Gamers always say that want a realistic game, and sales may suggest that they genuinely do want a large degree of realism. Gone are the days of Goldeneye where you could hold 15 guns at once, survive grenades all around you, and be filled with 100 bullets. Gone are the days of being able to fall large distances without being hurt. Gone are the days of even just pressing a button to open doors in many cases. What was once a form of entertainment and a way to get lost in another fantasy land has now been heavily replaced with putting gamers in the situations of real life possibilities while also containing their playable character to many real life limitations.
Look on the Xbox 360 and Playstaion 3, most of their best-selling games have utilized realistic graphics and realistic character limitations to a large extent. Nintendo may be the only one that haven’t jumped on board entirely and will still use cartoon style graphics as a primary method to expand the limitations of a universe, expand upon imaginations and get the gamer involved. For this though, they are criticized very often.
This leaves us with the question of how much realism should be implemented into games? Should it be one bullet and you’re down in games? Should you have to restart the entire game if you fail an objective or die once? If the character does not have pockets, should they not be allowed to carry anything with them? If played more than a few hours at a time, should they be forced to stop and rest? Often times things are upgraded or built. Should the character have to take wood or steel, a tool set and have to sit down and physically (in the game world) build up a Steel Entry Door to prevent anything from getting in or to hide?
To most, that seems a bit excessive, but where is the limitation? At what line is enough enough and that an action should just be automatic? Graphics and processors are increasing and the ability to create life simulators is essentially there, so at what point do we cut it off at for “entertainment”?
