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Thread: [DISC] How much realism?

  1. #1
    Patron Saint of Beatings WilloughbyJackson's Avatar
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    [DISC] How much realism?

    Having a little bit of time to kill while my computer was occupied, I started playing Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance for PS2.

    The Virtual Missions were a lot of fun, but I did notice one thing. Despite many "realistic" elements in the game, the overall realism wasn't 100% there. I could shoot someone in a non-vital spots and they would start to look around and say "What was that?".
    Another example is the "girly mag" distraction. Would trained military baddies really oggle them for that long?

    Am I complaining? Not really, I was having fun. Who cares if it's not 100% realistic...

    This made me remember the reason I liked the Japanese Tenchu over the US release since the Japanese AI was dumber, and you could get away with a lot of really silly things, like dropping a bomb on a guard, have him explode, but not raise the alert level EVEN THOUGH, the guard didn't die. He would just get up on fire and return to his post.

    I keep reading about how realistic, such and such is about a game, and I've played some of these realistic games and I didn't have a lot of fun.

    My questions: How much realism is necessary for a game? Does the game need to have a foot in reality as some have claimed?

    -pXw
    (Oh yes, and I AM working on game)
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  2. #2
    SaphuA SaphuA's Avatar
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    It all depends on the game-type...

    You know HL2? It's physic's engine is close to realism, wich is very attractive to people like us. I don't even care about the gameplay, the engine seems great enough

    But, in most other games I play, there isn't much realism; 5 bullet's in the head and he's still not dead. It's still fun to play those games.

    So it's proberbly just game-type that decides if the game should be realistic or not.

    SaphuA

  3. #3
    DOT-INVADER marmotte's Avatar
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    *little bump just to help*

    1) too much realism can kill the game.

    > it's like a too much animated fighting game, it's just unplayable, you have to wait up to several seconds when you hit punch to see the whole animation finished.

    > it's like a platform game (mario? sonic?) with too many physics: more or less unplayable, unless you want to play a platform game simulation (has it been done before? sounds interesting)

    2) too much realism can enhance the game

    > it's like metal gear solid, if the game was "dumb", well... it would be less fun somewhat. we really have the feeling to play a complete and finished and polished game, in which developers have put a lot of work. and the gameplay isn't affected with so much realism.

    > it's like shenmue, there is a lot of realism in it... i don't mean the game is realistic, but compared to mario and street fighter, it is.

    my little result:
    realist games are not "instant play" games.
    it's the whole difference between gran turismo (sony, extremely known simulation racing game that is realistic, yet enjoyable) and ridge racer (namco, less realistic but extremely fun to play and excellent, imaginative designs).

    too realistic games can be boring, but extremely rewarding after several hours of play.

    too arcade-like games (so not realistic) can be frustrating, you play the game (which is extremely fun due to the instant play factor), but you finish it in 15 minutes.

  4. #4
    foxy ninja extraordinaire PENGUINDICTATOR's Avatar
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    One game I have played recently, battlefield 1942 (I also own battlefield vietnam, but they sortof fixed this bug) has an annoying OVER REALISM, where if you fall 4' most of your health is gone, and if you are lucky, you are still alive.

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    Marmotte pretty much nailed it.

    At the GDC a few developers were talking about the difference between "realism" and "reality."

    The guys from ICO and the director of Zelda both discussed this and made some great points.

    The short of it is use "realism" correctly throughout your world to create your own "reality". Try to find the lectures on the web. Very enlightening.

    brad

  6. #6
    DOT-INVADER marmotte's Avatar
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    talking to metal gear solid, when i said:
    and the gameplay isn't affected with so much realism
    i'm talking about nowadays playability standards... because we have to admit that the good old 8/16 bits games have (due to their simplicity and somewhere non-realism) an almost perfect playability. more intuitive? maybe.

    but still, i would like to discuss about that with the new generation that is born with 3D playability, maybe they think 3D playability is excellent, and those old crappy games just unplayable...? it's hard to tell, i'm an old school boy ^_^

    about "realism" and "reality", the hole between both words is simply huge. i can see what is a "realism game" with nowadays near reality gfx standards. but i still cannot figure a "reality game"... you are into it? it's like living in the matrix? playing in existenz? playing in .hack world? those are hard to imagine. even watching a movie is far from reality. people are real, background are real, but... the screen is just flat. it happens to me sometimes, while watching a movie, to realize that i'm "only" in a damn room... so the only idea for "reality game" i have now is maybe associated with some kind of "absorption", like that movie example: you watch it with so much attention that you forget sometimes it's just a movie. you are into it. absorbed.
    now games are still different than that: it's harder to get into it, characters are fake, backgrounds are fake... but it's so much more interactive! SO you are into it too, but differently. you play a role. you decide. you have the power. sometimes it's entertaining, sometimes it helps to fight your loneliness, sometimes your frustration of "reality" pushes you to play "realism games" or soon "reality games"... i don't know, why do you play? it's certainly because something is missing with you. playing video games is certainly stupid. but we like that ^_^

    ok, back to the topic. there aren't so many "realism games" because they take so much time to be finished. and there aren't so many "realist games" because the technology is still missing (we are still paying taxes, so who knows where it goes in "reality" )

    ...and ICO was a great game.
    Last edited by marmotte; 04-12-2004 at 06:56 PM.

  7. #7
    Yes we can tomsamson's Avatar
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    haha,nice post =).
    i think realism in games should only be applied as much as it doesn´t destroy gameplay and i think many of todays games miss that point.
    I´m all for a good challenge but i think that´s taken wrong if the game is so realistic that i can´t finish a mission without loading and saving a thousand times because you die every two seconds.
    As others mentioned,i also think a great feature of games is that you could do many things which you never could do in real life,so that´s a big point the games which are trying to be extremely realistic miss.
    What i like about games trying to be realisitic is
    -trying to mimic human like behaving ai
    -giving the player lots of possible actions he can do
    Besides that,just speaking about the graphics side of things,if you create a game with its own (not realistic) graphic style,that is timeless,if you try to create a game with the most realistic graphics,the next game going for the newest hardware specs will make your game just look old.

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    too realistic games can be boring, but extremely rewarding after several hours of play.
    too arcade-like games can be frustrating, you play the game but you finish it in 15 minutes.
    I only play Mame and Flash games because they're short! Who has the time for these modern games? A mate plays Battlefield 1942 constantly and wonders why he has no time for exercise or a girlfriend. I also find most rendered games boring becase they attempt realism at the expense of interesting design. Build your own reality!

  9. #9
    It's not 1997 ?! mrgrim333's Avatar
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    Yeah...to much realism can kill the game as well as piss you off, I meen look at the original 1080; they slaghterd it.

  10. #10
    Patron Saint of Beatings WilloughbyJackson's Avatar
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    I love all the discussion so far. Keep it up!

    Originally posted by grunt
    I only play Mame and Flash games because they're short! Who has the time for these modern games? A mate plays Battlefield 1942 constantly and wonders why he has no time for exercise or a girlfriend. I also find most rendered games boring becase they attempt realism at the expense of interesting design. Build your own reality!
    All depends upon the game. Due the way my life is, I only play games where I can save often. Most older games, I could not save as much (admittedly a non-issue with the wonderful things like save state and such...)

    For Metal Gear Solid: Substance, I have only been playing the VR mission. They're quick and they are a lot of fun and it takes few seconds to save.

    On the subject of making your own reality, I immediate think of all the people who have become addicted to games like Evercrack (Everquest) and Linage... A few deaths have been attributed to such games:

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/mar02/31536.asp
    http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...594344830.html
    http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm...ews.technology

    My next question for all-y'all: Do these MMORPG/new games create too realistic of a world? Or has the real world become too painful? Or is this another case of a few bad apples in a large bushel?

    -pXw
    Devil's Advocate

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