Ooh, yeah, I've been pointed to Exit before and it sounded interesting. Thanks!
I really find it hard to comprehend the desire for plodding realism in video games. We're playing these things to escape from the real world. Model the things that're crucial to the game narrative, but not the things that get in the way of it. It may be more realistic to have to find a burger joint or a hot dog stand to refil your life bar, but goddamn it, I can't find them half the time - not with the ease I could find a luminous health-up floating in the air!
And really, making them "more realistic" just pushes the abstraction of the gameplay into sharper relief. GTAIV does try to give you a lot of options beyond pushing the hurt button, but it also pretty much requires you to do a hell of a lot of that to get anywhere.
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Date: 2008-05-18 07:17 pm (UTC)I really find it hard to comprehend the desire for plodding realism in video games. We're playing these things to escape from the real world. Model the things that're crucial to the game narrative, but not the things that get in the way of it. It may be more realistic to have to find a burger joint or a hot dog stand to refil your life bar, but goddamn it, I can't find them half the time - not with the ease I could find a luminous health-up floating in the air!
And really, making them "more realistic" just pushes the abstraction of the gameplay into sharper relief. GTAIV does try to give you a lot of options beyond pushing the hurt button, but it also pretty much requires you to do a hell of a lot of that to get anywhere.