Does realism always have to become tedium?

It seems that since the dawn of video gaming, with each evolution in technology a key benchmark used to measure success has been the graphical power of the machine in question and ergo how realistic or lifelike the games or peripherals released for each system are. However, is this relentless pursuit of realism a flawed ideal?

 

As a general disclaimer I would like to state that I do not intend to précis every single piece of videogame or computer hardware and software whose designers have promised either explicitly or otherwise that their equipment will produce a lifelike gaming experience, nor do I expect people to necessarily agree with my opinion. That said, I hope that this article provides scope for debate on the concept of realism in games. Caveat concluded, on with the post:

 

Tomy's Top Shot Pilot in all its glory

My earliest memory of playing a videogame purely for pleasure was around a neighbour's house at about the age of eight or nine. He had inherited an Atari 2600 "woody" from his stepdad, along with quite a large selection of games. Prior to this, I had access to Systema style LCD handheld games and Tomy's Top Shot Pilot & Turnin' Turbo Dashboard. The former I tired of quite quickly as the LCD display and limited gameplay restricted their long-term appeal. The latter faired slightly better as the ability to turn the key or flick the throttle control before grasping the steering wheel or flight stick (albeit that they were crude approximations) enabled me to cling onto the idea that I actually was driving a car or piloting a plane. That was until I asked my grandfather how both of these machines worked and he proceeded to tell me that the road or sky was not computer generated at all and that they were just constructed out of a continually rolling picture held on rollers. Dream smashed, these too were put to one side.

The Turnin' Turbo Dashboard (also by Tomy) dissected to
show how it works...thanks Granddad.

Even to this day at the "mature" age of 31, I still face such crushing disappointments. Being a big fan of Star Trek and especially Deep Space 9, when watching a making of documentary I was saddened to realise that the set wasn't actually a full size mock-up of the station that the actors walked through and acted out their parts in and that instead, each set was isolated from the others and was therefore quite small scale. All rather silly really but food for thought.

 

All of the information above, apart from providing a clear indicator of the fact that I want to live in a fantasy world, provides a paradox which I am sure is experienced by many game players. Most people, I assume, play games to escape reality for a while and engage in activities that have no consequence or significance in the real world; yet they want  their game playing environments in many respects to mirror their real world counterparts. This is most clearly evident when we consider games such as the later iterations of Grand Theft Auto that are modelled on real world cities. Naturally GTA does provide scope for the player to behave in ways that would get them seriously hurt/killed/arrested in the real world and this goes some way to explain the appeal: to be able to behave in a totally reckless way with total impunity, but why people enjoy conducting these activities  against the backdrop of a loose replica of their own urban environments is something that intrigues me. I am not casting aspersions about people that do it; I too am guilty of it but the inanity is amusing...I come home from work on a an underground train and then I ride on one in GTA! 

I guess the key here is realism, if it is realistic or believable it would appear that game developers are in many ways likely to be onto a winner. That said, is this pursuit of realism likely to become tiresome?

 

In an effort to answer this question, I am going to attempt to re-become my eight year old self in early '90s England. I don't mean by farting in the bath and laughing or running away from bees (...wait I still do that) but by remembering what systems, games or experiences captivated my interest, both at home and in the arcades (or anywhere else):

 

 



The Sega Video Driver distributed in Europe by Tyco

My first port of call is my grandparents' living room (incidentally their spare room still houses the aforementioned Tops hot Pilot and Turnin' Turbo Dashboard). When my parents were working over the school holidays the task of babysitting often fell to them. When it did, once I had exhausted all other avenues of entertainment, I would spend quite a lot of time in-front of the TV watching western or war films and perusing from cover to cover the Argos and Index catalogues (for those of you from America, these were the equivalent of the Sears catalogue). I would always gravitate towards the computer or videogame section and over various years both catalogues would sell Amstrad CPCs; Atari STs; Commodore 64s; Nintendo Entertainment Systems; Super Nintendos; Master Systems etc, etc. However, none of these interested me as much as the now rather obscure and mostly forgotten about Sega/Tyco Video Driver. I have never to this day seen one in the plastic and the only thing that fuelled my desire to own one was the description and small picture of it in the aforementioned catalogues and television advertisements that relied heavily on the VHS racing tapes provided with the system to sell it. To be fair, not taking into consideration the limited technical aspects of the system and poor levels of interactivity, no matter how dated and hammy the tapes may look now, to an eight year old child lacking the ability to separate fact from fiction in commercials, being told that you will drive the cars depicted which by their very nature were realistic (it was real video footage after all) was enough to make me want one.

 

Obviously, having never owned one at the time, I cannot tell how impressed or disappointed I would have been if I actually had the opportunity to play with this. That said, I guess that I would have enjoyed the first few goes on it and as long as my grandfather resisted the temptation to tell me that my moving of the plastic car stuck in-front of the TV had no real bearing on the cars or people driving them on the video tape (for a breakdown of what the product looks like and how it works, see the video to the left). However, I know full well that if I had it to hand now, I would be utterly disappointed with it. The same is true of the Action Max. Having never owned one at the time and only being vaguely familiar with it as a consequence of taking one apart with a friend when I was about 16 (it was in a box of junk and wasn't connected to a TV in either my or his presence), it was Retro Gamer VX's video review of the system that in many respects provided me with the impetus create this post. In any case, if I was aware of this product at the time it was sold, especially if it was marketed as well as the Video Driver I would have been sure to of wanted one because they appeared realistic.

 

My pursuit for realism wasn't confined to my home either. Whenever I went on holiday and happened upon an arcade, I would gravitate towards games that had cabinets I could sit in or on. Indeed, any interactivity would grab my attention even if the game itself was poor, the fact that I was sitting within the cabinet made me enjoy the experience all the more than if I were playing the same game standing up. However, in hindsight perhaps this wasn't due to realism but because I enjoy playing games in private. Perhaps being encapsulated in such an immersive environment fuelled my enjoyment. Similarly, at around the same time, if the opportunity arose to travel on a real roller coaster or sit in a simulator ride of one, you can guess which option I chose. Even now, if I had the money and space I would buy one of these. They just look cool. A cross between the Runabout in Star Trek and a space shuttle, the anticipation as I climb inside, strap myself in and watch the door slowly and automatically close never gets old, even though I am fully aware that in effect I am watching a video and being moved up and down in time to it. Virtual Reality has always been in my (metaphorical) peripheral vision. Having always been a geek, I have waited with anticipation for developments in this era. Perhaps this is because I grew up on a diet of 2001: A Space Odyssey; Star Trek; The X Files and The Lawnmower Man. That said, until this point, any experiences I have had with consumer equipment that could be described as VR based has always ended in crushing disappointment...whether it be donning one of those massively cumbersome VR headsets in the arcades or purchasing the Aura Interactor virtual reality vest which makes for both a loud and painful gaming experience. That said, the Oculus Rift and Sony's VR offering seem very promising indeed. However, if these are simply going to be used to heighten the realism of already quite realistic gaming environments found in games such as GTA and Call of Duty, how long will it be until this becomes boring in itself? There are already murmurings from the game playing community that with each iteration of our favourite franchises we are presented with more of the same, how long will it be until we get bored with virtually walking down the streets of Los Santos or virtually walking through a battlefield. Indeed, surely one enticement for gamers is the fact that it is a fairly sedentary activity? If I want to take some exercise I go outside for a walk and similarly, if I want to walk around a battlefield shooting at people pretending to be 'ard, I'll go paintballing!