Realism in Games: Yay or Nay? (by Carl B.)

October 1, 2011, by Carl B. - First person shooters are by in large the most popular genre in the current generation of gaming. Their popularity can be attributed to two factors: their casual, pick up and play nature, and their reliance on realism. To the mainstream or casual gamer, a realistic game with little artistic approach is far more appealing than a stylistic game – whether it's a shooter or not. This move towards more realistic games is a product of the powerful technology that now powers game consoles and PCs, and thus something that most developers will strive for in their games. Are more realistic video games important for the industry, or will it end up hurting the medium's appeal to core fans?

The first problem with overly realistic games is the color palette that is often chosen. Gears of War 3 is a perfect example; while the story is less than believable, all the brown and grey hues capture a realistic planet – they are, after all, just giant balls of dirt and rock floating in space. It's fine to develop such a generic title that Gears of War 3 is, but the lack of imagination and focus on brutal realism seems incredibly unappealing to me. It obviously has a market, however, as evidenced by the millions of copies it's sold.

At least they blend in with their surroundings.

In contrast, take a game such as Borderlands. The color palette is more or less the same, but Gearbox Software took an ultra stylized approach to the game and turned it into something beautiful. Ubisoft's Red Steel 2 goes along the same lines, and that game features more brown and bland colors than Gears of War or Borderlands.

That's not to say that all realistic shooters are bad. I've been playing the open beta of Battlefield 3 extensively, and ignoring bugs that will be ironed out of the final product, I have only good things to say about the shooter. Visually, I'm not sure if there's another shooter that quite matches the literal realism Battlefield 3 portrays; Call of Duty and Red Orchestra might be the only titles that come close.

With Battlefield 3, however, it's not just the visuals that benefit from realism. The gameplay is top-notch, simply because it throws out shooter gameplay that has become standard in recent years. Call of Duty is king of battles that consist of running around, randomly throwing grenades, and unloading an entire clip on an enemy before they die. If you play like that in Battlefield 3, which I found out quickly, you're going to get annihilated within seconds.

The beta is already full of intense fire fights.

It only takes a few taps to take down an enemy in Battlefield 3. No more unloading of entire clips. Since it's so easy to die, the gameplay is very similar to Counter Strike: players move from cover to cover deliberately, and stick with one another at all times. This is the type of realistic video game I can get behind, because it's plenty of fun.

First person shooter isn't the only genre that suffers from extreme realism. Many third person action and adventure games also come off as unnecessarily bland, notably Grand Theft Auto. That's probably the goal in Grand Theft Auto, but does that make the setting and lack of atmosphere and style better? No. I'll go back to my old ice fishing analogy: if a game about ice fishing is made, and this game perfectly captures the boringness of ice fishing, does that make it a great game? No, because even though it perfectly nailed its concept, the concept from the start is terrible.

Like shooters, third person games don't always suffer from realism. Red Dead Redemption is an amazing game that re-created the Wild West in a fun way yet being full of more rolling hills than actual game content.

When Skyward Sword was first unveiled, many gamers were upset that Nintendo didn't take a realistic approach with the game. In hindsight, is that even something we want? Twilight Princess is the most realistic Zelda title out there, but even that game still has plenty of artistic style.

Beautifully realistic.

Gamers often wish for an Elder Scrolls-like Zelda title. It is fine for a Zelda game to have great visuals – just take a look at the Wii U tech demo – but Zelda isn't about realism. Conversely, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which will no doubt be truly amazing, wouldn't work if it had the same visual style as Skyward Sword.

In the end, realism isn't exactly a bad thing for gaming, but it does matter how developers choose to use it. There's bad realism and good realism in both visuals and gameplay, and it's up to the individual gamer to decide which one is for them. We just have to hope that developers continue to make both styles of games.