The Case For Surrealism In Games

An editorial at PikiGeek takes the position that gaming's trend toward realism can be detrimental in many situations, with the quest for graphical precision supplanting creativity and uniqueness. Quoting: "The problem I find most troubling with realism in games is that video games are inherently unrealistic. By definition, even, video games must adhere to some sense of absurdity. In Uncharted, no matter how realistic and convincing the characters and environments may be, the fact is that Nathan Drake can take a hell of a lot of damage, and is a little too good with every gun known to man. In Call of Duty, if realism is such a coveted aspect of the series, why does your character only bleed out of his eyes, and why is damage rarely permanent? The 'game' part of these games keeps them from being truly realistic, and in turn makes them even less believable. Characters like Link, or even Master Chief, are believable in even the most absurd situations, as the worlds that they belong to don't try to conform to the world that we live in."

Comments

I blame Counterstrike

[cyclomedia]

This tend towards realism was started by Counterstrike, in my opinion. Before that deathmatch was a supersonic brawl over the rocket launcher with infinite lives and team games were similarly fast and chaotic. Now game characters are slooow, you're lucky if you're allowed to respawn, guns are, well guns and environments completely lack lava and floaty platforms.

Also, finally played Portal for the first time this weekend, boy that's one surreal game! (and i'm not talking about the physicsy stuff!)

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[gcnaddict]

and despite all of this, Counterstrike is a platform for some of the most absurd gametypes in gaming.

Surf maps come to mind.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[Anonymous Coward]

valve eventually went for the cartoony look in team fortress 2 because the gameplay was so absurd. If you're pushing for realism, how do you explain the 2 sides building their bases 40 feet away from each other?

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[Yvanhoe]

Since when do we consider that the gaming industry is exploring a single gameplay at the time ?

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[mcvos]

Counterstrike realistic? I haven't played it much, but my impression was that everybody moved at insane ridiculous speeds. I'm no FPS fan, but I did like America's Army somewhat, exactly because it was pretty realistic.

The problem isn't realism, the problem is half-hearted realism. A thin veneer of realism over gameplay that is very unrealistic. That mismatch spoils the experience. But a game that honestly tries to make the gameplay as realistic as possible can be a lot of fun. At least to people who appreciate realism, which I do. I liked Frontier/First Encounter's Newtonian physics, even if it made space combat ridiculously hard. I don't mind a challenge if there's a good reason for it.

But if you don't want realism, then don't pretend it's realistic. I like wacky over-the-top stuff too. Or gameplay that's designed with a very specific kind of gameplay or balance in mind. Just pick what your goal is, and do it right.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[mikael_j]

The original Counter Strike game featured slow running (at least Beta 5,6,7 and 1.0).

However, it was plagued by the half-hearted realism you mentioned. On one hand you ran slow, on the other hand bunny hopping was commonly used to avoid getting shot (combined with various exploits of glitches like jump-duck-shoot-jump-duck-shoot to instantly steady your aim). Not to mention when they crippled a bunch of the "regular" weapons while still leaving the game in a state that favored snipers. Or knife running (you ran a lot faster when holding a knife than any other weapon, one favorite trick was to have a macro for the left mouse button that instantly switched to your main weapon, fired and then switched back to the knife). Or flashbang grenades that would blind you even though you were on the other side of a wall and looking away from it. Or (on programmable mice) macro-ing so holding the left mouse button equaled clicking it really fast (since popping off one round at a time as fast as auto fire was extremely accurate while auto fire immediately sprayed bullets everywhere but where you wanted them to go).

So yes, half-hearted realism, and the slow running was the biggest thing you noticed in terms of "realism".

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[TheRaven64]

Counterstrike wasn't the first. Action Quake II was the first mod I played that went in for realism, and was released about a year before Counterstrike. It was awful. You got shot, and you started to bleed, walked slowly, and had to find a first aid kit to bandage yourself to stop bleeding (and losing health). Even then, you didn't heal, you just stopped being more injured. You had so little ammo that you only got a couple of shots before having to resort to trying to knife your opponents.

It was the most realistic FPS I'd played - more realistic than Counterstrike a year later - and the least fun.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[UnknownSoldier]

> This tend towards realism was started by Counterstrike, in my opinion.

The "Red Herring of Realism" was alive _long_ before 1999 young grasshopper. Tactical Shooters are not the only way games were slowly being more realistic. (e.g. Nethack had death come very easy -- meaning your are faced with permanent consequences, and have to restart.)

Advances in (real-time) computer graphics & physics are what drove this. Then game designers got sucked into the red herring of realism without understanding what games truely are: an _alternate_ "reality". i.e. Oooh, look, it would be cool, if in driving games, you could actually _flip_ and _roll_ the cars, it would be realistic if when you shot an enemy in the leg he limped, etc. without questioning what -effect- it would have on gameplay.

Here is the scale of realism with their corresponding game labels

No Realism -------- Max Realism
"Arcadey" .............. "Simulation"

How _much_ realism is called for, depends on the what you are trying to _achieve_ and _express_ with your game. Most gamers find 100% simulation to be NOT FUN. Conversely, they find total lack of realism, to be "too arcadey." The popular games tend to have a healthy mix of both. Quake-style / TF2 jumping / air-control is the perfect example: When you jump, you are able to turn in mid-air 360 degrees, and even stop your acceleration. Completely unrealistic, but fun as hell.

Here is the perfect example. Almost all driving games "cheat" -- that is, they dampen the impact when you hit an enemy car -- because players would just ram the cars off the road and win. But a win without a struggle doesn't mean (or feel) anything. It's why cheating is so shallow -- it doesn't mean anything when there are no challenge(s) or obstacle(s) to overcome. So driving games cheat -- they want to provide some realism to maintain the immersion, but they can't be 100% realistic as that hinders the gameplay / fun mechanics.

Sid Meier said great game design was about keeping giving the player interesting choices to make. FPS's moved towards the model where you could only carry limited (~2) weapons -- partially because of realism, but because it forced the player to "make an interesting choice of what to carry."

Now I am not against realism in a game. There is a time and place for it _depending_ on your game design. When most people complain about realism, what they _really_ are complaining about, is that

a) they are forgetting they are playing a _game_,
b) the game is not letting you do something within that world that you think should be able to do.

People want _logical_ _consistency_ in the game.

When was the last time you heard people complaining about: Magic The Gathering as being too realistic? Most people don't confuse card games with reality. But as soon as you put the game experience in a virtual 3d world, people will _immediately_ start complaining, "Hey this game isn't realistic! I can't swim, explore over this mountain, etc..."

> Now game characters are slooow, you're lucky if you're allowed to respawn, guns are, well guns and environments completely lack lava and floaty platforms.

That's because game designers and publishers are

a) drinking the red herring of realism Kool-Aid without understanding what games (and game design) are about.
b) It is easier to model reality, then engage your imagination and creativity -- there is a topic in game design what I call "Frame of Reference", but that is a topic for another day. If you are interested, I'll post a follow-up.

In closing, if you are going to complain about realism, surrealism, or the lack of it (!), please research some game design history first. There is a time and a place for realism, but one must first understand the deeper problem of what the "game" is trying to represent.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[inasity_rules]

I enjoyed Heretic 2, where if in multiplayer, someone cut off your arm, you'd bleed to death, and the health wouldn't help you. You had to find a healing shrine. But it wasn't intended to be realistic...

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[inasity_rules]

there is a topic in game design what I call "Frame of Reference", but that is a topic for another day.

Interesting. Perhaps you could post a link? Or at least something here or in your journal?

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[Jesus_666]

a) drinking the red herring of realism Kool-Aid without understanding what games (and game design) are about. b) It is easier to model reality, then engage your imagination and creativity -- there is a topic in game design what I call "Frame of Reference", but that is a topic for another day. If you are interested, I'll post a follow-up.

Consider me interested.

Oh, and I entirely agree with your post. I value consistency highly in video games and not just in the gameplay sense. I think that graphically, 3D games are just getting to the point where they might start looking as good as 2D games mainly because of consistency issues. I find many 3D games, especially newer ones, somewhat jarring because on one hand they have highly detailed surroundings and characters with plausible-looking skin and what not and on the other hand they use special effects that aren't nearly as lifelike - for example non-volumetric smoke. It was more jarring to see a puff of smoke halfway clip through a wall in, say, F.E.A.R. (where I really noticed it) than in Unreal because the former looked much more realistic otherwise. In 2D games such issues are more easily ignored since the graphics don't even pretend to be lifelike.

Consistency applies to many aspects of a game and it's fairly hard to get right. Graphical consistency can run into machine limitations - we can easily apply huge textures with displacement maps but volumetric smoke or plausible refractions are more expensive. Gameplay consistency requires you to think about things that ordinarily wouldn't even be design decisions and may require you to scrap mechanics that are cool but don't quite fit in. Of course some developers cut corners and go for "good enough" - after all, it's good enough. But excellency does require extra work.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[delinear]

Hopping and running have always plagued CS - I've said for a long time they should introduce some kind of stamina meter to limit this behaviour and have it affect your accuracy for a few seconds until the bar refils or something. Running when someone is shooting in your direction is real but it does have a physical toll, and nobody should be able to run and gun with an AWM rifle. The problem was they pitched the game as having realism then instantly dumbed it down so as to not alienate the usual FPS crowd.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[Lakitu]

Counterstrike was certainly realistic for its era. As the parent stated, FPS games at the time all had ridiculous futuristic weapons which, despite their increased power, took much longer to kill people than do contemporary weapons. Most games at the time didn't even pretend to care where a shot landed, and Counterstrike's universal implementation of headshots was both innovative and appreciated by players. In addition to that, Counterstrike created its game format, where death was an actual penalty compared to instant respawn deathmatch.

The problem isn't realism, the problem is half-hearted realism.

This is the point of the article. Realism is essentially so difficult to implement in a videogame that it can only be approximated. It will always leave gaping surrealities in a supposedly realistic world, accentuating the contrast so much that it becomes not only easier to spot, but more aggravating and more difficult to ignore. A cartoony game with surreal, but consistent, physics is much easier for a player to accept and have fun with than a supposedly realistic world with decidedly unrealistic behavior, even when it is a relatively minor portion of the game.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[denzacar]

If you're pushing for realism, how do you explain the 2 sides building their bases 40 feet away from each other?

World War I-like trench warfare?

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[madhatter256]

I disagree... It wasn't counterstrike that thrived for realism...

It was Rainbow Six.

One shot kills forced you to truly strategize your entry to A) save the hostages and B) keep all of your men alive.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[Kelbear]

Just want to point out that headshots started in a Sniper mod for Team Fortress for quake 1that was eventually incorporated into the main Team Fortress mod. Later that year, GoldenEye released which also featured headshots. Later, the mod SWAT for Quake 1 was also released with headshots, from which developers went on to release the Action Quake 2 mod which had head/chest/stomach/leg hit detection with related damage modifiers.

Gooseman was a part of the Actionquake 2 mod team and eventually left to develop the Counterstrike mod for Half-life 1. Also, the one-life-per-round spawn format was already being used in Actionquake 2 prior to Counterstrike.

Counterstrike popularized the headshot, but it didn't innovate it.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[X0563511]

It's much more fun than it looks, really.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[cyclomedia]

I'd forgotten about action quake. As for the hostages and bomb mod, gawd, I can't remember the name either. (scratches head)

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[cyclomedia]

I liked the way that Mirror's Edge handled this, with the color coding of key buildings and obstacles, and left everything that was "scenic" almost monochrome, really nice visual design

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[cgenman]

Good post. I'd add that realism is there, in a large sense, to help players get sucked into the experience. But different types of realism interact with the experience differently... Visual realism is very important for certain players to feel a part of the experience. But a realistic damage model, where you get shot in the leg and are trying to drag yourself around the level slowly, actually make it more difficult to get lost in the movement model, and work against the mind's acceptance of the experience. Realism seems to work best as flavor text... A moment that anchors your mind to very day-to-day real world events, then gets out of the way. For example, a scene where wood catches fire, rather than have a burnable property on every object in the game made out of wood.

From Dirt is a pretty has a pretty good usage of realistic visuals. Since the game is so inherently ungrounded, to help anchor the experience the developers went for hyper realistic visuals... or as hyper realistic as dirt can be. And I have to say, it worked.

Sadly, I suspect it's less the game designers and more the publishers and businessmen that drink the kool-aid of realism. It's easier to explain to a ex-toothpaste executive why your game will be amazing if it is "the most realistic experience ever" rather than "it's some kid in a pointy green suit swinging swords at bats." "It's like Afghanistan in your living room!" vs "It's about a jumping pink puff ball, but everything is made out of yarn." Realism is easier to push through a committee that's deciding on the fate of 40 million dollars than a more creative idea that is difficult for a glorified banker to grasp.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[hitmark]

More then one CS-like tried such systems, but at that point CS was entrenched and nobody wanted to learn a new mod.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[hitmark]

Ah yes, Action Quake. Recall playing that over dialup back in the day. Sadly the format got a bit to matrix/blood opera like over the years.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[hitmark]

There was a guy that used Action Quake as a template for his own mod, that shared code with a earlier mod (Brazen) he made that implemented magazines and such in the main Q2 game.

Kinda interesting in that one could scavenge pistols from the enemy, and had only so many carry spots for weapons. Iirc, you could have at most 1 SMG or larger on your back, while holding another. You could also get a max of 6 pistols by having 2 in your hands and 4 in the belt. End result was that one could quick drop spent guns and draw new ones faster then one could reload.

I think one could also collect empty magazines and reload them manually, a feature carried over from brazen.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[swordgeek]

That barely made sense when you had World War I weapons and equipment.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[FingerSoup]

IRT the realism of graphics vice the mechanics of gameplay... If you RTFA, it solely concerns itself with graphics because gameplay has been perfected, as if these are the two major factors in a game... I disagree. The story and the stylistic choices are two major contributing factors that make this argument irrelevant...

Realistic graphics are just a tool. Realism is by no means required, but realism can make introducing the surreal that much more impacting.

Take the horror FPS genre... You use realistic and gritty scenes to set the tone... You slowly (or abruptly) twist it on its ear with small surreal aspects (ghosts, shadows rushing by, strange noises) to make people feel uneasy, and then start an assault. Good gaming with a high (although not perfect) level of realism results. But because the world and storyline dictate some unreal occurrence, this is forgivable. If your ghost is a flickering translucent spectre, then it adds to the realism. If it looks like a ghost from Pacman, or a guy with a sheet over his head, well, you've ruined the game with surrealism...

Or in war FPS games... Realism lends a certain credibility to the chosen mechanics of game play. If you want to relive storming the beaches of Normandy in WW2, then semi-accurate maps along with realistic looking environments, period and situation accurate decor and dress, and accurate weapons and vehicles, are what is going to make that experience fun.

On the other hand, if you want to relive storming the beaches of Normandy, and you do it in a cell-shaded world, then it doesn't FEEL like storming the beaches of Normandy... I'd expect (and want) it to be more "arcade"-style game play. Likewise, if you throw in railguns, jetpacks and other things that weren't part of WW2, it wouldn't be as fulfilling an experience for a game set in World War 2. (And before I get flamed, Wolfenstein was never intended to simulate WW2, and never really had much realism to begin with).

Basically, if your game's level of realism is consistent with game play, story, and style, then realism is perfectly justifiable.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[Sebastopol]

Myst, Riven, The 7th Guest -- all from the early 1990's tried to look as real as possible. When CDROMs first started appearing in PCs, there was this push to use block 3D with photo texture maps, or have pre-rendered scenes. Once 3D accelerators appeared (3Dfx anyone?), the race was on to do this real-time. 20 years later and the issues are largely focused on character motion capture, and better rigging/physics.

IMHO: I can point to the problem and a solution looking at WoW vs. DDO. DDO went for realism, WoW went for cartoonish. The net results: parts of DDO look like crap because they simply can't look as real as the rest of the frame, where as WoW is able to maintain consistency across the board, so nothing ever "stands out" quite as badly as in DDO.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[AdamHaun]

I liked AQ2 more than Counterstrike, mostly because it was based on action movies and let me do ridiculous things like dive forward while firing my guns. Also, it never pretended to be anything other than a cheesy mod. Killing several people while bleeding to death was fun, but I can see how it would get on someone's nerves.

CS was probably a better game overall, but punished me too much for failure. It wasn't unusual to spend more than 75% of my playing time waiting for a round to end so I could respawn. The high degree of randomness and hitbox issues didn't help, either. Nor did the "hardcore" crowd's love for broken gameplay elements like melee sniper rifles or bunny hopping. CS wasn't the first game to strive for realism, but I think it was the best at making players scream.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[TheRaven64]

For some reason, the original Rainbow 6 slipped my mind in my above post. That was much more realistic than either. It was really, really tedious in multiplayer. Rounds usually involved 10 minutes of waiting and slight shuffling, then a 10 second firefight. Counterstrike was often similar, although it was a bit less realistic, so there would be more shoot, retreat, try attacking from another direction.

That said, I recently played Ghost Recon, and it was still fun, although I only played the single-player campaign. Very realistic: if you're lucky, you can survive a single shot, but if it's anywhere in the head or chest you're down immediately, guns had a realistic amount of ammunition and reload times, and only a few were accurate over moderate or long ranges. One thing made it unrealistic: if you messed up, you could restore from a save game from a minute or so earlier. Playing through the entire thing without resorting to saves and restores would be possible, but really tedious.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[AdamWill]

Going way back, Wolfenstein 3-D - Doom's predecessor - had reasonably accurate damage; you could only take a few pops from any enemy gun, even the weakest brownshirts' pistols. You were still one guy taking down an entire enemy army, so, y'know, not TERRIBLY realistic, but the damage model was a lot closer to reality than Doom's. The gameplay tended to rely on getting in situations where you had the drop on enemies, and the fact that they were mostly terrible, terrible shots (I'd cite the TV Trope for that, only I don't want to lose another fifteen hours of my day to that damn site...). Except those fuckers in white from Spear of Destiny. Those guys were evil.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[wagnerrp]

It's fun precisely because it doesn't take itself seriously. TF2 was originally supposed to be some hyperrealistic combat simulator, however with all the Call of Duty and Battlefield games coming out every year, Valve realized the market was already saturated, and decided to instead do something quirky and different.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[Coren22]

I got 107 miles. With traffic nowadays, I'd say about 5 hours too.

http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=White+House,+Pennsylvania+Avenue+Northwest,+Washington+D.C.,+DC&daddr=Richmond,+VA&hl=en&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=55.148262,89.296875&geocode=FcB-UQIdxpBo-yEH4pjoGd6e5yknWm_hvLe3iTGGOSyaFzTP2g%3BFUPcPAIdXOph-yntyZlXCRGxiTHFPELibT7Yvw&mra=ls&z=9

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[kevinNCSU]

I'm pretty sure Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6 was not only more realistic than counter-strike but predated it by a year or more. Heck, in the single player campaign you lose a guy on a mission he's gone for good and you have to replace him!

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[m50d]

You even lost team members permanently - you could finish a level with one (or even three) of your four guys getting shot, but you'd have to use less skilled alternates on future missions. But that actually damaged the fun - one ends up reloading and redoing missions one's already completed.

In any case, counterstrike was a hell of a lot more popular.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[denzacar]

Weapons and equipment are of no relevance.

20th and 21st century warfare turns into trench warfare as soon as both sides are equally matched.
Mostly in situations with no air support and unavailability of armor.
Digging in and holding position is far more appealing than trying to capture a fortified position.
At the same time, it binds enemy forces to that area cause there is now an opposing force right outside their zone of influence.

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[Pentium100]

terrible, terrible shots (I'd cite the TV Trope for that, only I don't want to lose another fifteen hours of my day to that damn site...)

You mean this? You're welcome

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[UnknownSoldier]

Sure, I've been writing down some of my notes collectively called "Fundamental Properties of Game Design." I've been meaning to get this chapter jotted down for a while so thanks for providing some motivation!

A matter of perspective - "Frame of Reference" in games.

Let's do two little experiments:

1. Quick, sort the weapons based on damage from least damaging to most damaging for this game:
- Neutron gun, Plasma gun, Graviton gun, Proton gun, Laser, and Tachyon gun.

2. Again quickly, sort the armor based on defense from least protection to most protection for this game:
- Scale, Chain mail, Cloth, Plate, and Leather.

Aside from the scale/chain, most gamers would be able to do the second quite easily; the first one, not so easily. Unless you've played something like Freelancer, or Privateer, you have no clue which type of sci-fi weapon is better. Are we looking just at damage over time, burst damage, efficiency, penetration, some combination, etc.?

Why?

Because you are able to take your real world knowledge and apply it in the game world. You have a "frame of reference" upon which to draw upon to help you decide which one you should use. i.e. Plate is big and heavy -- it provides a lot of protection but also restricts movement the most. Leather has a balance of protecting somewhat while still allowing some movement. Cloth restricts movement the least and it also protects the least. Unless you are a theoretical particle physicist you have NO clue if a Graviton gun is better then the Tachyon gun.

People often confuse "Realism" with a "Frame of Reference." For example they will say "This game isn't "realistic" but what they _really_ mean to say is "I have no frame of reference to draw upon. These items are effectively a foreign language to me. I have no way to translate it into my native understanding."

I always find it funny when people complain about realism in a game. "This (e.g. dragon) isn't realist!". I say, "Oh? You've met a dragon in real life that you know how it behaves, how it acts, how it inter-acts, etc., that you are a bona-fide expert? :-)" The point isn't that dragon's don't inhabit the earth, but that the gamer has had his immersion broken -- either due to false beliefs how he thinks the game _should_ work, or the game designer has failed to convey and/or properly implement _logical consistency_ such as physics, etc.

The classic example is playing a spellcaster and intentionally (or unintentionally) casting a fireball spell at a pine tree. Now aside from the initial explosion at the point of contact, the tree is completely impervious to fire and all know combinations thereof. Yes, we know it is expensive to simulate reality, but dam-it, if you are going to put me into a virtual world AND make it _look_ like the real one, you had better _convey_ WHY your world does not obey the normal Laws of Physics. Color code the dam tree purple or something. If you want to maintain the realistic (flammable) green color, then at least name the tree something 'foreign' like "Densewood" or "Phyrewood" so the player can gauge, "Hmm, guess this tree isn't easily flammable." Yes, frame of reference works against creativity, but that's what makes a good designer -- knowing when to use the familiar, and when to use the new.

One of my biggest pet peeves in game design is a game not providing you with ANY feedback about what you can or can't do. I'm talking about the annoying "invisible walls" that everyone hates. Let's say I'm walking up a hill / mountain and about half-way up I can no longer move up. No matter if I move slow, or crouch, I can't climb this dam mountain. This is a classic case of a designer who doesn't understand "Frame of Reference." Could you at least change the "ground texture" so I can visually SEE that the slope is too great for me to climb? Why are you _unable_ and/or _unwilling_ to simply stick a partially 'prohibited sign' around "out of bounds areas", like L4D does in Versus mode. (

Re:I blame Counterstrike

[EvanED]

I'm pretty sure that, my first time through, I had a guy in my team on the last mission named "backup assault 23".

And that was on easy.

Ultimate game realism

[sjames]

Follow John Smith's exciting adventures as he buys groceries, fills out his 1040 and waits in line at the DMV...

Re:Ultimate game realism

[Hahnsoo]

So you are playing The Sims? In all seriousness, even The Sims takes you a step out of reality. While we were housecleaning this past week, my girlfriend sighed and commented "You know, cleaning up the house is a lot easier in The Sims. You just point and click."

Still, some people play video games to escape from reality. But some folks play video games to explore things in reality that they cannot possibly do on their own, due to their wealth, social status, language barrier, etc. Flight Simulators are a prime example of this. Not everyone can afford a plane, but they can turn to a Flight Simulator to give them an experience that they could not afford otherwise.

You could always make your video game universe more and more surreal, with no limit to the imagination (look at The Void or Zeno Clash). But you are limited by technical restraints when you want to push for realism.

Re:Ultimate game realism

[Zardus]

Portal 2 had an option for this for those that really want to try that out :-)

Re:Ultimate game realism

[sjames]

Even flight simulators limit the realism to a degree. No filling out paperwork for fuel, filing your flight plan, no walkaround, fuel consumption calculations, sitting around waiting for 6 other planes to take off, etc. They choose to be as realistic as possible about limited aspects of flying.

Re:Ultimate game realism

[Ambvai]

I find The Sims to be decently realistic. The problem is that I find myself to be the sim, not the player...

Re:Ultimate game realism

[mcvos]

Nothing wrong with that. They want to focus on the actual flying itself and not the boring paperwork surrounding it. I suspect real flight simulators for real pilot training do the same thing, and they really have to be as realistic as possible.

Re:Ultimate game realism

[quadrox]

What? where? how?

Re:Ultimate game realism

[Anonymous Coward]

They do - I build class D flight simulators - the type that a pilot can train in and then theoretically go fly the actual plane as it's the actual plane's cockpit with the sim built around it - and we only focus on the actual flight aspect

Re:Ultimate game realism

[GNious]

yeah, someone should make a pre-flight-check simulator :D
(I actually think some people would find it interesting....)

Re:Ultimate game realism

[inasity_rules]

These guys don't think that should be the case... But you still don't get altitude or g-force effects sitting in front of a PC.

Re:Ultimate game realism

[lennier1]

The one where you get to bake a cake?

Re:Ultimate game realism

[ginbot462]

I work on helicopter sims; this is ALWAYS asked for. There's always a place for different levels of realism in flight sims; from simple MFD only (no flying) to full up with circuit breakers and everything.

Re:Ultimate game realism

[FingerSoup]

There already is a sim for that... Hand them a stack of paperwork and have them pre-flight inspect a real plane. mark them on that, then throw them in a simulator so they don't kill themselves when they take off for the first time...

Re:Ultimate game realism

[sjames]

I didn't mean to imply anything wrong there. Nobody finds paperwork and waiting around fun, why stuff it into a game?

Re:Ultimate game realism

[sabt-pestnu]

Oddly enough, we can't do that realistically enough.

You joke, of course. "A game with lots of boring stuff in it." But... it would be entirely TOO boring to be a game.

Say, the "wait in line at the DMV". When you really wait in line at the DMV, you've got (stereotypically) at least a modest number of independent people, each an individual, and each with their own behaviors, task at the DMV, etc.

So you're looking at individual "skins" for each one, and a set of behaviors for each. The guy "just there for a photo". The guy who doesn't have his DEQ papers but wants his car's license plates updated anyway. The woman's kid who re-arranges the waiting area chairs. etc. You COULD make all this. But to make it at all interesting, you'd have to have a large number of cases.

And then... you'd have to write how each interacts with the others. The guy who paces while waiting for his number to be called. The kid who teases the baby. The guy who simply blows up (or suffers PTSD) when the baby cries. The guy who ignores it all and simply hunkers down when the shouting starts.

While it's conceivable with a very small number of individual characters interacting with each other, things break down when you start thinking of synergies, of interactions more than one on one. (Say, someone drags out a gun. Some people hit the floor, some people jump the gunman, some freeze in place, yadda yadda.) You're crushed by simple combinations.

And if you go for less realism than that? You get Grand Theft Auto. Congratulations, you've redefined "ultimate".

Re:Ultimate game realism

[tricorn]

Actually, there are people who go in for the full simulation, including filing flight plans, talking to ATC (real people, running ATC simulators), fuel and weather issues, waiting for traffic, etc.

I'd say that flight simulators are an example where maximum realism (in visualization, physics and controls) can be good as a game.

Re:Ultimate game realism

[sjames]

There is that, the level or realism only goes so far. It gets even worse if vandalizing the table using an old key on your keyring to gouge the surface is to be an option. Much more so if the key is to act like anything but an improbably precise perfectly sharp carving tool. At some point, it becomes easier (but certainly no more feasible ) to just model the objects at the molecular or even the atomic level. If that's not bad enough, the game AI would have to understand the implications of the act and model the reaction of others around you (complete with the kid telling his mom that "Jimmy" did that to his desk and got detention and the mom nervously shushing him so she can maintain the pretense of not noticing you).

However, more to the point, it seems likely that for most people in most cases, we choose not to model everything that can be feasibly modeled. In part, for the sake of gameplay, and in part to avoid calling even more attention to the shortcomings of the model.

Re:Ultimate game realism

[jnpcl]

Put in a few Achievements, and you'll sell a million copies.

Re:Ultimate game realism

[sjames]

Of course, it requires multi-player to do that. It would probably not be as much fun if the ATC was an AI, for example. I'll bet they don't simulate waking up in the lumpy bed, the coffee being a bit burnt tasting and traffic on the way to the airport sucking. :-)

You've been eaten by a grue

[Aighearach]

How much more real can it get??

Re:You've been eaten by a grue

[elrous0]

That's so much bullshit. Real grues don't eat humans, they avoid them. You usually only get attacked if you get too close to a mother grue and her cubs.

Re:You've been eaten by a grue

[Aighearach]

No wonder you are likely to be eaten by a grue when it is pitch black!

Anyways, their favorite food is adventurers, so I can easily imagine they would ignore cube monkeys or whathaveyou.

It's only a game, for crying out loud !

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever I see people so damn serious about a game - whether it be surreal or otherwise - I know something is wrong.

Don't you guys have better things to do than worrying if the surrealism in games might bring on some unrealistic expectation or whatnot?

Re:It's only a game, for crying out loud !

[shish]

The (supposed) problem is that games are painting themselves into a corner where there's no room for fun - and so people are complaining seriously for a bit, because they don't want their relaxing fun time to be spoiled forever

Re:It's only a game, for crying out loud !

[mcvos]

The solution is simple: don't buy games that are not fun, do buy games that are fun.

Re:It's only a game, for crying out loud !

[genner]

Don't you guys have better things to do than worrying if the surrealism in games might bring on some unrealistic expectation or whatnot?

No not really.

Re:It's only a game, for crying out loud !

[Stormwatch]

Video games are art. You can be damn serious about art, or just relax and enjoy it.

Re:It's only a game, for crying out loud !

[tecnico.hitos]

Possibly, but gaming is how I spend significant amount of my free time. During this time, I'd rather play quality games, so it's interesting to clarify which factors can make a game better or worse. That would allow me to choose better games to play, as well as recommending better games to interested people. Hobby or not, if you pour thousands of hours over the years into something, it's not surprising it starts being given more importance.

Discussion of this nature might reach the attention of people involved with the game industry. That way, the player opinions can influence, even if slightly, the direction that the gaming medium goes. Also, don't forget that, for the people involved with the game industry, discussions of this nature are undeniably serious, since they involve considerable amounts of very real money, their livelihoods and investments.

Besides, I do have an interest in game design myself, just as people may be interested in literature, paintings, music and the most diverse subjects. Are we not allowed to? What is the problem in discussing seriously about something that you like? Why would not taking it seriously be better in any way?

Re:It's only a game, for crying out loud !

[tecnico.hitos]

The solution is simple: don't buy games that are not fun, do buy games that are fun.

So, how do I know a game is fun? What makes a game fun? How can I define fun? And so it goes...

Re:It's only a game, for crying out loud !

[Quirkz]

Well said. I'd bet there are dozens of industry game workers that hang out here, and hundreds if not thousands of indie game designers (like me) who participate in these discussions. Even with respect to my minimalist-graphic superhero RPG, questions like "would more realism in component X make this action more intriguing, or more tedious?" are worth discussing.

Now excuse me while I run off and invent "Component X" and put it in my game, because we're a little short on the objects-named-like-they're-algebra trope.

I actually just started playing Mario Galaxy today

[pecosdave]

the surreal planetoids and environments are definitely starting to trip me out a little. C.R.U.S.H. is one of my favorite games (on my PSP), and Time FCUK certainly held my interest.

Alice deserves an honorable mention.

I guess I thrive on surreal?

I'd have more to say about this, but..

[b5bartender]

...I need to get back to TF2 so I can finish crafting this Cow Mangler 5000 already.

Nintendo called

[whiteboy86]

Wii is not even HD capable console, few people are bothered with that. Their games are non-realistic in low resolution. The lack of realism hasn't affected them much.

Re:Nintendo called

[julesh]

Wii is not even HD capable console, few people are bothered with that.

I know a few people who are bothered by it, but primarily because no HD => no HDMI, and a lot of newer TVs are shipping without SCART these days.

Re:Nintendo called

[whiteboy86]

That might be the reason why their are introducing the new WiiU, I find it very odd to have the console without HDMI output these days.

Suits are to blame!

[Adkins1984]

The sad reallity is that hardly any of the people that I read about who are leading the big game studios ever talk about what games they play. They don't mention their childhood favorites, and they don't say that they did [blank] in a game cause they used to love that. They really don't seem like gamers at all. They do however seem to realize that if one game does really good and they can copy it fast enough, their next title might stand a chance. It is truly sad...

Re:Suits are to blame!

[mcvos]

I fully agree! I don't want to play games designed by businessmen, I want to play games designed by gamers. By people who love the hobby, the craft, who know their classics, who love some really obscure cult hits, who care about the games themselves, instead of merely the market, the demographics and the money that goes around in it.

Every game should have a story behind it: what inspired it? What are the main influences? What is it that you really wanted to do differently? What is the core of what you're trying to accomplish with this game?

Unfortunately, most games are just a list of bullet points that's identical to every other game out there. Boring, and a good reason not to buy them. Though good guys do exist.

Re:Suits are to blame!

[UnknownSoldier]

> Every game should have a story behind it: what inspired it?

How many games have you actually _shipped_?

Quick, what's the story behind Tetris, PuzzleBobble, etc.

Games != Stories.

There is a time a and place for narrative, but you are spouting more fictional bullshit by some literary poser when it is NOT needed.

Re:Suits are to blame!

[Aranykai]

If you completely ignore games like Call of Duty, Mass Effect, Halo, Diablo, Half Life, Final Fantasy --heck even mario-- I'm sure you would have a point.

While some of those games have non-narrative multi-player modes, they all have strong story-driven campaigns.

Re:Suits are to blame!

[mcvos]

I'm not talking about narrative at all. I'm talking about why they made the game they did. Of course there is a story behind Tetris and PuzzleBobble. They didn't magically drop out of the sky, they were created for a reason. I have no idea what it is, because the creators didn't tell me, but I think they should, because then I have some idea of what to expect from the game, and what to judge it on.

Re:Suits are to blame!

[UnknownSoldier]

> hey didn't magically drop out of the sky, they were created for a reason. I have no idea what it is, because the creators didn't tell me, but I think they should, because then I have some idea of what to expect from the game, and what to judge it on.

That is optional & orthogonal to good games. In the same way you don't need to know the Author's Life Story for -Why- he wrote a book/film/painting/song you don't _need_ to know the reasons of the Game Developers to enjoy the art for what it is. Now, knowing the backstory _may_ enhance your experience, but to _demand_ that programmers + designers + artists present the context of why they created the game in the first place is absurd -- Do you really want to listen to 200+ people tell you why they created the game the way they did?? I'm not saying it wouldn't be interesting, but just enjoy the dam game, instead of getting hung up on details that don't matter.

We have "genre" labels for a reason -- to be able to quickly sort through the "type" of games, so you can make a quick judgement if that type of game is one you will enjoy.

Re:Suits are to blame!

[mcvos]

I think that a game created because the creator found some aspect lacking in other games, is likely to be a better game than a game that was created to fit a certain demographic. Broad labels like "genre" don't help to distinguish between a game that was inspired and one that was simply made to fit a formula. Plenty of games claim to be an RPG (or whatever genre you happen to prefer), but they don't explain what sets them apart. Why should I buy this game instead of any of the dozens of others in the same genre?

I admit it's also a matter of personal taste. I love reading designer's notes. Some board games have very interesting designer's notes. I clearly remember reading those of Squad Leader, which explained the philosophy behind the game, and how it was completely different from other hard core wargames. And it helps me to understand why certain game mechanics work the way they work. I love it when computer games are similarly inspired by a certain philosophy that sets it apart from other games in that genre. I haven't read explicit designer's notes for Civilization 5, but I have read articles about the ideas behind it (streamlining, less micromanagement), which helps me understand the design decisions, and that enhances my enjoyment of the game.

Re:Suits are to blame!

[robthebloke]

Hardly anyone who works 5 days a week flipping burgers will go and eat at macdonalds on their day off. It's no different in the games industry. There is however one small detail you may be missing, so time for a car analogy: If you were a life long car racing fan (and go to watch races on your weekends), if you then got a job at a racing team learning from the best in the business. Would you spend your time off:

a) Going to watch races as per usual?
b) Building you own race car in your garage?

Thats pretty much what you will find in the games industry. The process of developing a game is far more interesting than actually playing them (you want to know what the worlds best gaming sandbox enviornment is?? Visual C++!). You might spend time playing a game to work out how a particular mechanic works, how they managed to create a certain effect, etc. But playing them? Not so much. You are more likely to want to spend your time making games (because you can, and it's more interesting anyway) than spending time playing other peoples. You will not find people passionate about the 12th release in the series of sonic, but that does not mean they are not passionate about gaming. Quite the opposite infact....

You also find the same in the film industry. A film director will watch a film to analyse it for how the film was put together, what worked, what didn't, etc. They are not watching a film for enjoyments sake, and yet no one would even consider telling them that they aren't passionate about film..... sadly, everyone critisises us poor game developers :(

Re:Suits are to blame!

[Ractive]

It's worse, they are done by marketing people based on market figures.

Re:Suits are to blame!

[Quirkz]

I find game development and game playing scratch two very different itches, and I've still got a desire for both. Developing new games is definitely interesting, but it's closer to work than play, especially when you're fussing over error protection, debugging, details, polish, etc. And while it may just be me, I find it generally not all that much fun trying to play my own games -- or what little fun might be there has evaporated by the time I'm done running through testing a few (or a few dozen) times.

Other games still serve as fun, or stress relief, or a distraction, in ways that development doesn't. I will say I play a lot less since I started developing, primarily because I'm always under deadline to get my own work done, so I've got much less time left over for fun.

Re:Suits are to blame!

[narcc]

If you're actually interested, you should check out Tetris - From Russia with Love. Its a BBC documentary.

There's another one coming out next year called Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters Though it's about a Tetris championship, I'll bet a nickle that it will include a bit about the games history as well.

Re:Suits are to blame!

[Adkins1984]

Actually I know a great many devs that are still passionate about playing games. They are active reviewers, critics of games (both theirs and others), as well as rabid players for the sake of playing. I was not talking about the devs though. I was talking about upper management. The people who set the deadlines and make the broad overall decisions.

Arma2...

[incognito84]

Whoever wrote this article obviously hasn't played it. Its a game that is astonishingly close to "realism." As, much as possible anyway.

I would simply argue that concessions away from realism in "realistic" titles exist in video games because a mouse and keyboard is a poor substitute for your body and a monitor is a poor substitute for your eyes.

Once we have more "immersive" input/output hardware, the lines between reality and the game world will become blurry.

Re:Arma2...

[NouberNou]

Agreed, Arma2, and its military cousin VBS2 are much closer to realism than CoD. No one in the serious gaming/training industry would say that CoD is even trying to be realistic.

Arma supports some alternative input devices like TrackIR and supports a wide variety of resolutions and screen configurations as well.

What people need to come back to is the idea of simulators and games. They serve different audiences. One is meant to focus more on realism than fun (while that realism should be the fun part) and the other more on fun than realism. They both make sacrifices.

Re:Arma2...

[ginbot462]

VBS2 does have a lot of good points, too bad the AI is a idiotic; and the vehicle selection while huge .. try to program the AI to make tight turns through a realistic checkpoint. Which is asinine since it came with so many barriers and gate models.

Re:Arma2...

[NouberNou]

1.60 is going to include new AI pathing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsgCLX84RZo

Re:Arma2...

[ginbot462]

Thanks for the tip.

Re:Film

[antifoidulus]

Agreed. If you're going to create a fictional world of bullshit, don't violate the rules set forth by said bullshit. Immersion in the suspension of disbelief only functions if one remains consistent.

But unlike films, where the creators are in complete control, how do you not violate rules in a game without making it unplayable? One life and thats it, the game is over? You wont win very many fans that way(and that has been done before, it was actually not all that uncommon in the NES era until game companies realized that people absolutely hated it)

Surrealism

[mwvdlee]

The author of TFA complains that games depict absurd situation in a realistic fashion.
Sounds to me games are plenty surrealist enough already.

Re:Film

[Don_dumb]

I believe this is the problem perceived when viewing Michael Bay films.

Well, it's one problem with Michael Bay films.

Surrealism does not pay

[aepervius]

Planescape tormet ? Surrealist world, even if the gameplay was similar to BG : poor sales. Okami ? Poor sales. The fact is, the *average* gamer massively want something they can recognize and feel acquainted with. Thus the poor sales of surrealistic games.

Re:Film

[Captain Hook]

One life and thats it, the game is over? You wont win very many fans that way

You say that, but I used to play EVE Online like that.

I had a personal rule that if the character died, I would transfer everything to the person that killed me, recycle the body and start a new character from scratch. That rule was listed in the bio of my characters so everyone could see it.

Certainly, it wouldn't have been to everyone's taste and it really slowed my characters development because I often had to turn down more profitable jobs as the reward didn't justify the extra risk I was taking on. That said, it certainly added a lot of tension and stress to the game. I've always been frustrated by the lack of consquences in games like EVE.

CAT

[Burb]

Dolphin

Re:CAT

[Burb]

Artichoke

Re:CAT

[CelticWhisper]

Paramecium.

Re:Film

[mcvos]

But unlike films, where the creators are in complete control, how do you not violate rules in a game without making it unplayable? One life and thats it, the game is over? You wont win very many fans that way

Nethack and other roguelikes are pretty popular despite their harsh no save-scumming policy. The trick is to give the game replay value. Don't make the game exactly the same every time you play it, and it won't be so bad to start over. And if you bend the rules a bit to allow reloading a save game after death, then I think the majority of games out there give you only one life.

Whether it's viable depends entirely on the kind of gameplay you want.

Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realism.

[flimflammer]

And you shouldn't expect them to. "Realistic" games break realism for the sake of gameplay. Not everyone (and dare I say most people) don't want to play a game where you get grazed in the leg with a bullet and your movement becomes entirely awkward, your character develops some sort of infection and then his leg needs to be amputated in the middle of the jungle with charlies everywhere, then being required to finish the rest of the game with one leg. (surely one person will reply to this begging for that)

It's a game. It's entertainment, and they also have to account for users controlling these characters. Sure games like Call of Duty put in realistic weapons and what have you but it's still not aiming to be a completely realistic combat shooter. In fact I doubt anyone would even think it's trying to be. If you want something "realistic" then I think Arma 2 would be a better choice.

Movies also try to be "real" but when you see Tom Cruise jumping out of helicopters or Bruce Willis driving a car up a ramp into a helicopter all while the surroundings and story are meant to be more or less realistic, you don't go complaining how unrealistic the movie is. It's a movie. it's entertainment. If you want a true-to-life story then look out your Window and watch the mailman deliver the mail.

Surrealism in the oddest places

[slim]

Surrealism occurs pretty much throughout video gaming.

In a typical JRPG, your party merges into one person, wanders around the map as that single person, then when attached, splits out into a party again, whereupon they take it in turns to trade blows with enemies.

In LA Noire, you drive through the streets of LA like an absolute maniac (at least, if you play the way I do) leaving a trail of destruction, then calmly stroll out of your car and conduct a sober murder investigation.

In Portal 2, a robot tells you you're fat.

Re:Surrealism in the oddest places

[Anonymous Coward]

In Portal 2, a robot tells you you're fat.

Sounds like pretty much every digital scale I have ver owned.

Re:Surrealism in the oddest places

[delinear]

My favourite surreal moment in LA Noire is also related to driving. You can drive like a psycho, into oncoming traffic at top speed, handbrake turning aside at the last second to speed off and do it all again and your partner sits quietly in the passenger seat. Scrape your bumper on a fence post when reversing out of a driveway and he's screaming at you for being a maniac.

If I wanted to join the army I'd join the army

[xatm092]

The more FPSes are focused on realism, the more the gameplay becomes hiding in a bush for days waiting for someone to walk past. Real warfare is camping.

Indie games for the win

[pinkushun]

That's why I prefer indie game companies who bring out really interesting games.

Some I have been playing lately: World of Goo, Cogs Game, VVVVVV.

No affiliation with these games, I just love what they do. They remind me of when games first appeared for the PC, when creativity motivated game design, not the quest for uber realism.

As we know, "its super cool to be uber realistic on hardware because it's just a simulation and not really real. So it's cool that way."...

Gimme a break! Gimme a real game.

Re:Indie games for the win

[RogerWilco]

Minecraft by Mojang is my latest addiction.

If you could never get enough of Lego when you were a kid, then this is the game for you.

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[eugene ts wong]

Not everyone (and dare I say most people) don't want to play a game where you get grazed in the leg with a bullet and your movement becomes entirely awkward, your character develops some sort of infection and then his leg needs to be amputated in the middle of the jungle with charlies everywhere, then being required to finish the rest of the game with one leg. (surely one person will reply to this begging for that)

I hate to be that person, but that seems to make the game more interesting, if it would allow for variations in the story. As long as I can finish the missions and quests, then why not? Perhaps I might to reload it from the last save point if the injury becomes to big of a problem.

Re:Film

[TheRaven64]

You have three options.

First, don't aim for realism. Allow respawns because that's the way the game mechanic works and you like it that way. This worked well for Quake and earlier games. Why do you get to respawn? Because that makes the game fun. End of story.

Second, make it really hard to actually die. If you do die, then that's it, but generally you won't. Think of Monkey Island. There are only a few places where it's actually possible to die, and you need to try really hard. Or, to make it a bit harder, like Elite, where characters that had something to lose could buy escape pods and would then be able to survive their ship being destroyed (likely in a universe that is approximately 90% hostile spacecraft by mass).

Finally, work the respawning into the story. Have a friendly sorcerer resurrect the player in a fantasy game. In a futuristic game, have teleporters record the person that travels through them so that, if you die, you step out of the teleporter again with none of the experience or items you've collected since then. Or have it so that respawning doesn't really involve coming back to life, but rather taking control of a new person. This works fairly well in the Tom Clancy games.

Re:Film

[N!k0N]

One life and thats it, the game is over? You wont win very many fans that way

You say that, but I used to play EVE Online like that. I had a personal rule that if the character died, I would transfer everything to the person that killed me, recycle the body and start a new character from scratch. That rule was listed in the bio of my characters so everyone could see it. Certainly, it wouldn't have been to everyone's taste and it really slowed my characters development because I often had to turn down more profitable jobs as the reward didn't justify the extra risk I was taking on. That said, it certainly added a lot of tension and stress to the game. I've always been frustrated by the lack of consquences in games like EVE.

your stuffs, I can haz? =)

Regardless of your assertion that EVE had "no consequences" to death, they're significantly higher than the likes of WOW...

Realism is important

[loufoque]

Because it gives a referential to your actions, which allows to put them into perspective and make them more meaningful.
You can also better identify with the character you're playing if it's realistic enough.

So it's a very important characteristic to have for a game that involves roleplaying, in one way or another.

Re:Realism is important

[Spad]

That's not realism you're after, it's a consistent, believable world. Games like Dragon Age or Mass Effect or Fallout aren't realistic - far from it in a lot of cases - but they have well designed, consistent worlds with well written characters that you can identify with and form attachments to.

The fact that you're battling an ancient race of sentient machines or throwing fireballs at orgres doesn't really factor into it that much because, as TFA says, in the worlds in which the games exist, those things are perfectly acceptable.

Re:Realism is important

[UnknownSoldier]

> Realism is important
> Because it gives a referential to your actions, which allows to put them into perspective and make them more meaningful.
How many roleplaying games _require_ you to eat every few hours??? They don't because micro-managing your stomach _detracts_ from the core gameplay. Realism is NOT fun, for the most part.

Your mistake is that you are confusing the "Red Herring of Realism" with "Frame of Reference" and "Logical Consistency"

Realism in game design is a _tool_ that helps immerse the player by giving them "What to expect", but it bogs the players down in _details_ that they usually don't want to baby-sit. The eating in role-playing games, is a perfect example.

> You can also better identify with the character you're playing if it's realistic enough.
Total Nonsense.

1. You have obviously never played Grand Theft Auto 3 -- your avatar _never_ talks. Ironically, by Rockstar _not_ providing a voice for your character, you are drawn _more_ into identifying with him.

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

> So it's a very important characteristic to have for a game that involves roleplaying, in one way or another.
Like any rule, there is a time and a place for it. You are playing a _game_, not a _simulation_.

e.g.
Forcing the player to only be able to hold X items, because of carrying (weight) capacity or backpack volume, is more about forcing the player to make a choice of "What do I keep? What do I throw away?" then about realism.

I find realism detrimental

[Windwraith]

It limits your choices when designing, it limits your choices when interacting, and the outcome is too familiar to surprise.
Sure, a little amount of realism is desirable. Such as if you shoot stuff, it dies. Or if you run out of bullets, you need more.

There is also a movement of players of "games where the author is not some corporate drone thus you can talk to him/her" who is extremely vocal about realism and attempt to pressure the author of a fantastic game to nerf it into realism. I wish those guys were to shut the hell up and take a lesson or two in game design or usability. (Yes, games also need that)

Re:Film

[mcvos]

That's also my problem with many MMOGs: when you die, you just get back up again and go collect your stuff. It takes all the fun and meaning out of the game for me.

But being the only player in the game who deals with consequences doesn't sound very appealing either.

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[Dr. Spork]

I think that reality itself is a part of the problem. Why aren't there actual floating respawning medpacks in the real world? Scientists - get on this! It would do a lot for public health!

Desert Bus Drive

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors' mini game Desert Bus shows us why over realist games would be boring. Because life is actually boring games where you have to wait for the chopper flight back from your black ops mission and maybe without any control you get your chopper falls into ocean where you die. Wow, that sounds like fun.

Re:Film

[Dr. Spork]

Problems with Michael Bay films only become acute when one actually views them. Otherwise, they don't really bother me.

Video Games as Art

[bregmata]

There is a school of superrealists in the visual arts. Some people like that. The aim is to use manual methods to depict a view similar to what a mechanical camera can capture. It takes and displays a great deal of technical skill to achieve a good superrealist painting.

The true art in an art form, however, lies in the ability to capture the essence of a subject. This is not to say that a superrealist painting is not capable of capturing the essence of a subject (far from it). What it means is that I can stand in awe of a minimalist depiction of a subject that manages to convey the true essence and admire the genius it takes to create that piece. It does not necessarily look real, but it's good art. I think the ability to appreciate the true art in an art form comes with maturity in the viewer.

I believe the same holds true for video games. There is a school of thought that believes superrealist presentation (graphics, sound) are the pinnacle of the art. I think as the gaming audience matures (as a whole, I'm not talking individuals here) an appreciation for the true art form behind interactive games will emerge, and more schools of design will establish as fully valid. Minimalist works like Tetris or Angry Birds will be broadly accepted as brilliant games.

Then again, you will always be able to find matadors on black velvet and poker-playing dogs in any genre.

Re:Fallout does it best

[O('_')O_Bush]

Really? Because I spent a significant portion of the game sleeping with corpses that didn't make me sick, and visiting power stations that were working and well maintainted by cockroaches and mole rats.

Am I missing something

[Internetuser1248]

There's something wrong with this thread. It starts in the summary. Giving examples of games that are supposed to be realistic. It is followed by a series of comments debating the relative realism and surrealism of games that are not good examples of either. If you want to talk realism we have the armed assault series, the rainbow six series, the hidden and dangerous series, the Forgotten Hope mod series, IL2 Sturmovik, Rise of Flight and many other flight sims, Men of war and total war series' for strategy. Dwarf fortress is a strange mixture of uber realism (damage system, geology) and surrealism (fantasy setting, weird underground creatures), and other surrealistic games include Planescape, Baldurs gate, Monkey Island, to name a few old school favourites, Portal was at least mentioned in a couple of comments. There was that xbox only dark horror sidescroller with the kid being mutilated by giant spiders, minecraft is also pretty surreal. Maybe I am missing something here, but it seems to me that this entire discussion has so far been dedicated to games that are neither realistic nor surrealistic, unless you include a basic lazy inability to make a realistic game as a form of surrealism. Perhaps the posters have only ever played games that they saw a minimum of 50 hours advertising for in the last 2 years.

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[Zilog]

There is two games where some serious wounds drive you to finish them on one leg, your knees or with one eye (Only half of the screen remains visible... Very funny) :

• 1. - Savage
  2. - Robinson requiem

Savage was one of the first "real 3D world" game in the early 90's, i finish it on a 8 bit CPC... A hard but very good game, that worth the endeavor.

But how much realism is too much realism?

[Requiem18th]

Surely Ben Gowing (from TFA) isn't asking us to to replace players by abstract icons, forgo earthly physics, euclidean geometry and reduce all attempts at plot to the level of Tetris, is he?

Just having humanoids on a 3D space with gravity already "contaminates" the game with enough realism that you might just as well keep adding realism until it interferes with gameplay.

Graphics, being accessory, can be as cartoony or as realistic as you want. Me? As long as my character can take blows like a piñata and immediately jump back into action I'm happy. Photo-realistic backgrounds don't bother me at all and in fact I find them quite appealing.

Second Largest Duck

[Nefarious Wheel]

That's the second largest duck I've ever had in my pants.

The attempt at realism does detract

[denyAll]

I remember Delta Force's "one shot anywhere on the body kills you" model. But we played that game endlessly, even after more realistic games came out. Granted, I also liked the FPS games that actually let you get shot in the ankle and not die immediately, but for fun gameplay, we didn't mind games like DF not having full-on realism. I mean, what did we do when we played "Cowboys and Indians" outside? Or paintball, or Airsoft? You got hit, you were "dead." The lack of inherent realism let us bring our own imagination to it.
More to the point of the article, I can think of a few examples where games I play have recently added "realsim" in a frustrating manner.
1. Madden NFL/NCAA Football. I enjoy console football games, like NCAA and Madden. A few versions back, Madden added in this pre-season and other manager-type stuff, the idea of "you're a coach/manager, so do all the coachy/managerish stuff." It was irritating when I just wanted to set up a season and play (Tecmo Super Bowl?). IIRC, there was no easy way to skip all that stuff, so I just gave up on Madden (and didn't they later come out with "Coach" so you don't even have to play the game to play the game?). Even NCAA became irritating, with in-season suspensions (which seem more prevalent when your team is successful, perhaps as a way to gimp you), and a slew of irritating pre-season stuff. Heck, it could take a few hours to go from the end of one season to the beginning of the next with recruiting, etc. Granted, I can (and often do) skip many of those steps, but it just draws the game out.
Side note: does anyone else think the more realistic they try to make player movements, the weirder they look?
2. WoW. Was it 4.0 that brought us the big graphics changes? "The water will appear more realistic, terrain will be more lifelike." WTH? I expect it to be a game, not a movie in which my main is the star. So we can skip the very realistic graphics. I don't fly from Ironforge past Menethil and think, "Gee, what lovely looking water they've made now." Maybe some folks do, I dunno. It looked great before the graphics improvements. Granted, I don't want Atari 2600 or Intellivision graphics, but I don't really care for the changes.

I do appreciate that they can now take advantage of the ATI ZOMG or the Nvidia RAWKYERSAWKSOFF cards, but I'll opt for playing the game over focusing so much on "realism."

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[hitmark]

While i have not played a game that had long enough missions that infections could become lethal, there have been various games that have approached FPS from a more simulation like angle.

On the lite end of the spectrum there is the Delta Force series from Novalogic, where thanks to a voxel map engine one could actually snipe from several KM away. And depending on caliber, hit location and range, one shot take down without aiming for the head was quite possible.

On the other end there is Operation Flashpoint and the later ArmA series, where it is more a soldier simulator then a shooter.

Surreal?

[backwardsposter]

Look Master Chief was a cybernetically enhanced being (enhanced bones, eye cortex, etc) wearing a powerful suit of armor based on current technology, with an uplink in his skull for an AI. Link had the Triforce of Courage and a fairy that was very helpful. Tell me that isn't realistic. (No really, considering the world I grew up in equated spinach and mushrooms to super powers someone please tell me what's real.)

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[Mindcontrolled]

Well, one of the best FPS experiences I ever had was in the original Operation Flashpoint, I think it was the expansion pack where you played as a Russian defecting to the local insurgents. Been driving a truck with about 12 people over to a new rebel base. Promptly, we run into an ambush, all my men die, I barely make it into the woods, getting shot in the leg on the last few meters. I manage to find some cover and with a whole lot of luck finish off the last remaining ambushers, who try to approach me over a stretch of open terrain. Obviously, walking is out of the question with the leg shot, so I start to crawl towards the rebel camp, which still is a few kilometers away. Of course, the place is crawling with Soviet patrols by now - no chance to fight my way through, so it becomes an exercise in stealth and avoidance. Took me about 3 hours to finish the mission, most of the time lying low in some bushes, staring at Soviet boots stomping by.

The whole time, I was glued to the screen, palms damp, ash from my half-smoked cigarette snowing down on the floor. You don't get that from arcade mode - then again, I always was a simulation freak.

Thank you Captain Obvious!

[jpwilliams]

The realism doesn't take away the creativity, it defines the creativity. Like a writer sticking to the motifs of a genre, a "realistic" game uses the realism to distinguish the game. In fact, in something like CoD, I feel like the realism IS the creative decision that defines the game. It's obvious no one wants the game to be too real; where you draw the line is also a creative decision. CoD would be a very different game if you had permanent damage, or if, when you died, you had to start the entire game over. I'm not saying these things would be better or worse, simply saying that the game would be different in a "creative" way. It's probably good CoD isn't too real, since I'm not sure anyone actually wants to go to war and kill loads of people and be shot at or tagged with a hatchet or eaten by a dog.

weird dreams

[LS]

Anyone remember the game Weird Dreams? Really fun, Dali-level surreal, but controls and objective also quite surreal and therefore difficult to figure out. Would love if some modern games reached the level of weirdness this game had.

Ultimate realism in games

[stubob]

If your player died in the game, you can't play the game any more*.

*or you get to play some different game, depending on your belief system.

Realism ...

[StormyMonday]

How about a shooter where, when your character dies, it reformats your hard disk?

Re:Realism ...

[couchslug]

"How about a shooter where, when your character dies, it reformats your hard disk?"

I like your idea, but not enough to avoid using VM Snapshots to dodge most of the consequences!

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[Lost Race]

Movies also try to be "real" ...

What??? Which ones? Can you give an example? All I see in movies is trope after trope after trope, no realism in sight.

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[Uhhhh oh ya!]

It an unfair complaint to make because it grades all game on the same scale. It not a question of are the games realistic compared to real life, its are they close enough to realistic in the world they are in. A super hero game can exist on earth but in their "world" having powers is normal and we don't complain but even still in that world there are limits to what those powers can be.

I wouldn't say so much that games like CoD is unrealistic but pushing the bounds of realism. We don't mind health regenerating because that makes the game more fun but if a person can survive a headshot from a sniper rifle that's a step to far. Real life is boring but if a game goes to far over the edge then the player cant feel immersed.

The same can be said for movies, Bruce Willis does some highly improbable stuff (never thought Id state it like that), but it is just inside the bounds of reality that most people can sit back and enjoy the movie, while many other movies push the bounds too far. It's a very careful balance that must be maintained and games that do it well are the ones that are remembered.

OK but how about some real realism

[Ractive]

I read TFA and I agree in part with the author and see his point in that there's terrain to be really creative and crazy, but most games tend to try to emulate reality, but as other commenters have said it's only limited realism. But how about a game that was ultra realistic? and I don't mean graphics, I mean things like permanent death real shot tracking, real struggling for goals, and fight for survival, not just collecting stuff lying on the floor, and most of that stuff is already there in different types of games. Will it be difficult? sure, sometimes very much so, but some people find that fun, there's no game that appeals to everybody anyway, and I guess many people will like that as much (maybe a lot more) as magically healing an AK 47 shot with a syringe . Would you?

Re:Film

[couchslug]

"Agreed. If you're going to create a fictional world of bullshit, don't violate the rules set forth by said bullshit. Immersion in the suspension of disbelief only functions if one remains consistent."

Preach on, brother!

Oops. Wrong FWOBS. ;-)=)

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[couchslug]

"(surely one person will reply to this begging for that)"

I, for one, find the idea vaguely arousing.

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[m50d]

when you see Tom Cruise jumping out of helicopters or Bruce Willis driving a car up a ramp into a helicopter all while the surroundings and story are meant to be more or less realistic, you don't go complaining how unrealistic the movie is.

Um, it seems to me most serious movie critics do exactly that.

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[Dr. Spork]

I thought that was part of Obamacare...

Yeah, the original version, but not the compromised second draft.

At least it's an attempt.

[SanityInAnarchy]

The point isn't so much that Counter-Strike is realistic, certainly not by modern standards, but that it's much more realistic than, say, Quake.

Quake 3 -- everyone runs ridiculously fast all the time while shooting fairly accurate rockets at each other, and it can often take multiple rockets to blow up someone who's wearing armor. Only the very best weapons have a chance of one-hitting someone, and most battles revolve around both players circle-strafing and generally running around each other while shooting madly. There are no clips, you just shoot until you're out of ammo, then switch to the next weapon and repeat. Everyone could respawn all the time, and one player could last the entire game (theoretically) by running into health and armor.

Counter-Strike -- everyone runs at speeds which are at least believable, if not sustainable (certainly not while pointing a gun in front of you), you're not going to be able to shoot at all accurately while running. Reloading is unrealistic, but at least you have a limited clip size and have to "reload" at all. Headshots -- especially in Source -- tend to kill people, unless the gun is incredibly weak and the person is wearing a helmet. There's no "health" pickups or respawning weapons and such, you just fight till its over. Once a player's dead, they're dead till the next round, so each round is a scenario to think about...

I mean, yes, you can still kill someone by shooting them in the foot, or if you don't kill them, they can still run on that foot and suffer no adverse effects till they're actually dead -- but then, doing it that way is hard (what, you're going to simulate the entire human body?) and not necessarily more fun. The same can be said for a lot of the other tradeoffs in Counter-Strike.

I like over-the-top games (I actually enjoyed Duke Nukem Forever, and I love Quake 3), but I also appreciate the attempt for some amount of realism within whatever world and constraints you've got. I loved that Halo had a damned good reason the Chief survived as much punishment as he did, and why he was so much better than anything else in the game (human or alien), but not every game should have to be sci-fi in order to have gameplay which doesn't involve dodging every single bullet.

Re:Film

[Quirkz]

I keep dreaming of a game where you're *supposed* to die, and you spend roughly half your time working on things from some sort of afterlife, and the other half trying to coordinate the action from the mortal realm. I can imagine scenarios where you're mortal, desperately need to get back to the afterlife, and the game is working to keep you from letting yourself get killed.

Can't decide if overall that'd be a fun twist, or ultimately really disturbing, and of course the anti-game activists would probably have problems with it glorifying death.

Frustrating non-realism...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Generally, players won't complain when a game is not realistic in a way which benefits them -- for example, being able to survive more than a shot or two in most FPSes is a feature, not a bug. Additional realism helps if it provides a challenge, but not when it's so much of a challenge that the game isn't fun anymore.

But logical consistency doesn't exist in the game independent of reality. For instance:

"Hey this game isn't realistic! I can't swim, explore over this mountain, etc..."

I've been playing Mass Effect recently. My character can't jump. He can sort of walk down off a very small ledge, but most bigger ledges are effectively walls. However, I can still inadvertently drive a tank off a cliff and die.

My biggest complaint here isn't the lack of internal consistency -- why can I drive a tank off a cliff, but I can't jump off a three-foot drop unless the game decides it's an appropriate thing to drop into?

No, the biggest reason "it's unrealistic" is a problem here is that it limits my freedom and kills the immersion in a single stroke. Never mind that I can pause the game and change my armor mid-combat, or that I have unlimited ammo and can heal myself and my teammates in seconds while being shot at. Where "it's not realistic" hurts, where it actually hits my suspension of disbelief in the balls, is that I'm not nearly as in shape as my character, but damnit, I could vault that fence, or drop down those three feet, or jump back up those three feet, or...

To give an example of inconsistency which doesn't really bother me, Mass Effect also allows me some amount of control over conversations I find myself in -- a dialog tree. There are minor annoyances here -- I obviously am limited in what I can say, and quite often, the dialog options are a little misleading, and my character will say something quite different than what I thought I was choosing. It's also a little jarring how obvious it is when a character is switching between one chunk of dialog and another -- there's no noticeable gap in the audio, but their avatar almost always visually snaps from the end of one to the beginning of another. While they do have emotions, these don't really color other bits of dialog except when it's been programmed to do so -- when I ask the cute alien girl about her culture, her answer is exactly the same whether or not I've just thoroughly embarrassed her about how she'd like to "study" me.

But for all its flaws, the dialog tree isn't nearly as jarring as when I have to walk around some bit of scenery because it was one foot tall and I can't jump on it. I suspect part of the reason is that the dialog tree has so many choices to begin with, so that it's not terribly often I actually can't say something like what I want. If I could only climb a wall in a few scripted ways, even if it was incredibly awkward to step over a two-foot barrier, it'd still be better than having the two-foot barrier be impassable.

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[SanityInAnarchy]

Wait, what do voxels have to do with allowing you to snipe from several KM away?

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[SanityInAnarchy]

I saw that in reality, too. Then I realized that TV Tropes has grown to be so absurdly all-encompassing that it is impossible to tell any story which does not have multiple tropes in it. See "Tropes Are Not Bad."

you want realism...

[e_hu_man]

http://www.theonion.com/video/ultrarealistic-modern-warfare-game-features-awaiti,14382/
it doesn't get any more realistic than this. uncharted, eat your heart out.

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[atomicbutterfly]

Woah. I though I was decent at OpFlash, but that's real determination to finish a FUBARed mission right there. I think the expansion you're talking about was Red Hammer, which was pretty good despite some bugs.

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[Pentium100]

Yea, especially since not using a trope can get you listed as averting it or be a trope in itself.

Unreality is Unconvincing.

[SWestrup]

The thing is, most folks *live* in reality, and they can not only spot when you have given up attempting it, but it hits them on the head and breaks any verisimilitude you try to put in a game. Like I have had to tell any number of artists hired to do game design, it is FAR easier to write a system that is logical, consistent and simulates (as far as technology allows) reality, and to put in special overrides where something special is supposed to happen, than it is to write something that is designed to be totally 'Hollywood' and surrealistic, and then have to somehow get things like fires and waterfalls and natural phenomena to just 'act like they should'.

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[hitmark]

It allowed a CPU-only game engine to render several kilometers of terrain at reasonable detail.

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[SanityInAnarchy]

Define "reasonable"? And how is this an advantage over polygons, other than being CPU-only?

Re:Game developers aren't shooting for 100% realis

[hitmark]

At the time, the polygon count to get the kinds of terrain, especially with the surface area of some of the maps available, was downright impossible to do on a home computer. At least that is my understanding. Novalogic had been using a voxel based terrain engine in one form or another since around 90-91 tho, so by the later releases it was getting long in the tooth.