The Stupid Gamer

Despite reading like an EA press release/advertisement, the BBC managed to put their opinion out there that games need to be “more realistic.” I’m all for realism in games, but there has to be a point where you purposely suspend that realism to some degree. Even the most “realistic” games must have fantastic elements, don’t they? Let’s take a few examples of what would happen if the hyper realism switch was flipped on some of your favorite games:

NCAA Football 2008

You drop back to pass and see your receiver break into the open field just as a linebacker comes charging through a gap in the line. Instead of trying to scramble you heave the ball…TOUCHDOWN! The whole team starts to celebrate except for your poor quarterback that’s rolling around with “a broken arm.” Good thing it was an exhibition game, huh? Well, if EA wanted the game to be truly realistic, the player would miss 3-5 weeks. They’d become unplayable in the game until sufficient time was given for the player to heal. It doesn’t matter that it was an exhibition game. If somebody breaks their arm, they can’t play. But it’s cool, it’s more realistic like that, right?

Splinter Cell

For a game that’s built around trial and error stealth action, I’m pretty glad that realism is suspended enough to allow you to have continues. If you want realism, the first time you die the game should halt the spinning of the disc, scratch it to crap and de-authorize any future copies of Splinter Cell (and its sequels) from ever being played on your console again. After all, Sam Fisher is dead in your world now.

Any racing game ever

You just slammed that wall? Race over.

So do we really need for games to be more realistic? Like, do we really need it? I think it’s cool when you see touches of realism here and there in games, but I think the focus still needs to be on fun and the suspension of realism. I don’t mind improved physics, more lifelike movements, and better lighting, but I feel that “realism” is highly overrated as an attribute to any game. I just want to have fun, and I don’t need it to feel like what I’m doing in the video game world could be believable in the real world.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 at 8:04 am and is filed under Editorials and Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.