Use of Realism and Style in Videogames, The

By John Huxley
24th May 04

Article Introduction

This is another of my essays for my Computer and Videogames course. It isn't quite as good as my first one and the mark I got reflects this. I waffle on for too long about MGS2 and Shenmue at the start, but the parts about the Neogeo Pocket and the latter sections are fairly decent. I was restricted by a much tighter word limit (you'll be glad to know!) and the subject just didn't interest me as much as the last one did. Still, hope you enjoy it.

The Use of Realism and Style in Videogames

Videogames are unique in that they are not there to be viewed, looked at or visually decoded at any great length by it's audience. They only exist to be played, and any visuals should only enhance the way that the game plays - in an ideal world. The reality is that games with flashy visuals and poor gameplay can top the charts with ease; it seems the public is just as impressed with new innovations in technology than it is with deep and involving gameplay. This, however derogatory it may seem, is a natural human trait. Visual language is our most prominent sensual ability, and it is our visual relationship with games that I intend to explore further. Realism is something that videogames have always striven for, but not yet been able to achieve. This is a more complex issue than it first appears to be. As Raymond Williams says:

"Realism is a difficult word...with a very complicated linguistic history...realism in art and literature is both a method and a general attitude"

First I intend to define the way in which I am going to use the concept of realism. At first realism seems to have an obvious meaning, in that it deals with something which accurately represents the real world. But there are problems with this, first in the area of perception, as everybody potentially sees the world differently. Secondly, and most importantly, you only have to look at documentaries from the 1930s, 1950s and modern 'fly on the wall' films to see how different each generations idea of 'real' is. As Ira Konigsberg explains it:

"Realism in the film, then, is always relative and its illusion depends on the techniques of the medium"

Despite all these complications it is possible to say that videogames have often tried in recent years to produce an illusion of reality that is comparable to that produced by film. Ultimate realism in film can be defined when the audience does not even notice a special effect when it appears on the screen. Videogames have not yet been able to achieve such results, they have been more concerned with merely creating a realistic 'look and feel' using complex, photo-realistic backgrounds and characters detailed enough to reinforce the illusion of watching a film, or at least give the impression of some reality.

The alternative course of action, of course, is to make the characters and the world they inhabit more 'cartoony' and deliberately unreal and exaggerated. Following either path is a decision that game developers must deliberately traverse before the game reaches any kind of solid state, and it is the factors that make up this decision that I intend to explore further. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is an ideal example to look at the problems encountered with realism in videogames. At first glance Metal Gear Solid 2 (MGS2) seems to be possibly the most realistic game ever created - the character models, backgrounds, effects and most importantly, interaction with all three is beyond what the audience has grown to expect from a videogame. MGS2 revolves around the character Solid Snake and his job with an anti-terrorist organization; the game is aptly described as 'tactical espionage action'. When expectations are broken with games like MGS2 it comes as a shock to learn that the developers have left out some seemingly simple details and gameplay elements that could have easily been made just as realistic as the rest of the game. For example, when Snake encounters a guard he can shoot it in any part of the body and gain a realistic reaction, even the amount of blood spilt is proportional to the body part shot. However, merely knock the guard unconscious and a cartoon-like set of stars cycle around it's head to tell the player he's out for the count. Similarly, exit the room after killing a guard and re-enter it, and Snake will suddenly be faced with the same guard he just killed. These inconsistencies in realism are easy to explain away - they are for the players benefit and enjoyment and serve only to enhance the players experience while playing the game. If there was no indication that the player had only knocked the guard out and not killed it, the player would be angry when the guard suddenly wakes up and alarms the other guards to Snake's presence.

The Sega game Shenmue is perhaps the opposite to MGS2. In Shenmue you take control of the character Ryo Hazuki as he tries to avenge his farther's death. The game is set in 1986 in Yokosuka, Japan where the player has total control over almost every aspect of Ryo's life. Your day starts as Ryo wakes up (the time he wakes up depends on the time you went to bed the night before), from here you can buy food, drink, music, go to the arcades, practice your fighting skills (to avenge your father's death, of course) or simply go for a stroll in the park. Even more realistic are the other people who inhabit Shenmue's world. If the need should take you, you can follow the shopkeepers after work to their individual houses in the suburbs. Each citizen has their own method of transport - some prefer to walk, others ride a bike, and some take the bus home (which you can also catch a ride on, at a cost). Even the children are only out on the streets after school and all day weekends - you can even catch them on their way to school in the morning, clad in their navy blue school uniforms. The lure of taking total control over someone's life was too much for many gamers, as Shenmue sold very well all over the world. However, the game was also horribly expensive to make, as some of the technology behind all this realism (like the 'magic weather' system, which generates random weather depending on the season and time of year) was unbelievably expensive. Realism obviously costs, so games like Shenmue are slim in number.

Despite Shenmue's many aspects of realism, it's visuals are strangely departed from the rest of the game. The characters aren't particularly cartoon-like in their looks, yet it would be foolish to suggest that they are totally realistic - Shenmue's characters are stylistic in their appearance, and it is this style that gives the game a unique appeal. If the characters were photorealistic it would have taken more effort and technology to convey expressions and emotions in the characters faces. The game's developer Yu Suzuki is able to encode what he wants to convey to the players easily with a more simplistic face and the players are, in turn, able to decode that message much more quickly.

It is this instant recognition of certain emotions of the face that is most prevalent in comics. Japanese comics often use a technique called SD (super deformed) which is basically exaggerating the size of the head and it's features to create 'cute' characters, and is very popular in Japan with the younger generation. For games, using SD characters normally has no real benefit other than enhanced aesthetics - Capcom's Super Gem Fighters, for example. However, when we look at handheld gaming, popularized by Nintendo's Game & Watch series and it's absurdly popular Gameboy we can see the benefits of using SD characters. Super Street Fighter Alpha on the Gameboy Colour uses the realistically proportioned characters from the original arcade version, but due to it's inferior screen size (mere inches) the head and faces of these characters become nothing more than a few pixels resting atop a body. SNK's less popular, but technologically superior Neogeo Pocket Colour was never going to house such deficiencies in design. SNK knew from day one that if it's games on the Neogeo Pocket were to have all the flavor of their big brothers, they would need to use SD characters. Comparing SNK's Match of the Millennium (MOTM) with Capcom's Street Fighter Alpha shows how SD characters can benefit a handheld game - MOTM's fighters have fingers, eyes, hair, ears and even accessories that move fluidly and with sufficient detail that the public can recognize and understand what the developers originally intended to express. SD is merely an extreme instance of a well known and recognized visual language within comics. As Scott McCloud writes in 'Understanding Comics'

"When you look at a photo or realistic drawing of a face you see it as the face of another. But when you enter the world of the cartoon you see yourself"

I cannot say that I see myself in any of the characters in MOTM, but seeing something that the human mind can easily recognize as a face, to know what that character is thinking or feeling just through a few simple lines is doubtlessly an advantage in an art form that relies on it's fast pace and an audience that doesn't want to study the visuals in any great detail. It is this 'style' that enables the player to quickly understand the game, and is instigated quite purposefully by it's creators to avoid any misunderstandings in the public's attempts to decode their work. However, not every game is marketed at an audience that needs this kind of attention. For many years films have been operating on numerous different levels, not least that of 'avant garde' cinema. Experimental and avant garde films take many forms, ranging from mainstream experiments such as The Lady in the Lake (1947) where almost all of the film is shot from the first person perspective, to abstract films such as Dots and Loops (1940, Norman McLaren) where there are no representational images and marks drawn directly on to the film. Despite rare forays into games dealing purely with image creation such as Jeff Minter's Psychedelia for the Commodore Vic 20; these more extreme avant garde films have had, so far at least, little impact on the games industry.

Not every game is centered around humans - a lot of games have inanimate objects for their starring role (in Kula World you were given the role of a plastic beach ball) while other games involve no characters, inanimate objects or anything else to control. Tetris is the most famous example, with nothing but floating blocks in various shapes and sizes for the player to fit together. Although a comparison could be drawn to children's building blocks Tetris is nevertheless an abstract idea. Where as abstract films are misunderstood and vilified by the general public, abstract games have every possibility of topping the charts just like their more rational siblings. This is because despite Tetris' abstract theme, it's gameplay is anything but abstract - its based around logical thinking and quick reflexes. Try to describe the gameplay in Tetris to anyone who has never played it and you will stumble at the first hurdle - you have no frame of reference and therefore no starting point as Tetris' is a wholly unfamiliar territory. If it were based around a real-world act, however, you would probably be able to describe it in just one or two sentences.

The more recognizable the act, the easier it is to analyze and assess the content. For example, simulation games based around flying aeroplanes are familiar to most eyes, and when played using a yolk-style joystick the gameplay can also mirror the real act quite well. Push the joystick away from yourself to lower the plane, pull back to rise and move it left & right to bank/roll - this control interface mimics a real aeroplane's control system when applied correctly with the appropriate visuals. If the on-screen action was totally unrelated to the interface then realism in gameplay would be out of the question. Very few real-world acts involve pressing square, triangle and R2 to achieve the desired result - at least not any act that's interesting enough to develop into a videogame. Full immersion can be achieved with expensive hardware such as virtual reality, but while playing on a console or computer in your own home the levels of realism are strictly comparative and limited to the hardware at hand.

If videogames are to realize their full potential as a medium they must first understand the connection between visuals and gameplay. This is a symbiotic relationship which should exist only to enhance the quality of the product, yet it is a relationship which is extraordinarily complex and something I couldn't hope to discuss in the space of this essay. Total visual realism is not so far away, but for developers to use this asset in a way that will benefit the game and the player takes more forethought than a simple technical achievement. At some point in the future the search for a kind of 'filmic' realism will have ended and the line between the moving photographic image and the computer generated image will be so blurred as to be indistinguishable. Once this has happened it is perhaps possible that the games industry will be free to develop in new and arguably more creative ways.

-- John Huxley 24th May 04