever. It's totally impressive.
Now the player is feeling confident, right? They think they know what the game's about. But they don't, because right when they're beginning to say, "Oh, I get it. SIM City but like 3D with Time." Except they're not seeing the whole picture yet.
So it's 2010, and now you're in charge of this big city. And you've got to deal with crime and such, so you have a SWAT team or something, which has also been evolving over the years. What started as your little division of special cops is now a tricked out special unit. Anyway, you get increasingly difficult tasks, until you run into some bad guys who appear to be using alien technology. What. . ? Yeah, I didn't mention that yet. There's aliens. Anyway, the battle is really hard to win, but with some major effort, the playing defeats them. Except more aliens come and it starts getting bad. Like whole buildings start crashing down, -the ones the player took special care to build just so, those ones get wrecked in the battle. You know, to hook them emotionally. Then suddenly there's this huge boom and a warp gate opens up right in the middle of the city, and aliens start piling through it, see. It's like the end of the world, right?
What's that? Like Half Life? No, no, no. Well, yeah. But it's totally not like that. Just keep listening. . .
So right when things are going really bad, your team discovers the presence of a time-travel unit. And maybe there's this whole mission where you have to go get it. Anyway, you end up getting the ability to send your command unit to one of the other two time frames. Like 1920, or 1950. You get to choose where you want to play. And whatever you do to your city in the past affects what's happening in the future. So that fractal programming is now really the core of the game, see? Because the aliens can travel in time as well, right?
Ahh. Your face is lighting up. You're beginning to get it. Cool.
How do you win? Okay, I'm getting to that. There's a whole story unfolding, see. So to win certain adventures, you have to bring future technology to your squad in 1920, which instantly updates all the powers and secret weapons of your teams in the future. There could be whole adventures surrounding that. You'd have to make it difficult to bring technology back through time. Limit it somehow so you don't w
...they actually had something to do with what's happening in the game.
In Indigo Prophecy, QTEs were frequently completely disconnected from any of the onscreen action. The protagonist might be talking to someone, trying to convince them of something, and to "talk better," the player would have to randomly follow a pattern with the analog sticks as if it were Dance Dance Revolution.
If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie. If I want to play a rhythm game, I'll play a rhythm game.
What's the opposite of a gestalt... Where the whole is less than the sum of the parts?
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
What exactly was it that was better? The only game I hold in such high regard is TIE Fighter and some old adventure games; TIE Fighter just because you could do interesting missions in full space, and adventure games because of the story and because they made me laugh.
That is a completely unfair remark. I do concentrate more on gameplay than graphics, for starters. It just happens that there's a level of graphical badness which I won't tolerate, gameplay be damned, and TF2 crosses that line. Furthermore, even if I valued graphics more than gameplay, that doesn't mean I'm not an excellent team player.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
This game is the 'sequel' to the PS2 Indigo Prophecy. Before you start bashing realism in games, play that game - this is not a game with realistic graphics, the game's _style_ is realism! It is reminiscent of MGS4 gameplay - lots of interactive cinematics (a-la Dragon's Lair, but way better) interspersed with regular 3D character control, though it has much more of the feel of an interactive movie than MGS4. It really is a unique experience. One of PS2's real unique gems, and a good plot (that is, in the beginning, until it turned into aliens / self-aware computer world domination crap). I'm hoping this release will be more of the great stuff and less of the filler. P.S. Trust me, I know "Interactive Cinematics" sounds lame, but try it and see.
Stop talking about the game's graphics. If that's what it takes to get the game in the news, fine. But what's important here is their pledge to refrain from supernatural cliches and hollywood blockbuster explosions. If they can tell a serious mystery story with a modern game budget and state of the art graphics, it could be the least immature title on the market. An honest-to-god thriller, and not a by-the-numbers power fantasy. Almost as if it came from some alternate timeline where DOOM had been an adventure game instead of a shooter.
Fine. s/Crysis/Doom3.
I'm basing my criticism of Crysis largely on this comic -- is the narrative actually better than that?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I personally think that the domain graphics is confined to the rendering engine. Figuring out how muscles work can be biology, anatomy, physics, but graphics it is not. Likewise, more details means more work for the level designers not engine designers.
Psychonaughts pwns all life.
There are few games these days that will make me want to stay up all night to see what happens next. Bioshock was one, Psychonauts was another.
It's been a long time.
Mechwarrior 2 still blows me away. Most games try to be fast paced and nimble, but MW2 was the exact opposite. You're in a massive, lumbering, hulking, slow moving bastard of a war vehicle.
Back when I first played, I was a huge star trek geek. Playing that game felt like I was actually at the controls of some massive monster like the people who controlled the star ships on TV.
It's been a long time.
Can they get Tay Zonday to sing the opening theme? if they can get him to wear a Chad Vader suit that would even be better...
You are talking about things that have little effect on the game mechanics, but more on what you see so I would call it graphics. Or fluff. Or Photo realism.
I see graphics more as effects..
Deus Ex was the first game that made me puke (literally - I got so violently ill from motion sickness I threw up), so I can't say I have fond memories of it. It was not the first game I got motion sickness from, but it was the fastest - I had maybe 20 seconds of gametime before it happened (Nukem 3D and Marathon were about 1/2 hour before I started to get ill, and Half Life about 20 minutes - but some games like Battlefield and Unreal Tournament never bothered me, so it's hit and miss).
Star Control 2, TLJ, Syndicate and Monkey Island were indeed memorable. I wasn't so thrilled with Mechwarrior 2 - it's not that it was bad, but rather that I think games like Max Payne 1/2, Fallout, Grim Fandango and Planescape: Torment were much better. I have nothing to say about Street Fighter 2 - I played the game exactly once, got completely asswhupped, and never played it again. If I had to list a favorite plotted videogame, I'd have to say Shinobi, Rolling Thunder or maybe one of the videodisc games like Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, or Cliff Hanger (a personal favorite - I liked the Lupin Anime series it was based on, as well). For ancient computer games, I remember getting a huge kick out of Captain Goodnight and the Island of Fear (because it spoofed a number of games) and loved games like Bruce Lee, Elite, Conan: Halls of Volta, Karateka, Prince of Persia and probably 100 I can't think of.
I missed Thief: The Dark Project (it was never a priority game) and Anachronox (I had no working computer the year it was released).
Some other good games and how could I forget Fallout and Elite? Two more fantastic games. Fallout 2 and Frontier: Elite 2 were also worthy sequels. Along the lines of Elite, I should also name Wing Commander: Privateer and Freelancer, even though they offered much smaller universes.
That is strange about the motion sickness. Deus Ex uses the Unreal engine, so it should be quite similar to UT with respect to movement.
I can understand your feelings towards Mechwarrior 2. It seemed like one of those games that you either fully loved or just didn't get into. For me part of it was the game manual (yes, the manual). It was more of a thick booklet that was printed in such a way to resemble a sort of clanner handbook, with background information, mech diagrams and even "dirty fingerprints" on the pages. It really helped to put me into the role of "being" a clan mech pilot. Once you got into the game, as another poster commented, it did a lot to make you feel like you were controlling a behemoth war machine. The soundtrack is another big plus, I would listen to it even outside of the game (it used redbook audio).
I wasn't such a big fan of Max Payne. It was an impressive game, no doubt, but I didn't really connect to the game world or to its characters.
Admittedly, I never played Planescape: Torment. I think I was put off because it looked too similar to Arcanum, which is a game that I wish I had never bought. I will probably grab a copy so I can give it a fair assessment.
Whilst I agree that realism isn't the only way to make a good game, I think it would be pretty foolish to dismiss realism outright. Perhaps the industry focuses too much on realistic games, but you can't begrudge a particular game for being realistic any more than you can begrudge a live-action film for not being a highly stylized animation.
I find it hard to see a problem with the pursuit of realism, other than when it's a little disturbing (people getting excited about the skin-melting flamethrowers in Call of Duty: World at War is kind of unsettling). What I do find annoying is when people complain about the lack of realism in games, particularly when the game isn't even intended to be any more realistic than it is. Do we really want a more authentic headshot experience?
Sorry, that was a stupid question. Of course we do.
Well, games of old did the same thing, and too many of them sucked as a result. Of the NES, there are *very* few games that I'd consider worth playing today, most of it's library deserving nothing less than a one-way ticket to ET's residential landfill in New Mexico. Yes, even some of the "famous" ones, like Zelda or Castlevania 2.
The SNES obviously had many more "legendary" games, but only because it had more games, period. Which also meant it had a much higher number of turds. And no, contrary to popular belief, the Mortal Kombat series hasn't gone "downhill", it always sucked the same.
And then we have the PC, back when everyone and their dog was trying to create a better DooM than DooM, and failing miserably at it ("Heretic", for example, is how I'd call someone who claims to like videogames and liked that PoS).
But don't worry, in a few years you'll only remember the Baldur's Gates and Unreal Tournaments of this era while our Daikatanas and Mysts are forgotten, their place taken by newer heavily-marketed pieces of shit with dull gameplay and idiotic plots. Just as it has always been, and always shall be.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
I really enjoyed the GTA IV characters were acted, delivered, and rendered. I thought that was one of the best so far in delivering the realism of human nuance, posture, and how people actually talk from day to day.
Seems like I hit someone's nerve here .. I'll try to go for the 3rd Troll mod in a row then :
I'm *not* making shit up. I just can't be bothered to remember the correct sequence of rather boring shit happening in Crysis. If Aztec is the guy who was hanging from the tree (damn ...I really didn't see that one coming), then it came fairly early after parachuting down, and the sheer length of the damn un-breakable cutscene made it feel like there were more than one.
And no, cutscenes are not the devil. Some games use them well, in small doses. When a game consists mainly of cutscenes and the actual gameplay consists of pressing a randomly changing "continue" button though, then the game is, in my book, a PoS. If I want to watch a movie, I'll pop in a DVD. ... somehow Crysis doesn't appear in the list.
Developping tension and a story without the use of cutscenes is more difficult, as you can't rely on the player to, for example, look at the blood dripping on the floor, and then slowly pan up to reveal the bloody cadaver of a guy he really doesn't care about., and very few games come to mind which did it well
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
Bite your tongue. Heretic had the most finely balanced multiplayer deathmatch of any game I have ever played. Every move had a countermove, and every countermove had a counter-countermove. Besides,it was a Doom TC made by Raven Software with id's blessing, so it wasn't exactly a me-too effort.
Remember that movie Bowfinger with Steve Martin where they film a terrible sci-fi without the consent of the main star? {Adjective}+{Weather occurrence}= Always no good.
No pussy for YOU!
I think you are correct actually, your comments on specific games I never played much notwithstanding.
I think there have always been brilliant games, and a flood of not-so-good games. Only when I was younger the not-so-good games were fun too, because I was new to the video game business. So I remember them better, and the grandparents nostalgia effect kicks in.
This would actually explain why I think older video games were actually better, while the overall quality (and its distribution) probably is moderately the same.
That is interesting. Wonder if Team Fortress 2 appeals, because they are not trying to be realistic?
I should say Torment feels a bit dated today - there is a lot of dialog. When I first played it, long text dialogs were the norm, while today it is not (some modern games like Oblivion still have a lot of these - specifically the books - but once you learn that they don't really contain anything important you usually do a click-through.
Arcanum came a few years later - I agree with you - I had high hopes for the game, but found it mediocre (I didn't hate it, but didn't love it, either). Around that time I also bought Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader, which I believe was the last PC game released under the Black Isle Studios moniker (there was a Baldur's Gate based PS2 game a few months later). I enjoyed the first 1/2 of that game, but the last part was obviously rushed and was a serious letdown.
I should have said Max Payne 2 - I only played a tiny bit of 1, but enjoyed 2 a lot. I admit, though, the game really wasn't that hard on its initial setting and I played through it once in about 12 hours and didn't bother replaying on harder difficulties. I liked the plot and characters of MP2, and didn't mind that the game was short (something many people hated).
There is only one game I've ever played where I despised the main character - the English translation of the Russian adventure game Midnight Nowhere. There are many with bad voice acting, but that is the only one where I disliked the main character.
Thanks...I'm not really into toys likes X-toy, PS-toy, etc... I prefer a multi-purpose computer that I own, and can run software of my own choice -- INCLUDING games or simulations where I'm not limited difficult or non-expandable/upgradable hardware with a lock-in vendor. That people go for vendor locking, in hardware and software, they are nearly guaranteed poorer selection and higher prices and quality that may, occasionally, be exceptional. However, high-end gaming PC's can have just as good graphics -- but also run alot more. So when this tech is available on PC's, let me know -- I won't even say it has to be linux. It's amazing how strong the feeling are against proprietary softare in the tech industry, but then those same folks that would prefer linux, or put down MS or Apple for their proprietary DRM and their plan to eventually have your computer's TPM, be "ownable" by 3rd parties (in the sense that you can't do anything with it or alter it -- only wipe the whole chip, which would destroy any identity-tied DRM on the machine), yet completely accept and praise the latest proprietary game platform tech and software.
Am I the only one who wonders about the internal cognitive dissonance this is likely to generate in people's minds?
Not really... I still love FPS games but they are becoming less creative (except Riddick) and fun.
Half Life 2 is a boring game compared to Half Life 1... same goes for Doom1&2 compared to Doom 3... and I could be playing Doom or HL1 TODAY and still love them better than their sequals... No rosey glasses... just the truth.
Quake 1 beats Quake 2 also...
I'm wasting a mod point for saying this but oh well...
We've reached that point with gaming. The increasing graphics are now more powerful than people really need, while the costs still grow exponentially the gains are diminishing and the wow factor of prettier games is shrinking. This was what opened the door for Nintendo to barge in with the Wii, they kicked the old idea that the graphics must grow to the curb and simply changed something else about gaming. Gaming is changing its values away from "more realistic graphics" but the values aren't changing to "artistic graphics" but to "more fun interaction". The gains from graphics are diminishing but the gains from better interaction are still huge.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
steve milano