Humor and Realism Don't Mix

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

I suppose more than anything, this whole article made me think of the concepts of coherence and engagement. In the sense that a cohesive game makes the experience more engaging.
To me the concept of realism is one of the deepest cancers of today's general fiction. A lot of people confuse realism with engagement, when one really has little to do with the other, and literal realism does very little to benefit if it doesn't enhance the UNAVOIDABLY unreal world of the game.

On the other hand, if I am more engaged in a game, as detached from reality as the premises it introduces it may be, if they fit and enhance the universe and gameplay of the game, I'm happy to take them in, no questions asked. So in fact I don't think its humor that is at odds with realism, but games themselves.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

When designing a game, the decision that comes up over and over again is whether to favor realism or gameplay, and if you've got sense, you'll go for gameplay every time.

Case in point: Far Cry 3. Why do I have to kneel down and go through a generic 3 second animation every time I want to loot the few bullets/bucks an enemy corpse is carrying? Why is there an animation for getting in a car/boat? I don't want realism, I want more action, and these miniature siestas from the fun add up to a lot after a while.

Tried and true: walk over gun -- ammo and/or gun appear in your inventory.
Click on vehicle -- instantly appear in driver's seat with engine running.

 

[Zaz]

Why are these short columns paged? What is this, cracked-dot-com? :b

 

[Simonism451]

When designing a game, the decision that comes up over and over again is whether to favor realism or gameplay, and if you've got sense, you'll go for gameplay every time.

Case in point: Far Cry 3. Why do I have to kneel down and go through a generic 3 second animation every time I want to loot the few bullets/bucks an enemy corpse is carrying? Why is there an animation for getting in a car/boat? I don't want realism, I want more action, and these miniature siestas from the fun add up to a lot after a while.

Tried and true: walk over gun -- ammo and/or gun appear in your inventory.
Click on vehicle -- instantly appear in driver's seat with engine running.

I think in this case, "realism" is part of the gameplay actually: Having to pause and/or do a mildly more complex action than usual to get supplies forces the player to make a choice during combat: do they risk getting shot/giving the enemy the possibility to sneak up on them in order to being able to use their awesome primary weapon a bit longer or do they risk running out of ammunition/having to use a worse/less fun weapon. Supplies become something which concerns the player a bit more than usual, since it's a lot less feasible to gather them on the fly. Additionally, the deaccelerating nature of having to do a short animation to pick up ammo helps create a sense of pacing that supports the intended feeling of the game, in FC3's case the claim to have every battle be a very unique experience which is a noteable event on its own, by incentivizing the player to revisit and examine the battlesite, building a stronger sense of what happened and what consequences it had for the game's environment and its actors (destroyed buildings, bodies, an upside down jeep).
Of course this is a very fine line to tread for the developers, especially since the difference between exciting and boring can lie in a second's difference in the length of an animation and also because, while game mechanic A might work well with the feeling game A might try to evoke it could be completely at odds with that of game B (for example, while having to aim down the sights of your weapon works well for the kind of slower, cover based combat of the Brothers in Arms-series, this limitation is completely at odds with fast paced arena shooters like the Quake-series (excempting Enemy Territory:Quake Wars)).
Only having played Far Cry 2 and a demo of the first one, I can't say however, whether or not the effect I described above actually works (I think it did in Two, giving the player the sense of being mildly fucked in every encounter with the enemy and making it all the more satisfying to wander across the field of destruction you created).

 

[Crispee]

I'm glad that Yahtzee mentioned glass houses at the very end in regards to his comments on gaming webcomic humour, I was starting to think he'd forgotten he'd written Mogworld, which is an entire novel containing variations upon that exact kind of humour. Glass houses indeed, Yahtzee shouldn't really complain about this kind of humour being used when he's probably more guilty of it than the people he's referring to.

I'm not complaining though, I like Yahtzee's stuff and he's probably aware of all that.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Fuck realism. ...within reason of course.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

I usually suspend belief when it comes to video games. If it were as easy in real life to sneak into secret weapons facilities as it were in a video game, we wouldn't be playing a game about, we would just go and do that. The more fantastical a game's setting, the more likely I am to let those kinds of things go. Like when people look for 'realism' in a series like Halo; if you're looking for realism in a sci-fi shooter, you've probably come to the wrong place.

Hitman has always been especially silly, particularly with the way that no one seems to remember how to dial for emergency services when they find a dead body. Or even just a knocked out one. The only time I normally call bullshit in a game is when it's plot has large, gaping holes or blatantly unrealistic character development. That's what's making Assassin's Creed 3 so hard to get through and what made me stop playing Final Fantasy XIII. Of course, those are the reasons that I play video games, which naturally won't be the reason others play a game.

 

[Squilookle]

When designing a game, the decision that comes up over and over again is whether to favor realism or gameplay, and if you've got sense, you'll go for gameplay every time. Which is not to say realism doesn't have its place. Realism adds weight, it adds immersion, a shooter wouldn't have the same impact if everyone bled glitter glue instead of blood, but beyond that it is the awkward twat at a social gathering who doesn't say anything except to flatly say that they're offended every time someone tells a racy joke.

This is more or less the gaming words I live by, and it's why in my view GTA IV was such a dissappointing failure of a gaming mess, and why Ironsights need to go and die in a fire.

 

[joshuaayt]

Costumes were actually pretty balanced in Blood Money- usually, there'd be more than one tier of guard, so stealing a random costume to progress was only so helpful. The challenge became figuring out how to trade it out for the better model to avoid suspicion.

 

[Mega_Manic]

Finally someone floated out this thought in reference to stealth games.

I'm glad the enemy AI largely forgets about you after 30 seconds. Might as well just restart if I have to wait much longer than that for them to return to their path.

 

[Jfswift]

I'm not so hard on the Hitman example. Hackers and security specialists into social engineering will tell you the most straightforward way to get into a place you're not supposed to be is to wear some kind of uniform (even just a golf shirt with a logo on it), carry a clipboard, and walk around like you're supposed to be there. ("Yeah, I'm here to fix your servers.") Bonus points if you get some kind of headset or Bluetooth earpiece and pretend to be talking to your supervisor.

Back to the OT: People have brought this up before--I'm pretty sure MovieBob has as Game Overthinker--the more photorealistic the graphics attempt to be, the more likely players will experience a disconnect when gameplay doesn't line up with reality. E.g., if you're playing a photorealistic military FPS and you have a rocket launcher that can blow up tanks, but you're not able to get past a wooden door without the right key, that's a really unintuitive break from reality. But if the art style were more cartoony or comic booky, or you're playing a sci-fi shooter with presumably super-advanced materials science, the break from reality is a hell of a lot less unintuitive.

..and that's where Red Faction shined. The original one. No door? No problem!

 

[Your Gaffer]

Games should have nothing to do with realism except where it makes the game better.

 

[Veylon]

I'm not so hard on the Hitman example. Hackers and security specialists into social engineering will tell you the most straightforward way to get into a place you're not supposed to be is to wear some kind of uniform (even just a golf shirt with a logo on it), carry a clipboard, and walk around like you're supposed to be there. ("Yeah, I'm here to fix your servers.") Bonus points if you get some kind of headset or Bluetooth earpiece and pretend to be talking to your supervisor.

Back to the OT: People have brought this up before--I'm pretty sure MovieBob has as Game Overthinker--the more photorealistic the graphics attempt to be, the more likely players will experience a disconnect when gameplay doesn't line up with reality. E.g., if you're playing a photorealistic military FPS and you have a rocket launcher that can blow up tanks, but you're not able to get past a wooden door without the right key, that's a really unintuitive break from reality. But if the art style were more cartoony or comic booky, or you're playing a sci-fi shooter with presumably super-advanced materials science, the break from reality is a hell of a lot less unintuitive.

..and that's where Red Faction shined. The original one. No door? No problem!

And why hasn't this caught on? I drove an armored vehicle through a wall, untied some hostages, loaded them up, and watched guards surge into the room in my rear view mirror as I drove through the other wall. Or, heck, I've parked a car in just the right spot so that I can jump over a compound wall and avoid a gunfight at the entrance.

Structure destruction isn't just low-hanging fruit, it's fruit that's on the ground. And very few developers bother to pick it up now matter how awesome it looks and feels. I continue to be very baffled by this.

 

[Lugbzurg]

Now, was anyone thinking of the Errant Signal video on realism when reading this? It opened worlds for me and changed the direction of one of my own conceptual IPs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRTsl1jCqq8

Though, I really think Yahtzee could've gotten a better name for this as...
A) It's not really what the article was about, and as such, was rather misleading.
B) Realism is hilarious.

When you try to make something too realistic, people will be prone to look for every little thing that conflicts with that. Make such a living, breathing world with so much life and enjoyment to get out of it, and it becomes far more real in the player's world. After all, you could go on and on about why The Legend of Zelda is unrealistic. But because it doesn't strive to be so, it doesn't matter in the slightest.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

I kinda have to agree there. Sometimes video games have to sacrifice realism for the sake of fun gameplay.

And, honestly, I like games that are a bit outlandish. JRPGs (well... the ones I find nowadays that are actually good) and things like Borderlands are fun, where they're so absurd that they break away from reality as a type of... you know... escapism.

 

[Mythmaker]

I think a lot of people tend to forget that the most important aspect of a game is engagement. Immersion through realism is one way to achieve that, but it isn't the only way, and thank goodness.

 

[The Youth Counselor]

When I first encountered the "Regenerating Health" system in first person shooters I saw as a luck meter. I knew that I was bleeding, tinnitus was building in the background, and the action was slowing down. But I saw the blood as coming from superficial grazes, and the distortion effects as adrenaline. It wasn't until I saw this used in third person shooters that I saw it as my character having Wolverine style mutant healing powers.

-----

In the case of Hitman Absolution's tweaked disguise system as a challenging mechanic my biggest problem is that it interferes with another game mechanic: logic. I love it when games reward the player for doing something logical in the real world rather than power gaming, or punishes those who do odd things. Take for example how you are immediately scolded by a female co-worker in Deus Ex when you enter the ladies restroom and later reprimanded by your boss for it. Previously I didn't even think I was doing anything deviant, because as a player I was just thinking there might be useful items to loot there. Or in Half-Life when pressing random buttons would get you into trouble.

Previous Hitman games all the way back to the first installment Codename 47 incorporated this as well. In one of the very first missions, you are attempting to kill a convoy of Hong Kong Triad gangsters in a limousine. One of the first thugs to drop his guard is the limousine driver and you can steal and wear his clothes so you can get closer to the car and possibly plant a bomb. However because there is only one limousine driver wearing a distinctive uniform and he's an Asian man. One gangster immediately spots 47's bald pale self. The game repeats this again and again, and so as an experienced Hitman fan, it's counter intuitive to what I've learned.

Perhaps with having disguises act as a reward the developers could make it so that it covers the face and is hard to reach stealthily. An idea would be maybe a SWAT team member wearing a gas mask who is always close to multiple SWAT team member. Or a performer in a mascot costume who is usually in a crowd.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Something that has been enraging me lately is people saying, probably in a whiny nasal tone 'Why don't open world games have urgency to make them more realistic'

Because that would make it a corridor game ala Final Fantasy 13 not in fact an open world game.

sigh.

 

[Warachia]

"bishops do not resemble tiny wooden circumcised willies. Arf arf arf."

If your "willie" looks like a bishop you have a serious problem and need to see a doctor immediately.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Where is Niko Bellic storing all those guns he's carrying around? Does he have Tardis pockets? Is he stuffing them all up his todger? L, O, and furthermore, L.

I honestly don't care about that. What bothers me is why he's so fucking miserable all the time.

"Oh, cousin, life is so hard! Everything in this city turns to shit! I may be a sharp-dressed man with literally millions of dollars in his pocket, driving the hottest sports car around as I go on dates with my multiple attractive girlfriends before taking them back to one of my several expensive houses, but all of this counts for nothing! I must continue doing whatever some petty crimelord asks me to do, much as I hate it, because what else can I do? What do you mean, rent out the houses, take the money, pick my favourite girl and move to a mansion somewhere sunny? No, cousin, it is impossible - life is shit!"