Realism in Games?

[Vrex360]

I dislike the idea of realism. Real life is bland and boring, if I'm playing on a happiness machine an living in the land of make believe where anything can happen I don't want to be reminded again and again constantly how that doesn't fit in with what's strictly realistic.

 

[Jamous]

Honestly I think developers should stick to a stylized version of reality, as in not dying after only a few hits and (at least in my opinion) being able to do ridiculously stupid things like rocket jumps.

Hell YEAH! ROCKET JUMPS!

 

[Captain_Coolio]

Things can only get realistic in games up to a point. this is why i didnt like CoD4 sniping very much. i love sniping, its the best thing in FPS's, its just in CoD4 they made your aim move around so much it wasnt cool anymore and to fix it they had your dood stop breathing to aim straight. im pretty sure IRL snipers can do that while breathing. it saddened me =(

 

[Space Spoons]

Not a big fan of realism in games, myself. I game to go to a place where the laws and limitations of this reality do not apply, not to ground myself in a place as confining as the world I'm already in.

 

[Khryon]

Much agreed. But realism isn't meant to be taken as far as: *A bullet hits you in the foot, you now lose 30% of your movement speed.* kind of game. A good balance would be on the verge of frustration and pleasure (how that would work, I'm not sure). However, I do enjoy the realism in graphics, movements, guns, outfits and what not. So what I'm basically trying to say here is, realistic game play is great - as long as it doesn't reach to the point where it's frustrating and you'll punch your monitor to bits.

 

[Cartman2nd]

The problem with realism in games is that it's only realistic on a few points. Take CoD for example. You have realistic weapons (sorta) and shit, but if you're hit you don't have to worry about the hospital. You can just hide behind a wall and regenerate health. Though on the other hand, you can't climb on walls or jump creatively. That takes the fun away (for me at least). You either have to go TF2 mad with double-jumps, rocketjumps, cloaks and shotguns with sniper range or go Operation Flashpoint realistic. Middleground is boring.

 

[KingPiccolOwned]

Well, the point of a game isn't some much for you to escape from reality it's more about putting you in a different reality. And thus realism help anchor the new reality you are in. Of course immersion and fun need to be balanced which it seems the game you're describing didn't do.

In effect escaping from the reality in which you reside. The point is that realism is alright if it makes things more fun, like a shotgun being able to explode a person's head, or chopping their legs off with a broadsword. However realism can also be a bad thing when the player character dies incredibly easily, like say in real life.

 

[Aardvark Soup]

The later Metal Gear Solid games actually handle this pretty well with difficulty levels. On very easy enemy guards are ridiculously stupid, half blind and deaf. On European extreme, they act very realisticly like actual well-trained soldiers. This leaves the player the choice how much realism they want.

 

[Andy_Panthro]

This is why developers love fantasy and sci-fi settings. Easy to use magic or future tech.

I remember playing Delta Force. On harder difficulties you had to be careful about your approach to a mission, because only a few hits would kill you. The enemies were quite accurate when they knew your position...

 

[Pyode]

I favour realism in the cases where I truly believe that it improves the genre, and I don't believe that there's any sort of favourable balance between realism and arcade gameplay - they end up making awkward chimaeras instead of a game with the best of both worlds.

I agree that there needs to be some sort of consistent logic throughout the game. like I said in my initial post, that was the problem with Battlestations. One second you have this really realistic bombing mechanic the next second it takes you 6 rockets to destroy a wooden shack. This creates a jarring and frustrating experience.

On the other hand, I do think a balance can be reached. I am sure games like Operation: Flashpoint and ArmA are fun but I don't think that a game needs to be either super realistic or not realistic at all, as long as it is consistent and not cheap. Don't make it so a grenade can kill you from ten feet away but then make it possible to survive 3 point blank shotgun blasts. I think everything in the game play should at least have a consistent level of realism, whatever that level of realism is.

NOTE: I say game play specifically because graphics are a another story and I am fine with those being as realistic or unrealistic as possible regardless of how realistic the game play is.

 

[pliusmannn]

most realistic game is Table RPG, when GM is being ass and don't let to use spells or unreal advantages (big deal i play as agile hunter, who has a quiver with fueled arrows and i have a small flint device which lets me to ignite the arrow and do +2 dmg, also i have jumping and climbing stats witch lets me go freely around town, aaalsooo i have double load skill and is not unreal, woot i am so nerdy right now nolifing at RP)

 

[FightThePower]

Gaming is escapism (hence why this site is called The Escapist...) so realism in games is pointless. More often than not it gets in the way of the fun; an example would be SWAT 4 where you literally cannot aim for shit unless you've been walking rather than running. Cue walking VERY slowly around huge complexes. Yawn.

"Realism is overrated. You already know what happens in real life, how is that entertaining?"

 

[Pyode]

Gaming is escapism (hence why this site is called The Escapist...) so realism in games is pointless.

In order to "escape" from our life into a video game you need something called immersion. Immersion is how much you feel like you are in the game, not just pushing buttons on a controller or keyboard and making the little man on the screen jump up and down. The problem is that you can't have immersion without some level of realism. It needs to be a believable world in order for you to feel like you are living out the events of the game.

 

[FightThePower]

Gaming is escapism (hence why this site is called The Escapist...) so realism in games is pointless.

In order to "escape" from our life into a video game you need something called immersion. Immersion is how much you feel like you are in the game, not just pushing buttons on a controller or keyboard and making the little man on the screen jump up and down. The problem is that you can't have immersion without some level of realism. It needs to be a believable world in order for you to feel like you are living out the events of the game.

A world can be believeable without being realistic; Metroid Prime and Bioshock were both incredibly immersive games but they aren't very realistic (shooting wasps out of your arms?! Prepostorous!).

 

[Asciotes]

a shot to the head should kill you, being shot in the leg should make you unable to move until youre taken back to the barracks and healed (speaking in terms of a war FPS). Realism should only go as far as actually taking notice of where you've been hit.

 

[chstens]

Well, the point of a game isn't some much for you to escape from reality it's more about putting you in a different reality. And thus realism help anchor the new reality you are in.

This, but said reality doesn't have to be realistic, in the sense of what's in it, or what you can do.

 

[YuheJi]

Gaming is escapism (hence why this site is called The Escapist...) so realism in games is pointless.

In order to "escape" from our life into a video game you need something called immersion. Immersion is how much you feel like you are in the game, not just pushing buttons on a controller or keyboard and making the little man on the screen jump up and down. The problem is that you can't have immersion without some level of realism. It needs to be a believable world in order for you to feel like you are living out the events of the game.

A world can be believeable without being realistic; Metroid Prime and Bioshock were both incredibly immersive games but they aren't very realistic (shooting wasps out of your arms?! Prepostorous!).

There still is a level of realism in those games though. When I saw Rapture, for instance, I was able to go like, "Oh, I see how that might work." I'm pretty sure that's what Pyrode meant when he mentioned some level of realism.
I also hate it when people say, "Oh, realism sucks because I already live in real life." The point of realistic games is to put yourself in situations that you would probably never be in, or to take greater risks in those situations than you normally would (like driving and crashing cars in GTA).

 

[FightThePower]

A world can be believeable without being realistic; Metroid Prime and Bioshock were both incredibly immersive games but they aren't very realistic (shooting wasps out of your arms?! Prepostorous!).

There still is a level of realism in those games though. When I saw Rapture, for instance, I was able to go like, "Oh, I see how that might work." I'm pretty sure that's what Pyrode meant when he mentioned some level of realism.
I also hate it when people say, "Oh, realism sucks because I already live in real life." The point of realistic games is to put yourself in situations that you would probably never be in, or to take greater risks in those situations than you normally would (like driving and crashing cars in GTA).

I'm still not convinced that something being realistic and something being believable are the same thing. Something might seem like it's the case (thereby making it believable) but may not work like that in reality. An example would be that to any layman, incendiary bullets setting zombies on fire in Left 4 Dead 2 is believable (after all - incendiary = fire basically) however people who know their stuff point out this isn't realistic at all. I don't see that as a problem. Lack of realism isn't an excuse for something to not make sense though.

Yeah I thought of that counter-argument as I thought about that but whilst this is true, you wouldn't want to get ultra-realistic; people want to play as the courageous war hero, but no one wants it to be like in real life where one bullet will kill you, and your effort is insignificant by itself. People want to play as a Sniper, but very few will want to lie there hours on end, taking into accout wind velocity etc etc because that just gets tedious. There has to be a limit - I guess my original statement of 'Realism is pointless' was too much but I've found that most of the time it gets in the way of the fun.

 

[YuheJi]

Yeah I thought of that counter-argument as I thought about that but whilst this is true, you wouldn't want to get ultra-realistic; people want to play as the courageous war hero, but no one wants it to be like in real life where one bullet will kill you, and your effort is insignificant by itself. People want to play as a Sniper, but very few will want to lie there hours on end, taking into accout wind velocity etc etc because that just gets tedious. There has to be a limit - I guess my original statement of 'Realism is pointless' was too much but I've found that most of the time it gets in the way of the fun.

The thing is, some people do want to go to the extremes when it comes to realism. That is typically considered a niche group, and some games are designed for them (mainly games that we call simulators). I just feel that realism is too often associated with games that aren't all that realistic, you just die quickly in them (mainly Call of Duty).

 

[Ajaysallthat]

I think that realism is good in moderation...i play games to escape from the world, and an exact replica of my life would be kinda boring! which is why i enjoy F'd up gravity and OK graphics