Poll: realism vs fun

[SuperNashwan]

There's only one 'realism' element that really gets on my nerves in games, and its the "only this many weapons and only this type of weapon in this one slot" thing.

I dont mind so much in STALKER or Fallout 3 where you can have a ton of guns in your inventory and chop and change them as you please, thats cool. But if you are going to give me weapon slots, let me choose what I want to put in them. Don't make those decisions for me, Metro 2033 and Far Cry 2... I like choosing my tools for each individual encounter.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Why do they have to be mutually exclusive?

Realism can be fun just as limitless fantasy could be boring. Why not both?

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

Well I choose fun because in the end that's what I want. But sometimes I feel that a bit of realism is fun. Sometimes I don't want to have totally over-the-top weapons that kill everything within a 5-foot radius instantly. Sometimes I just want a nice realistic shooter (or racer or RTS or whatever).

So really I'm going with "Both".

 

[Kair]

Why do they have to be mutually exclusive?

This says what I was going to say.

 

[BreakfastMan]

But... Can't I have both? I like both GRAW and Gears of War. I like both sides equally... Besides, can't realistic games be fun?

 

[TheGreekDollmaker]

I disagree stongly with the reasoning "If I want real, I'll go outside". There are plenty of things that an ordinary person can't or don't want to experience in real life. But they might want to be able to pretend that they are a real soldier, a ruler of a country or whatever (and wants a more realistic experience then your average game).

I've said it before; I'll say it again...

If I want real, I'll go outside!

The only realism I endorse is BOOB-physics but even then I like it a little on the absurd side.

give me fun! if I want realism I might as well join the army you even get paid for it!

You know i find the these Arguements bullshit.

The whole "If i want realism i will go outside Hur hur" to be incribly idiotic typed by someone who didnt think about it for more than 5 mins.

So what if i go out side.Now what.Lets say i want to shoot something.Well first i need a gun but for that i need money.Where do i get money.I find a job at MacDonalds and i get shitily payied working 7 days a week 6 hours a day.

So ok i got the money after a lot of hard work but now where do i get the gun.Well i live in a country where gun laws are regulated so i need a special paper that says that i can have a gun.I waste some time in some goverment buildings and after they check my ID card my House,my history and after paying for that special paper i get out after a couple of hours to a couple of days.So ok after wasting 1 month gathering resources i finally get that paper.I go to the shop where it sells guns and-shit i dont have any money.More work-more time wasted.

So i got the gun too but what am i gona shoot.I have cans to shoots on my backyard but thats not nearly as fun, so i go into a firing range where i can practise my gun.Unfortunatly i dont have that much fun shooting paper targets.I want to shoot ,say real people.

Well than i need to enlist on the army.But first i need a paper that says that i passed education on high school, i need proper training of months even years of boring tedious training, followed by moments of agonising horror and the will and guts to get through it all.
So yeah i got into the army after 1 year and thousends of dollars and being away from my home nad family.So lets say i live in the US (which i dont) and i enlist to go fight in Afphraq or where ever the US army fights now.Lets not even thinking of the effects of trying to get there and leaving my home and family i stand a pretty good chance that i will get killed in action,seriously get injured or manage to go through it and come back scared for life.

You know if there was only some kind of entairtainment that could allow me to expiriance what this soldiers are doing without putting me directly behind danger or spending thousends of dollars for training...oh wait.

Also:
Want to be a rock star:11 Years of training for electric guitar,a shit ton of money,danger dying from drugs on my inevitable fame and glory or i will simply be another failing musician.

Want to be a RTS general:5 Years in military Training,even more shit ton of money,extreme hard work, danger of getting fired if i fuck up.

Want to kill Nazis:Well they are all dead now.Neo nazis are also out of the question since i cannot go around throwing molotovs on neo nazi gay bars.

Want to kill Communists:I dont think the world will be greatful when i start a world war simply because i tried to re enact No Russian with an AK47 on a chinese airport.

Want to kill Aliens:15 years of intense mind blowing training,atleast 4 PhDs,several million dollars for training,95% chance of not getting qualified,waiting 50 years for a unentidified bacterian-like alien lifeform to get intedified on a medeorite somewhere,geting strapped into a 1000 ton rocket,reaching the medeorite after a few months AND I CANNOT EVEN KILL THE DAMN FUCKS I NEED TO COLLECT THEM BACK.

Anyways:

I want both.I want both games where i go around shooting nazi-veciloraptors with radioactive chainsaw bazooka laser guns on differnet dimensions and both real life-real battle world war 2 games where i am a Russian soldier with 5 bullets and im in the front lines.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

Oh god, fun every time. While it's great if I play a game that's both realistic and fun, if I had to choose, I'd pick fun over realism. I'd much rather play games like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Okami and Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King with their funky graphics and cartoony sense of humour than a realistic looking game if I wasn't going to have fun with it.

 

[Wintermoot]

snip

well that,s kinda cynical

 

[WanderingFool]

I do like a mix... except for Duke Nukem, I better be a fucking immortal god while playing that...

 

[TheGreekDollmaker]

I thought for more than 5 mins!
As for the rest of your "arguement"; I find it imature, hastily put and contradictory at times.

What I mean by MY statement is that...
Too many companies put too much emphasis on graphics and sound. By donig so, they have a tendancy to neglect (or in many cases, sacrifice) the fun factor.

Remember when we used to get 100 hrs of gameplay, then it became 40, now a days you're lucky to get 8.

Styleized game, on the other hand, spend less time on the graphics and therefor force themselves to rely on the fun factor to sell their games.

Now I have nothing but the utmost respect for the hardworking people that work their asses off to create the greatest virtual environments and characters that money can buy.

That being said... Give me my fun and leave the "reality" where it belongs; Unless you're talking "real-fun", in that case GIMMIE GIMMIE GIMMIE!!!

When you put it like that than i can understand your arguement about games putting to much emphasis on presentation rather than the gameplay or the story.Its just i thought that with your comment you were presenting a completly different arguement.

Either way the industry as a whole puts a real emphasis on gameplay a little less than presentation.

I mean just look at most multiplayer games on the internet or in consoles.The online play is mostly fun and giggles.''Yeah create a clan go around knifing peopled do all that stuff.'' is the mentality the gameplay screams while trying to find you ways they can entairtain you, while the presentation screams "Realism".

THis is the main reason why i think that war games or games that general that want to make a message will never succeced so because of the general rule that we have made that games need to be fun to be worthwhile.

I mean if your making a game centered around fantasy or a sport or anything like that (say mario,zelda etc ) than making fun the main focus of the game which all aspects of it focus upon, is crucial to understanding what your doing and how your gona make a good game.

But when your making a goddamn War game making the graphics and the sound and the story gritty and edgy with blood and death and the whole 'WAR IS HELL,LOOK AT THE TRAGEDY OF WAR" while the gameplay screams for me to jumb from a 10 story building doing a couple of 360s and killing an armed batalion with a Barret before i land.

Essentialy the gameplay ussually screams "YAY WAR IS FUN,Shoot those Nazi Communists,Oh you got shot dont worry youl just magicly regenarate those missing chunks of fles".

That is the reason why i am unable too enjoy a lot of War games, because they are fun.Unless the gameplay starts reflecting their general atmosphere or message they are trying to convey making war fun is never for me atleast gona successfully replicate war as good as Saving Private Ryan did or how Apocaplese Now did it.

I mean, you wouldnt have a horror game where the story is bloody as hell,the gameplay reflects the feelings of what the character ingame is feeling,with graphics straight out of the HP.Lovecraft book and have Sound design that rivals that of Hello Kitty adveture.

Anyways in the end this is a matter of opinion.Im not really in favor of either realistic of fun games.I just want games that can chalange the dramas,the epics,the romances,the war movies,book whatever there is.I dont want gaming to be something that you recieve fun only effectivly making it a childrens toy and a waste of time.Its a tool of expression, and its a powerfull tool at that.

I just dont think we have learned to use it effectevly.

 

[Sarahcidal]

if the games is fun and holds my attention, i don't care what it looks like or how bizarre the storyline is
one prime game example comes to mind..
Plants vs Zombies.
Enough said lol

 

[MrJoyless]

I like a game that is able to balance realism AND fun to make a more immersive game a few examples of this for me are...

Bad Company 2
- realism - destructible environment, gun recoil that makes holding the trigger silly, lots of hiding places, teamwork being important
- fun - being able to fix tanks with an impact wrench, reviving teammates who had their head blown off by a sniper with shock paddles, not being able to kill every human target in 1 shot with most sniper rifles unless you get a headshot, balanced (for the most part) weapons regardless of their "real life" stats

Fallout New Vegas (hardcore mode)
- realism - holy crap rockets weigh a bunch, if i break my leg shooting painkillers into it wont fix it, if my followers die they stay dead (sorry Rose), heavy armor and high damage resistance makes weak pew pew weapons useless (like tom hanks shooting a tank with a pistol in saving private ryan), starving, getting thirsty, Radiation poisoning, drug addiction
- fun - being able to pause the game and shoot peoples heads off in slow mo, being able to go to a doctor to fix literally anything (radiation, chem addiction), LAZERS FROM THE SKY!!!, some guy who calls himself Caesar and dresses old roman empire style and still gets taken seriously....by everyone