So this week i re-installed two games. First up was Deus Ex 2. Although i was worried about what Fans had to say about this sequel (i only played DX1 thus far)i just wanted a game with that certain science fiction/cyberpunk mood.
Maybe the Game ain't that bad, but after about an hour playtime, i deinstalled it. Good, the game has aged, but in that hour of playtime i felt the story was too rushed, the combat to rigid and most of all, the Level Design was just horrible.
When i first entered Seattle, i felt i was going through a hotel lobby, rather than a city or even a small city district or, for that matter, even a street. And even if the scenery gave me a certain dystopian feeling with Police-Robot-Things, Religious Cult People and other people roaming about, but still, it felt rather empty. In fact, even the Apartements i visited looked like you could live in, but still felt totally unoccupied.
So for this and the other reasons i mentioned, i deinstalled it again and in search for another Ego-Shooter distraction, started playing Doom 3 again.
And within a minute or two, i was totally immersed. True, the Levels of Doom 3 may be very linear and claustrophobic, but you got everywhere these.....traces of life, so to say. You have these usable Computer Interfaces, which i think are praised enough already, but are still amazing everytime you see them because they are not only usable, but useful in a sense that they look more realistic than those in various sci-fi movies. Then there are machines that are not only static things, but actually moving parts that at least seem to serve a purpouse. And even if you look at the less obvious parts of the Level, you see empty coke bottles, paper, magazines and whatever else scattered anywhere, giving the impression that somebody had "lived" there for a moment or two.
It is just amazing how, compared to a epic Sci-Fi-Shooter-RPG Hybrid, the rather simplistic straightforward Shooter got me immediately in the right atmosphere.
And i think that is really what is important when crating atmosphere in today's games: Making the World believeable.
For example: Which game do you find more immersive: Gears of War or Half Life 2 ? Gears of War may have amazing graphics and is (in my opinion) great gameplay and an alright Story, but it is pretty much nothing compared to Half Life 2, a game that not only has great gameplay, but a astounding Level of Detail in the design apartement and a tight atmosphere that the player will feel (most of all) through the believable Human Interaction between NPCs. And if you think about it, these latter two things do pretty much nothing to the Game itself.
I think the lesson behind all that is: When you create a game where every inch of the Gaming World is is well thought out and designed, players will not only forgive some shortcomings in other departments, but will have a enhanced experience that cannot be archieved by great Gameplay alone.
Maybe the Game ain't that bad, but after about an hour playtime, i deinstalled it. Good, the game has aged, but in that hour of playtime i felt the story was too rushed, the combat to rigid and most of all, the Level Design was just horrible.
When i first entered Seattle, i felt i was going through a hotel lobby, rather than a city or even a small city district or, for that matter, even a street. And even if the scenery gave me a certain dystopian feeling with Police-Robot-Things, Religious Cult People and other people roaming about, but still, it felt rather empty. In fact, even the Apartements i visited looked like you could live in, but still felt totally unoccupied.
So for this and the other reasons i mentioned, i deinstalled it again and in search for another Ego-Shooter distraction, started playing Doom 3 again.
And within a minute or two, i was totally immersed. True, the Levels of Doom 3 may be very linear and claustrophobic, but you got everywhere these.....traces of life, so to say. You have these usable Computer Interfaces, which i think are praised enough already, but are still amazing everytime you see them because they are not only usable, but useful in a sense that they look more realistic than those in various sci-fi movies. Then there are machines that are not only static things, but actually moving parts that at least seem to serve a purpouse. And even if you look at the less obvious parts of the Level, you see empty coke bottles, paper, magazines and whatever else scattered anywhere, giving the impression that somebody had "lived" there for a moment or two.
It is just amazing how, compared to a epic Sci-Fi-Shooter-RPG Hybrid, the rather simplistic straightforward Shooter got me immediately in the right atmosphere.
And i think that is really what is important when crating atmosphere in today's games: Making the World believeable.
For example: Which game do you find more immersive: Gears of War or Half Life 2 ? Gears of War may have amazing graphics and is (in my opinion) great gameplay and an alright Story, but it is pretty much nothing compared to Half Life 2, a game that not only has great gameplay, but a astounding Level of Detail in the design apartement and a tight atmosphere that the player will feel (most of all) through the believable Human Interaction between NPCs. And if you think about it, these latter two things do pretty much nothing to the Game itself.
I think the lesson behind all that is: When you create a game where every inch of the Gaming World is is well thought out and designed, players will not only forgive some shortcomings in other departments, but will have a enhanced experience that cannot be archieved by great Gameplay alone.
