Sat 4 Aug 2012
Games must achieve photorealism apparently
Posted by Ocean's Dream under Game discussion
[3] Comments
Here’s the link.
“but in order for this industry to truly reach the next level and expand into new genres, pure photorealism is needed, argues 2K Games boss Christoph Hartmann.
Speaking in a soon-to-be-published interview with GamesIndustry International, Hartmann noted that the film industry still has an advantage over video games in the sense that movie directors can easily portray strong emotions, like sadness or love. Because that’s difficult to do in games, many developers go back to the action and shooter games, which are safer bets.”
Yes, because early games did not have strong emotions at all. Books don’t have strong emotions at all. Animated movies or comics/mangas cannot have strong emotions at all. Only when a character looks exactly like a celebrity or a real person down the street can there be strong emotions. People are forgetting the role of writing, design, music, scenario, art styles, believability, character development, and all these things. I thought the “war to be the most realistic looking game” was supposed to be over?
Until all the AA games stop thinking that the only way to make a good game is trying to make it a Quick Time event based movie where you shoot middle easterns/save the world from dragons or demons, then they can focus on characters, unique art styles, good writing, and things which actually make strong emotions.
“ it will be very hard to create very deep emotions like sadness or love, things that drive the movies”
Most movies nowadays are just remakes or sequels of existing movies. Probably like 90% of the movies are this way. I know there are some good movies out there still, but it’s just amazing just how much AA game developers want to be movie makers nowadays. Basically, playing a movie except you are the one that presses the button to shoot the middle eastern/kill the dragon or demon instead of seeing the character on screen do it. There are some games like Uncharted where this apparently works well (it seems nice, I haven’t played it so I cannot say this with authority), but variety is good. Not every game has to be x or has to have x!
As I said before, animated movies, older games, books, comics, mangas and all these things can have different styles but still can convey these deep emotions. Perhaps it would be good to go over an example.
Final Fantasy 6. They had a character called Locke, who was a thief (self proclaimed treasure hunter). He was nearly always talking and was the one who talked the most out of the whole group. He had a lover called Rachel which he led into a cave to go treasure hunting with her, but due to an accident, she fell down and lost her memory and was injured. After that, Locke tried visiting her but her parents didn’t want him around and blamed him for what happened, and Rachel got upset at him because she doesn’t remember him and that her parents get angry when he gets around. “Go! I don’t know who you are, but ever since you came here my parents got upset!”. Pretty sad when he hears this come from the one he loved.
Later on, Rachel dies in an attack and Locke wasn’t there to visit. The last thing she said was his name, but he wasn’t there to be with her. Rachels body is still around, but she’s dead, just being kept around by a crazy old man who takes care of her body. His overprotecting quality of girls comes in because of this, he doesn’t want this to happen to anyone else.
In a late game dungeon, he goes looking for the Phoenix esper, to try to revive Rachel. He brings it to her body, hoping something would happen. You see him blink twice, nothing happens. He hangs his head down, utterly defeated. The espers gem (magicite) reacts, releases the phoenix, and then shatters. The music, Forever Rachel plays here. Rachel is revived, but she tells him it’s temporary, and is glad to see him at least for a little bit. Locke, the overly talkative character, is incapable of saying anything here other than her name during the entire scene. She she tells him that he made her happy and that’s how she left her life, and lets him be able to forgive himself and move on.

I had to watch this scene again just to make sure I got the details all right, and it is such a sad scene. There are other really good scenes in this game too. It is very effective, and knowing there’s old games with such powerful and memorable scenes despite not having Photorealistic graphics.
Posted in my tumblr, copied over for this blog.



















