Videogame Aesthetics and the Quest for Photo Realism

November 9, 2005 | Entertainment, Video Games

I’ve just read an interesting post on videogame aesthetics all about the quest for photorealism and it got me thinking.

Realism is boring, I find the quest for realistic gaming as pointless as photo realistic animated movies. The main problem is that we are surrounded by real things, we see them every day - so what’s the point of reproducing them? Since we’re so aware of the things around us when they are reproduced we notive every little thing that is out of place in a game or movie, we won’t necessarily know what is wrong, just that something isn’t right.

For example whilst the animation in Prince of Persia is stunning, the movement controlled by the player (turning around, moving close to the edge of a cliff/ ledge etc) can be very jerky. This is largely because of the need for a response. In games animations & movement have to …

A Big Ad

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I don’t like internet advertising and I keep away from the viral crap, but I had to post this Very Big Ad

Marketing genius - I love it.

Parallels between Xbox 360 and the Dreamcast

November 7, 2005 | Video Games

23 eerie parallels between Xbox 360 and the Sega Dreamcast - an amusing take on the possible future of the xBox. Number 13 made me laugh. Followed up on page 2 by some opposing points to balance the argument but it’s quite amusing.