(thxfw)

Some of you may be familiar with the Youtube user Freddie Wong and some may also have seen his series “Video Game High School” (or VGHS for short). If you’re not, then here’s a video from his archive that gives you a general idea of the kind of movies he makes:

Pretty sick. I recently caught up with his videos as the rest of his circle of movie makers and with all this editing to live footage I’ve began to wonder: how real is too real in a video game? Of course the better the graphics the more visually appealing it is and the more immersed the users will be in the game. But it’s not just simply graphics that I’m trying to focus on. What I want to focus on is the gameplay aspect of it.

(thxkt)

Take this game for example. You got bullet drop, gigantic, destructible maps, explosions, etc and it’s all fun because it’s arcade-y. It’s fast paced. It feels REAL in the most arcade-like way you can imagine. But because it’s so fast paced it takes away from that realism. You don’t have people running up to tanks to plant c4′s, blowing it up and dying only to be picked up by a medic nearby who just happened to carry around defibs wherever he goes and then they go on their merry way shooting up the rest of America or Russia or whatever part of the world that’s significant. It doesn’t work like that in real life. But that’s what makes it fun, right?

(thxbs)

I’ve went over this game two weeks ago and this is the complete opposite of BF3 but still has that “real” feeling to it. It’s very slow paced. In fact, it’s so slow paced you have to worry about your hunger and thirst  while you watch the day go by in real time. The single life you live (not really single but you know what I mean) rides solely on your tactical planning and if you die, no one’s going to run over and defib you. The only thing defibbing you is the server when it brings you back to life with none of your stuff at some random location along the shore line. It isn’t a gigantic battlefield and yet the map is easily twenty times bigger than the map BF3. People operate in small squads of 2-4 usually but they don’t go charging in. In fact even in squad formations you have to worry about watching flanks, having spotters, you have to take turns crossing a street one by one, everything you take for granted in short 3-10 minute life spans is amplified by 100 when your average life span is 45 minutes in the game. Obviously this is less arcade-y but at the same time the number of players of DayZ is steadily growing.

On the left: DayZ. On the right: BF3. Not exactly a comparison but it gives you an idea.

So with a growing fanbase for the ArmA 2 mod (they’re making a standalone DayZ game which is AWESOME), what is this saying about what gamers expect from a shooter? Are they looking for realism? Like REAL combat simulating realism? And if so, where is the line drawn when adding more and more of the smaller details that comes with engaging an actual firefight? America’s Army had a steady aim meter that degenerated when you were being suppressed and was buffed when a CO stood next to you. Using medikits in America’s army also only stopped the bleeding and nothing more. In DayZ you can break your legs and in BF3 you have bullet travel time and bullet drop. In Metal Gear Solid you had footprints, hunger pangs, smoke, camoflage, etc. There’s a LOT of realism in games that other games don’t have. Imagine combining all of this together into one game. What would you have then? Obviously it’d be slower paced but would it be any good? You have so much to consider in a game that you’d be worrying more about yourself rather than the enemy… which I suppose is realistic, too since any normal person would put their own personal safety over killing someone… right?

But seriously, how realistic would be too realistic? Would you like shooters to look into more camouflaged oriented play? Would it be cool to have “bleeding” and medkits only fixed that? Bullet drop stays, right? If not slower respawn times would strategically placed respawn points in designated start zones of a giant map be better? Should there be a more realistic suppression system like BF3? Food and water… why not pee and poop as well? Sleep deprivation? Hypothermia and hyperthermia due to times of day? Sore muscles? Exhaustion? Where should the line be drawn?