Realism vs. fun

[MichaelH]

I wasn't thinking that... I agree. Some of the more unrealistic games are more fun than some of the realistic games. Two Player Need For Speed is more fun than Gran Turismo (only because I MIGHT, POSSIBLY, HAVE A CHANCE of losing at NFS, whereas I always win at Gran Turismo... ) And NFS has different challenge types... I remember beating my friend, who was supposedly some kind of God at drift by over 30,000 points and just saying, "You may be a God at this game, but cars are my LIFE!" and left it at that. I prefer realism in my games that are better realistic. When a Mazda Miata beats a Porsche Carrera GT2 in a game because those were your only two options, I will never play it again. Hell, if a Miata beat an S2000 I would be done. But I loved Halo 3 for it's lack of realism. It was a hack-and-slash game with powerful guns and a FUEL ROD CANNON! The Gravity Hammer and the Sword are still my two favorite weapons in the whole game, and NOTHING will change that, even though they are the two most unrealistic in the game as well... I loved how photo-realistic the graphics were, though. As I said earlier, you can have photo-realism and still keep that cartoony atmosphere that makes a game fun. That is just my opinion though, feel free to flame me for being a Halo fan....

At the risk of inciting a fanboy clash, dare I say that: Halo might be the closest thing to what I'm talking about. It's cartoony and frivolous and impossible to take too seriously, it's brightly colored and over-the-top and takes place on a friggin' Ringworld, but it also employs enough graphical wizardry to satisfy the elitists who want the most realism for the money. I mean, if you had to point a finger at the game that brings the most true-to-life plasma-axe-wielding alien apes to your screen, you'd probably point in Halo's direction. See? Realism (sort of) and fun (for most). It's not impossible. I just don't understand why it doesn't happen more often.

 

[Quindo]

I don't like the thought of "the more realism, the more immersion" either. I truly believe that when graphics are becoming more and more like 'the real thing' it will do the exact opposite; it will start to appall it's audience. Much like Mori's 'Uncanny Valley' theory.

The good thing about the GTA series is that, I think, Rockstar sees this trap and thus adds a twist to this realism. Their own style: realistic yet cartoony.

 

[weirdaljedifan2]

To me, graphics don't mean shit. Sure, today's games are better looking than anything we had in the '90s, but there is a difference between realistic and perfect. Some times the graphics are so realistic you can hardly see anything but that depends on the time of day. Like playing GTA when the in-game time is at night and your time is noon. Thanks to the fact that hardly anyone besides Nintendo makes games so realistic, everything in the uber realistic games are starting to look brown, GTA San Andreas is the PERFECT example. And I agree with Quindo.

 

[MichaelH]

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the pinnacle, the ultimate example of gaming that strove WAY too hard for realism. From the "Bus Driver" website:

"Bus Driver is all about driving buses.

In Bus Driver, your job is to transport passengers around an attractive and realistic city. You must drive to a timetable on a planned route, whilst obeying traffic rules, and taking care not to upset or injure your passengers. This makes Bus Driver unlike any other driving game - the experience of driving a bus is very different from blazing through a racing circuit."

Sounds...fun?

 

[TheKnifeJuggler]

Perfect enough physics have been achieved. It's called the Havok simulator. It's a plug-in for any 3D animation program that matters, used in the Halo 3 game engine and heavily modified version was augmented into Valve's Source engine. My opinion is that we've achieved a pinnacle of sorts in that respect.
Photorealism I can dig, but not in heavy amounts. I like cartoony graphics more, and as I have already said, cartoony graphics are typically are less calculation-demanding.

And there's no contest, I'd rather have fun than be realistic.

Thats what I think.

When I got Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker, I saw the cartoonish cell shaded style interesting and fun, but apparently those grafixs received a whole lot of flax for going off on such a tangent.

 

[Squarewave]

What do you mean by realism? That one shot kills you and you can't jump 10 ft in the air? The last time I saw a large number of games like that was back in the NES days, most of which were so bad that history forgot them.

So I'm assuming that by realism you mean trying to make the world look believable. That people look like people, trees look like trees, cars looks like cars, etc. At which point I find the idea that realism is a bad thing laughable. Sure there are exceptions Mario would just look odd if he looked human. And I'm not saying that games have to look real to be fun

Off the top of my head of games that strived for realism that enhanced the gameplay
Gears of War
Oblivion
Call Of Duty 4
Portal
Mass effect
Bioshock
half life 2
Resident evil
GTA4
Crysis

people seem to be under the impression that if they spent less time trying to make thing look real that they would have more time to improve the gameplay. However the team that handles the graphics and models are not made up of the same people that program the gameplay. Reducing the time spent on graphics will only result in games with the same gameplay but worse visuals

Maybe because I never played GTA3, but I have a hard time getting why people complain that GTA4 is "too real" are there people out there that think that its realistic to slam in to a tree at 150 MPH causing you to get thrown out the front window and still be able to get up and start the car back up resulting in only a small dent in the car? Or that hijacking 4 cars while on a date is normal behavior? Doing crazy stuff in a world that looks real makes it more fun for me and less 'toontown' in which doing crazy things seem normal

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

What do you mean by realism? That one shot kills you and you can't jump 10 ft in the air? The last time I saw a large number of games like that was back in the NES days, most of which were so bad that history forgot them.

So I'm assuming that by realism you mean trying to make the world look believable. That people look like people, trees look like trees, cars looks like cars, etc. At which point I find the idea that realism is a bad thing laughable. Sure there are exceptions Mario would just look odd if he looked human. And I'm not saying that games have to look real to be fun

Off the top of my head of games that strived for realism that enhanced the gameplay
Gears of War
Oblivion
Call Of Duty 4
Portal
Mass effect
Bioshock
half life 2
Resident evil
GTA4
Crysis

people seem to be under the impression that if they spent less time trying to make thing look real that they would have more time to improve the gameplay. However the team that handles the graphics and models are not made up of the same people that program the gameplay. Reducing the time spent on graphics will only result in games with the same gameplay but worse visuals

Maybe because I never played GTA3, but I have a hard time getting why people complain that GTA4 is "too real" are there people out there that think that its realistic to slam in to a tree at 150 MPH causing you to get thrown out the front window and still be able to get up and start the car back up resulting in only a small dent in the car? Or that hijacking 4 cars while on a date is normal behavior? Doing crazy stuff in a world that looks real makes it more fun for me and less 'toontown' in which doing crazy things seem normal

1. Why did realism enhance the gameplay?

2. If they're dropping a couple million on artists and designers, that's cash that doesn't go into playtesting, A.I., and the myriad of other things they could be spending the cash on. So yeah, it hurts the gameplay because they have less cash.

 

[Squarewave]

1. Why did realism enhance the gameplay?

2. If they're dropping a couple million on artists and designers, that's cash that doesn't go into playtesting, A.I., and the myriad of other things they could be spending the cash on. So yeah, it hurts the gameplay because they have less cash.

1)A few examples
A)In GoW Realistic visuals improve the immersion that you are on a war torn planet fighting for your life, making the aliens look like cartoons removes any sense of danger and falls into arcade realm of only killing them for points. Or falls into a Duke 3d effect of a comical satire
B) In game like portal (outside of making it easier to get drawn into the story)having objects look real gives you a better grasp on how to use them, like the blocks looking sturdy enough to take gunfire, or the buttons looking like buttons
C) Another thing, is stuff like the fire and ice effects in Bioshock, having fire look like fire triggers the natural impulse of 'fire is bad' and realist ice makes things seem cold and not just slippery

2)Again doesn't work that way in real life. Companies that don't put any thought into bug testing or AI don't put any thought into it regardless of how much money they have to spend on it. As evidenced by the extremely large amount of games with poor visuals and poor gameplay. Or the large amount of games that had almost no budget that still managed to make games with good gameplay with passable to poor graphics. yes there are times when some short sighted CEO decided to hire 70 artist and only 5 programmers such as in the case of Vanguard:SoH but those are the exceptions rather then the rule. Developers that do such things make bad games regardless of how much they have to spend

yes, gameplay > visuals but the idea that you can't have both or that you have to take away from one side to make the other side better isn't true. It even less true to say that good visuals can't improve games

Visuals have a large effect on any visual media, Even with movies or tv is is very rare for a show to be renowned as good that didn't try to make thing look real. The Lord of the rings movies would of been a laughing stock if they tried to make the orcs looks like the orcs from WoW. even shows that are considered classics like the original star trek, yea by todays standards they look bad, but its still 1000x better then if they had fire coming out the back of the enterprise that was being held up by wires you can see as was common in sci-fi shows that came before it.

 

[Irridium]

thats one reason I love Insomniac. The Ratchet and Clank games are probably the best family friendly games that are actually fun. Weapons are inventive, colorful, and never gets old.

I'm sick of these grey enviornments that focus on killing everything that moves.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

Companies that don't put any thought into bug testing or AI don't put any thought into it regardless of how much money they have to spend on it. As evidenced by the extremely large amount of games with poor visuals and poor gameplay. Or the large amount of games that had almost no budget that still managed to make games with good gameplay with passable to poor graphics. yes there are times when some short sighted CEO decided to hire 70 artist and only 5 programmers such as in the case of Vanguard:SoH but those are the exceptions rather then the rule. Developers that do such things make bad games regardless of how much they have to spend

yes, gameplay > visuals but the idea that you can't have both or that you have to take away from one side to make the other side better isn't true. It even less true to say that good visuals can't improve games

1. Fair enough, just wasn't sure what you meant.

2. A game like GoW is extremely expensive to render, as in it takes a team of artists a few weeks to bitmap and texture just one of those guns. I get your point that most developers are going to balance their budget, but those realistic graphics are expensive. So even if we do presume most publishers are responsible with the money and game quality, they are still going to be way less experimental and willing to do something cool. No one who drops 10 million on a game wants it to be on anything except a surefire winner, so realism still costs gamers in terms of interesting or experimental games.

I think the presumption you're defending is that realistic visuals can and do improve games. Which like you say, is possible. The presumption a lot of the posters are attacking is that realistic visuals (which is the dominant trend in games) must be present.

 

[Shatners Bassoon]

I'm one of them freaks who enjoy spending 5 hours playing a game of Operation Flashpoint crawling around on my belly for 3 of them hours and engaging 5 enemies if I'm lucky. I find it far more fun than pwning some cocky mouthed sod on xbox live. Playing with dead men don't tell rule, this is where in teamspeak if a member of a squad dies he can no longer maintain radio commuinication with his squad and thus has to remain mute. That feeling of "Jenkins bring up the rpg. Jenkins rpg up front, rpg stat! Fucking hell Jenkins move it! Jenkins? Jenkins, awww fuck they got Jenkins, you bastards!"

God I fucking love realism, I force it upon all games and I enjoy it far more, immersing myself into a game in a way most other users don't you can really make it a personal experience.

 

[Saskwach]

I've said it before in a similar thread, but I expect just as much realism as the game's tone implies it wants to have. In Operation Flashpoint I expect down-to-the-nuts-and-bolts realism in their tanks. In Psychonauts I expect psychic brain tanks. Both can be fun in their own way and I'll play with either type of game so long as it delivers what it promises (and I like what it's delivering).

 

[dukethepcdr]

Yeah, it's fun gameplay that makes a game worth playing to the end, not the graphics. I've played plenty of pretty looking games that were so boring to do things in that I just gave up on them (Myst anyone?). I also don't find it all that fun to play games where the hit points are "realistic". Games where enemies can kill you in one shot are ok for short online multiplayer games like InstaGib mode in Quake, but not for long term solo play. I just find it frustrating after a while. If the game has lots of enemies, make my hero a bullet sponge who can keep on going if he finds the right pick-ups any day. That's more fun. The one thing I like about Prey, for example, was the way that dying wasn't the end for your hero but rather, it opened up a new game-play mechanic with the spirit walking parts.

 

[NotPigeon]

This topic implies that realism can't be fun and that makes absolutely no sense.

Well, you have a point, but I think the OP means realism to the point where it intrudes upon the fun.
Personally? I've felt kind of odd about the whole thing ever since I became aware of the whole concept. It's a game. I'm playing it to have fun, through whatever means that is (I seem to be one of the too-few people who views being told a good story as plenty of fun (PW- well, we have to call it AA now, don't we?- FTW), but that's a completely different topic), and I actually enjoy it better when games have a sense of fun about themselves, and cartoony graphics are part of that.

 

[NotPigeon]

To me, graphics don't mean shit. Sure, today's games are better looking than anything we had in the '90s, but there is a difference between realistic and perfect. Some times the graphics are so realistic you can hardly see anything but that depends on the time of day. Like playing GTA when the in-game time is at night and your time is noon. Thanks to the fact that hardly anyone besides Nintendo makes games so realistic, everything in the uber realistic games are starting to look brown, GTA San Andreas is the PERFECT example. And I agree with Quindo.

Wait... Nintendo? Seriously? We're talking about the company whose biggest recent games were one about a plumber in space saving a princess and one where an electric rodent can beat the #@%! out of Solid Snake*, right?

*What I mean by this statement is that it can happen in the game, and nothing more. I don't want idiots yelling at me because 'there's no way Pikachu could beat Snake.'

 

[shadow skill]

First off games these days do not strive for photo-realism if they did every model in these games wouldn't have colour balances that are so oversaturated that they practically flouresce on their own. Water should not behave like a viscus material when in large bodies, etc.

Second games should be able to avoid the more obvious distortions of space by adjusting their mechanics accordingly. For example if you are going to make a game for the Wii that is in first person view and involves swinging a sword you are going to want to include two sets of player/weapon models and animations. Why? Because if the player decides to do a motion for a slash with the hand opposite the one the on screen avatar uses you create a complete mind fuck if the motion used to trigger the event is something that would naturally be different depending on the arm used. Thankfully the makers of Zelda for the Wii were smart enough to address this detail by allowing players to pick either a left or right handed model and operate accordingly. To me that is more real than witnessing ragdoll effects.

If you are making a game based around relatively small arms like pistols which actually could be wielded in two hands why not simply forget about reloading and go with just having multiple pairs of pistols? Of course it might add an extra bit of strategy if the player is given the choice of using one or two guns. Hell why not try something really daring and set a game on a space station and restrict sound to the player inside the suit removing external sounds in areas that are in a vacuum? It would be pretty neat to have a survival horror game that focused on vibrations or other visual cues in order to create mood rather than incorporating a musical score for such things.


None of these kinds of things require extra special technology. I don't expect the devs to finally figure out a solution to creating peripheral vision in first person games. That would probably require entirely new technology. Realism should be about small details as well as the big things like ragdoll physics and the like.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

As long as devs. stop doing this "We must have three colors in our game -Brown, Grey,and Muzzle Flash...MAYBE some Red..., and excessive Bloom, and blurry backgrounds = Realistic" - then I'll be fine.

 

[stompy]

Fun should be the main aim for every game designer

Yeh, isn't this the motto for every game designer? Or, at the very least, the good ones?

And, as for me, I couldn't care less about graphics; I buy my games on gameplay and story, ergo, for fun.

 

[Lord Krunk]

Nah, play Tim Schafer Instead.

But seriously, play "Fun" games instead. I mean, what else are games made for?

And I play games to escape reality, not simulate it.

But I do enjoy a realism that creates a vague plausability in the game, though, although it is not necessary.