When will realism leave gaming?

[Fraza]

I used to play Need for Speed series games for a long time. I remember downloading the GRID demo, and not finishing for the first 10 races or so. Slowly I learned to break before corners and not wreck my car by the 2nd turn. And when I did learn and became good at it - when I was sliding through corners without getting a scratch, making something so hard look so easy - it was the most fun I've ever had in a racing game. I never touched a NFS game since.

I understand the appeal of arcade racers and shooters - but at the same time you have to realise the thrill of overcoming the challenges presented by these more realistic games.

[Deleted]

In my mind, it really is a genre dependant things. I like the occasional realistic game and then again I like games like tribes two, where even after being blasted with a fusion mortar you may still survive.

It's all dependant on mood, and at the moment I think the trend is, how real can you get. Many gamers in my mind, want to feel fully immersed, and sometimes I think it does that ounce of realism to be there. I.e Mass effect, I couldn't put it down, I was addicted too it, it had an ounce of realism and the background story added too it. It made me feel immersed in the world and that's what kept me playing.

Things sell when you can't put them down and rant to your friends about how amazing they are.

[Almighty1]

realism is what makes gaming fun. as you pointed out there are plenty of titles that dont favor realistic play style or tactics why dont you stick to those if the new games are "too real" for you

[ayako]

But that's the point....

Games are GAMES they are meant to be fun an escape from real life where we can fly cars off ramps at 250 mph

It's meant to be goofy and fun

making it realistic makes it...not a game in my eyes.

Might as well just start making games where I wake up in the morning drink some coffee drive to work clock in 9-5 and repeat that monday through friday with expansion packs called "Weekend projects"

Some people have fun with games that simulate things as close to what they can do without doing it.

[Warlight]

If you want a realistic game I'd reccomend Forza 3. Get the racing wheel (With stick none of that automatic or paddle shifty pansy stuff)

[hayharut]

go play those games then? but there are plenty of shooters that give you armor like in halo and i havent played it but im sure little big planet's racing games dont have physics

[thetemplar]

I love to receive dragons with the ingame mail =D

[Ralamus]

realism is why call of duty sucks so bad and why halo is a million times better.

call of duty is such a campfest/noskill gunspraying contest.

[Deleted]

As mentioned already, when it stops selling.
Today graphics and realism are hot-topic. In a few months/years things change.

[Deleted]

i dont know, but one thing that annoys me is when people say they dont like a game because "it isn't realistic". the amount of times i've heard people say they hate a game because it wasnt realistic just annoying :L

[wiggletard]

Oregon Trail

[OrcsRLame]

I agree that both have their place in the market. But I also think that the 'unrealistic' games have had there day. The old and new generation gamer have grown up a little and want something more challenging and involving. Older games like Doom and what not are awesome to play, but just wouldn't work in todays graphical context where you actually want 'smart AI' to spice things up a little, rather than being predictable and....blah.

People also want an involving story line that feels believable, they don't want to have the sort of "lol you are this soldier guy in the most powerful robot suit alive and you'll just steam roll everything...and thats about it"

A game doesn't have to be hyper realistic for that to happen. Challenging, involving, and believeable story can all be had in incredibly unrealistic games.

I remember this game called final fantasy tactics. It was a hard hard game. In fact it could be hard enough to force you to restart from the start of the game if you didn't plan properly for important chapter battles and you happened to save past a point of no return for that section of the game. The story was absolutely incredible, one of the most well written games I've ever had the pleasure of playing. There are a ton of very diverse characters all with their own backstories and goals in a war being waged over who will become the next king/queen, and this war is being manipulated by different subsections of the church each with their own goals and devious plan. And it even goes deeper than that! The church who is manipulating the the royal families who is manipulating the nobles are themselves being manipulated by an evil death cult that is possessed by the dark gods they serve and their ultimate goal is to revive their dead dark god master. *takes a breath*

You play a character named Ramza. He is the disgraced and exiled son of a noble family that has connections to the throne and the death cult. *SPOILERS* And your little sister turns out to be the reincarnation of the dark god the cult is trying to revive.

I am heavily oversimplifying the story btw. The story is good, believable, and has many layers to it. And it is plenty difficult. Yet this is one of the most unrealistic games I've ever played lol. This is very much a magical world for starters. I can summon a giant dragon and have him pwn faces. By the same token though, my characters are so powerful they can eat dragons, demons, whole armies, and pretty much anything else for breakfast. I have, in a single turn had a character get breathed on by a dragon, impaled and slashed with multiple swords, arrows, and spears, and get kicked in the face by a giant yellow chicken. And after all that, said character survived, and proceeded to kill every single thing that attacked him.

And this isn't just gameplay, the characters are this powerful in the story as well. Story wise, one of the members of this death cult massacres an entire castle by turning into one of the godlike servants of the dark god. On screen I believe there was about 20 dead bodies (all of them knights) and it was implied that there were many more soldiers in this castle fort, and that there were no survivors.

Ramza and his group kick this guy's ass in the story.

Wow, that was a lot longer than I intended. But I'm tired and I start rambling when I'm tired! I think I was making a point somewhere in there...

Edit: I think my point is that unrealistic games can be every bit as great as hyper realistic ones, or possibly even better.

Edit 2: I believe realism is important to some extent. A story needs to be realistic to its own setting. I think a show called Dragonball Z is a good example of this. DBZ has got to be the single most unrealistic piece of fiction I have ever seen bar none. I mean you have guys that are so strong they can fire energy blasts out of their hands that have enough power to destroy the world a million times over. And I mean that in an extremely literal, not exaggerated sense. At the same time though, DBZ never breaks the rules of its own setting. It is very consistent with how strong the characters are, and you can see a very clear progression of how and why these characters are so powerful. Basically, it makes sense in its own strange way.

[Shuji V2]

making it realistic makes it...not a game in my eyes.

This. Fun is relative.

[Tuvok]

Realism furthers the cause of immersion, or so it would seem on the surface. To me at least there are far more valuable things than realism in a game, since it is a conjured universe and does not necessarily follow the same rules as our reality, however the line can be crossed and ridiculousness such as incredible coincidences are still inexcuseable.

[Exera]

There is plenty incredibly unrealistic games out there in all genres, I dont see your issue.

Bulletstorm is highly realistic right?
Gears of War is highly realistic right?
Vanquish is highly realistic right?
Split Second is highly realistic right?
Shift is highly realistic right?

I could go on for ages listing highly unrealistic games in all the genres you mentioned.

[Boloney]

TF2 is pretty unrealistic when it comes to FPS. Getting 2 rockets to the face and still being alive (albeit at very low health) ? Yep, realism is off.

And yes, Mario Kart comes to mind for unrealistic racing :P Either that or the old F-Zero games.

And that's why I like TF2 over some other fps games.

[General Vezax]

Realism will leave when you start playing Nintendo games.

[FlawlessSoul]

I believe there is room for both type of games.

Both certainly have their appeal.

This is it. There ARE both types of games; the games that focus on realism and the games that, well, don't. Different people like different things.

You can't go around saying "WHEN WILL IT END", citing games like Battlefield, Call of Duty etc. and yet totally ignore games like Bulletstorm.

[Schattenlied]

Something I've been asking myself lately with games is why does everything have to be realistic/simulation.

Shooters for example are trying to make things realistic with high damage guns and low health values,realistic gun sounds etc etc.

Racers have weight transition,drift that makes you spin-out if you can't control it,and big clunky cars that feel like driving a brick.

What happened to shooters that have main characters that are able to run at 60 mph with armor and health packs and power-ups? Like Doom,Duke Nukem,Quake,Unreal Tournament 99.

Or racers that don't have cars that feel like bricks? where semi's and mini vans can drive at 150 mph and take sharp turns without spinning out and your car flies like a feather? Midnight Club 2 comes to mind on that front.

Umm, there are plenty of these kind of games still... Unreal tournament is still making games, Doom 3 (was old, but I keep hearing rumors of a Doom 4 coming sometime in the future), Halo, Crysis, none of those games have "realism"

[FlawlessSoul]

I think we've ascertained that the OP is just trolling or clueless. Move along.