Many forms of realism
I sort of hate the word authentic. When I lived in Hawaii, the tourists only wanted ‘authentic’ meals, or treatment. It usually meant people living in grass huts, giving out tons of food, and doing traditional dances just because you arrived. It got even weirder when I went to Taco Bell with a friend, and heard people comment that the food wasn’t ‘authentic’ to real hispanic food. If you haven’t caught onto it yet, Authentic becomes a word that means poor, and even stereotypes people. The most authentic food for Hawaii is found at 7/11, or a grocery store. McDonald’s makes burgers, and last I checked, they are still called burgers. Well ok, McBurger -which in Gaelic means ‘son or descendant of’. So, I guess they call their burgers Son of Burger. Still, no one says that McDonalds does not make burgers, even if they do taste different from something else. Why shouldn’t we treat Taco Bell burritos the same way?
With this in mind, Authentic is an attempt to live a life you dreamed of but doesn’t really exist. For videogames, we get a similar term, and problem.
When you go onto a gaming forum, and you see the word Realism, you get basically two
ideas. The first one is that of graphic realism, and how it is displayed in your game. The second is that of experiential realism, but it only goes for specific things.
Graphical realism is something that gets shown whenever a company has a new device out. We see a show off of sparks, or even how well the eyes adjust to light. Don’t believe me, here is a forum discussing HDR rendering vs photographic rendering. HDR is dealing with how your eyes adjust to light.
Something appearing more realistic may actually take away from a game. For example, I loved Medal of Honor for the Playstation.
The game was fun, because the characters did not look real, and even acted goofy at times. When I pointed a camera at a character, the dangerous guard would pose for me. It was lighthearted, and cartoonish in its attempt to tell the story. It was about a real war in the same way Indiana Jones was about a real war.
When I played the updated version of the game for the Gamecube, I actually stopped playing. The characters had become realistic enough for me to identify them, and even recognize their facial features. It was a sense of dread every time I pulled the trigger, because many of the common soldiers looked just like my uncles, and other family members.
The attempt was to make it more realistic. There have been attempts to tell stories about modern wars through games. They end up looking very nice, and missing the point of playing them in the first place.
Graphical realism has met the problems of never being realistic enough. If you look at a picture, you can slowly figure out what is messing up. But the problem continues because the feeling of the game changes if the character becomes real.
Experiential realism has the same problems, but not as strongly. Often times, they try to only have the experience be realistic in only one sense. For example, my favorite online shooter is The Specialists. It is actually a fan modification of the Half Life engine, and a ton of fun. The game attempts to recreate action movies with giant jumps, flips off of walls, and realistic weapons. The attempt is to make the weapons as realistic as possible, but leave the rest to movie logic.
Modern Warfare does the same thing, they have graphics that look more like a movie, but have sponsors from gun companies. The attempt is to take a real thing, and make one aspect of it as realistic as possible. It works well, and Modern Warfare is considered one of the top selling franchises today. Speaking of which, the game is based on Medal of Honor, even having many of the same devs.
But the downside to this attempt at realism is how the war is portrayed. The Red Cross is asking that games have punishments for committing acts of warcrimes. Soldiers are coming back, and saying the games are not accurate. In other words, the games depiction is the same as that of a movie. The experience is only real with the guns. This doesn’t even cover how difficult it is to portray the actual problems for people living in the actual wars. No, not the soldiers, the people who were born and raised in the area.
While interviewing John Lucas about his opinions, we came along another realism. Like experiential realism, it is only realistic in a specific way, but simulates life. These simulated realistic games are usually cartoonistic, but let the player feel like a member of a town.
Animal Crossing works because it fits what YOU need it to do. You can play it as laid back as you want to or as intensely as you want to. It encourages socialization & communication which sometimes takes a back seat in our technology-driven age. And the whole scene simultaneously reminds you of your childhood while it ironically shows you adulthood. The Raggedy Ann & Andy look of the human characters & the stuffed animal look of the villagers alongside paying mortgages, playing the "stalk" market, & being a responsible town citizen.
You would be surprised how many adults play this game. People look at it & think it's for kids only. I myself play with a bunch of 40, 50, 60 year olds. Male AND female. The endless items & interactions keep the game fresh for years & years. The randomness of the game also helps too. You never know when a villager is going to ask you to come up with a new personal greeting or catchphrase. You never know when that villager will show your letter to someone else. And how viral all of this can be. It makes the game a dynamic LIVING environment. Animal have emotions & rub off on each other. They only talk about realism with graphics but Animal Crossing conveys realism in a relation/interaction-based sense.
Seemingly this title does better on handhelds than the home consoles it comes from because you can play DS's & 3DS's side by side more frequently than just going online through network at home. Plus other people might want to use the TV since Animal Crossing can easily eat up hours of your time. New Leaf adds much greatness to the series & it's no surprise that it's doing well.
That’s right, Animal Crossing has its own realism. The experience of being a member of a town full of walking talking humanistic animals has a very real feeling to it. When I asked him about other games, John Lucas recommended Harvest Moon.
Well off the top of my head there's the Harvest Moon series of games. I got into Harvest Moon about 7 years ago playing Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town on the GBA. Yes, the girl version. I saw 'Harvest Moon' on the label in the used game shop & just picked it right up. Had been curious about this series for a long time.
Sometimes the translation & proofreading's a little rough around the edges but I love this series.
A game that teaches you responsibility at its core! You have to make sure to get up every morning & water the crops, tend to the livestock, visit the neighbors, manage your budget, make sure you go to sleep on time for the next morning, try to establish a love relationship, get married, have kids. So much 'adultness' in this game it ain't even funny! Don't be fooled by the usual 'chibi' cute look of the characters. This game is very grown-up. Much true realism there despite the cartoony graphics.
So this simulated realism is about learning about life, and how to grow up in it. The games mentioned can take years to play. In fact, Animal Crossing has no real ending, you can continue to play it for the rest of your life, if you wish.
While interviewing another gamer named Richard Hutik, he mentioned wanting to play a game like this.
Myself, I would like to get something akin to a life simulator. Ideally have things that people can do what they want, and see the consequences. It could be a bit like GTA, but provide a non-criminal route to do things. I always wanted to have an open-world game that was along the lines of Fable III, where you work up to be king. BUT give me a kingdom to run.
Ideally, I think it would be good if people could learn life lessons in open world games. Also, I would rather the world function organically, rather than scripted. If you see games like Elite, you get an idea what I am thinking of here. A world needs to function this way. It has to not care the player is in it, but allow the player to make it respond.
I told him about the idea of Animal Crossing, and he replied.
Alternate reality might be a better term for it. Or even virtual alternate reality. My take on learning life lessons is that, through play in the game, you take stuff away you can apply in real life. You can see consequences and so on. It is practice as simulation of other possibilities, and to learn. I see games as metaphors to learn stuff from actually. I see it coming from play that matters, rather than preached through a narrative placed on play.
The two interviewees do not agree on many things, but they seemed to want the same realism in a game. The ability to live in a world, and be punished for doing badly. Give the game the amount of time you want, but have many special things happening so you want to return. Meeting people, and holding conversations with them, or even doing things for them. Paying off bills, and trying to live a good life.
When we play games, we hear people say they want it to be realistic. The problem is that realism can be different things. There is realistic graphics, but that comes with the desire for characters to become more real as well. There is experiential realism, but that usually sticks with only one subject, such as guns, and leaves everything else to the side. Finally we have simulated realism, or Alternative reality, where the player is part of a living breathing area, and slowly lives their life in it. There may be no ending, or giant quest, just friends to meet, and spend time with.
Like the word Authentic, we see how realism can be altered or crossed to create stereotypes, or problems. It may make a people look poor. It can make you think that a gun acting the same way a real one does gives a game an authority over another. It can also let you learn lifes lessons while talking to an anthropomorphic eagle, or fall in love with a pink goat named Velma.
