PGR4’s take on realistic car graphics

I remember years ago looking at a racing game demo running in Dixons. I forget what the game was, or even what console it was running on, but I remember thinking, “Wow, those look like real cars!” Years later I look back and think I must have been pretty naive. I wish I could see that demo again, but somehow I doubt it looked all that realistic.

Jump forward to Project Gotham 3, and I said the same thing, “Wow, this looks so real!” - until Project Gotham 4 came out. Fortunately, I’ve given up on thinking that the latest generation of game is as “real” as it’s going to get. But it did get me thinking…

Games designers are constantly searching for a way to make their graphics look as realistic as possible. Clever shading, volumetric lighting, bump-mapping, ragdoll physics, internal skeletons, and advanced AI are just some of the tricks available. I really want to think about the graphics today, though, and ask the question, “are designers trying too hard to attain realism?”

It’s the little details that make something look realistic, but getting a natural look is very difficult. Designers can end up adding textures to clothing, or even walls, that you wouldn’t really notice if you saw a similar object in the real world. But, because you can see it in the game, it looks forced. When I look at my living room wall I don’t see the texture of the wallpaper because it’s pretty subtle, but there’s a good chance that someone building an in-game model of my house would want to make the texture obvious so that viewers would know it was there and, supposedly, that it was highly realistic. Movement can be another tricky area, where a designer tries to mimic every little nuance of someone’s movements but actually ends up making them look like a puppet on a string.

Perhaps this is a problem with the whole format though. Obviously textures, patterns and nuances are there in real-life, but maybe it’s just that we don’t look at them. Or rather, we do look at them, but we pay them no attention. I mean, when was the last time you checked the grain on the bannister of your stairs? When we load up a game, however, we do become much more likely to check out the realism of otherwise insignificant things. Maybe designers have to put effort into making the details obvious because we expect to see them when, really, we ignore most of the detail around us and focus on the one thing we’re actually doing.

So what do you think? Is there too much detail in video games to make them realistic? Is there not enough? Or should we just forget about the whole realism thing and realise what we’re never going to get a perfect representation of the world in a game?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Anyway, here’s a chess-related game. The idea of Black-Knight is simply to reach the goal, but you can only move as a chess Knight does (a two-by-one L-shape). It’s surprisingly infuriating when you just can’t get your head around how to reach the square you want.

Enjoy, but try not to tear too much of your hair out!

Click the image to play

You know those reviews where the reviewer goes on and on about a game but doesn’t really reveal what they think of it until the end? This isn’t one of those: I LOVE FALLOUT 3!

Honestly, I’m enjoying this so much. Let’s have a look at what’s gripping my attention.

Fallout 3 is produced by Bethesda Softworks, the same programming house who brought us Oblivion. Oblivion was, up until recently, the game I had spent most time playing on the Xbox360: the game-world was so huge and open-ended that even after completing the main story line I was able to spend countless hours wandering round, exploring, and carrying out side-quests. Fortunately, this same freedom has been brought to Fallout 3.

The game is set in the Washington DC area 200 years after a nuclear conflict with China. The entire area looks like, well… like a bomb’s gone off. DC is in ruins, inhabited by super-mutants, ghouls (decaying humans, I think), and various groups vying for control, money, or trying to bring stability. Outside the city there are a ton of isolated settlements and other locations to discover. There’s just so much to do, and you’re completely free to follow the main story or to explore as you wish.

The main story (which I have not completed - I’m having too much fun wandering) begins with you living in vault 101, an underground haven from the nuclear horror above ground. Nobody ever enters or leaves vault 101, except your father and then you. The rest of the story involves trying to track your father down and… well, I won’t tell you too much. The game-world is marvellously realised, though, with many stories, background details, and interactions to keep you going. It feels like there are infinite opportunities for adventuring, even though I know there must be a limit somewhere! According to the manual the game does eventually “end”, but at the moment it feels like it could go on forever (and not in a bad way, either).

Combat is very well done. Ranged weapons can be bought, built, stolen or scrounged from corpses. If you run out of ammo there’s always your trusty baseball bat but I really only use that for squishing Radroaches (mutated cockroaches). If you want you can play combat like any other FPS - point, shoot, dodge your enemy’s attacks - but there’s also the option to pause time and enter V.A.T.S. which will let you concentrate fire on a particular body part. This is handy (no pun intended) as a crippling hit to the leg will slow your opponent down. A hit to the arm stands a good chance of disarming them, whilst a hit to the head prevents them using any attacks involving perception and also seems to do the most damage. There’s even a level-up Perk where a mysterious stranger appears sometimes while you are using a V.A.T.S. attack and assists you in your battle.

All in all, Fallout 3 plays very much like Oblivion. The controls are similar, the mechanics are similar, and the overall style (the free-form exploration, for example) is similar. But the setting is so different and the storylines really are excellent. It’s also great to see that Bethesda seem to have hired a few more voice actors for this game as it was a bit disturbing to fine everyone in Oblivion shared one of three or four voices! I haven’t noticed a duplicate so far on Fallout 3. My only gripe would be that the game sometimes doesn’t realise when you’ve short-circuited part of the story. A few times I’ve been told about something I’ve already dealt with, or a character has spoken as if we’re in one city when we’re really in another. Otherwise, though, I can’t recommend this game highly enough!

So what are you waiting for? If you have one of the platforms this game is available for, get out there and buy a copy! There’s a very good chance you’ll be addicted before long :)

Fallout 3 is rated 18 in the UK and contains scenes of violence, gore and drug use. Be warned! Visit the official Fallout 3 site for more videos and screenshots.

Twibik gives you a grid of shapes. Simply click two identical shapes on the horizontal or vertical and they will disappear along with everything between them. If you clear a row more shapes will drop. The idea is just to get a certain number of moves per level, which is easy to start with but gets harder as the number of variations of shapes increases.

Click the image to play, and have fun!

Well, kind of - Skidtris has you dropping coloured blocks on an uneven surface. If three blocks of the same colour touch, they will disappear earning you points. Unfortunately, if you manage to fill the playing field with blocks you lose. Oh, and if you make any blocks disappear next to the “fixed blocks” at the bottom of the field… you lose :)

Have fun!

Click the image to play

Click the image to play

This week’s Friday Fun is very similar to the iPhone Spore game (I think it’s also similar to the microbe stage of the desktop Spore, but I don’t have that!!).

Anyway, Microbe Kombat sees you swimming around an arena eating proteins and trying to outgrow your opponent microbes so that you can eat them too! Various options and upgrades keep the game interesting as you try to take over your microscopic world.

Great fun and, once again, more than a little addictive :)

photo credit: drumecho

One thing I remember from my childhood was that idea that anyone could be a games programmer. “Bedroom programmers” came up with very simple effective and popular games, many of which would be scorned today or turned into those annoyingly addictive flash games. Codemasters started out very small and very simple, but look at them now!

The games industry is huge now, though, and the idea of someone managing to build and make money from a game in their spare time is by no means as common as it used to be. It’s not impossible, but it’s definitely more difficult - especially given the rise of consoles (console titles are often closely controlled, meaning you can’t just knock out a game and stick it in your console).

Xbox360 owners, however, will soon have the chance to play low-cost, community-built games when Microsoft introduces Xbox Live Community Games this winter (their website says “Holiday 2008). Games creator will get 70% of the sale price of their game when it is sold on Xbox Live.

To have your game listed on Xbox Live you must be a premium member of the XNA Creator’s Club at $99 per year or $49 for four months. It seems Microsoft will also be picking certain games to promote and feature on Live when the time comes.

So, if you’ve got the programming know-how, you could make dome decent money off Xbox Live this Christmas - I mean, how many people will get a new console and decide to download a few games before the shops re-open?

HT 1up.com

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, tower defence games have become very popular online. I have to admit that I’m addicted to them and here’s another of them.

The premise is simple: build towers to defend a path against oncoming random objects. Each tower has different strengths; some fire often but with a weak shot, some fire less frequently but have splash damage, heat-seaking missiles etc.

Click through and enjoy the game.

Warning: Uses flash and has sound, but the sound is not vital

It’s weird how simple games can be so addictive. Here’s another with a very simple premise, but it’ll occupy you for a while: Orange Runner. Try not to think of it as athletics for couch potatoes as you play!

All you do is run by pressing the right-cursor. Collect powerups and jump over obstacles to see how fast and how long you can go. It’s pretty intuitive, collecting batteries is good… running over circular saws is bad :)

Give it a go and let us know how you do! This is a great one if you have a few minutes to spare (e.g. lunch time at work) and just want something you can pick up and play.

Uses flash and has sound - you can put the sound off without losing any game experience

Robokill is a top-down shoot-em-up with RPG elements. You play the hero battling against hoardes of invading robots who have taken over a space station. Your character is moved using the keyboard, but you aim and shoot with the mouse (not great if you’re on a laptop, but once you get the hang of it you’ll be shooting on the move like a pro).

Money dropped by enemies or found in crates can be picked up to buy upgrades, and some enemies drop spare parts that can be added to your setup to increase you shields and/or firepower. Don’t worry too much if you die, you just “lose” some of the rooms you had reclaimed and have to go back and do them again!

Robokill uses Flash and has sound. You can put the sound off without losing too much of the experience.

Click here to play.