uber said:
your response didn't deal with my list at all. you dismissed it as praising the graphics. i don't want to repeat myself anymore, but what i don't understand is why you don't get that the realism in killzone is something new to the table. i listed detailed ways how killzone added realism to the genre, and you blew them off or mistreated them in some other way. your crown jewel in your argument has always been sales, but you cannot explain what sales has to do with the discussion. yes, i fully believe that killzone has a higher level of immersion than cod4. i believe cod4 is selling better for two key reasons.
1. name recognition. cod is a very well known and respected franchise. killzone is not. people were more willing to buy cod just for the name. it is seen as a safe bet. killzone sold over seven hundred thousand copies in its first two days, with little to no advertising. what does that tell you? it tells me that there was a huge collection of people waiting for this game. but after they bought it the sales went down fast. this is because casual gamers were not persuaded from name recognition or advertising. 2. the second reason cod4 is selling better is that while it has a great deal more immersion than previous fps, it does not radically change the experience. it still played pretty much the same as the previous call of duty games, just with major enhancements. people like what they already know. why the hell else is summer the time of sequels? killzone presented a fairly radical departure from standard fps play. this is the reason that most gamers either think it is the best ever or that it sucks ass. a game that draws such a sharp division among players is doomed to not sell astronomical numbers.
but to go back to kz's innovation and your failure to digest them, i'll cite a couple of points.
i said the weather was innovative. it took what was normally a benign afterthought and pushed it more to the forefront of the game...thus upping the atmosphere and intensity. you dismissed this as just more praise for graphics. this is poor poor poor. many other games have great graphics, that doesn't mean that the weather will be cast in a different way. what guerilla did was something innovative. sure the game having great graphics made it easier to make more robust weather, but they still had to have the idea to prosecute it. now guerilla did have a few errors in their programming. if you watch smoke closely it doesn't follow true diffusion or brownian motion, and their projectile physics don't take inertia into account. but even with those errors the weather really adds to the enjoyment and realism of the game, and so i include it as a valid innovation.
i said the jump mechanic was innovative. kz does not allow the player to shoot while jumping, as one typically uses one's arms to gain momentum to jump, thus making it impossible to aim and shoot. you responded that halo makes the player take certain things into consideration when shooting while jumping. that really misses the whole point. twitch shooters typically give the feel that the player controls a point in space that has no inertia and can fire weapons from any frame of reference. killzone is the first game i've ever played where it tries to give the feel of controlling a person with inertia and weight. since it is a first attempt it is not perfect, but if that is not the definition of innovation then i am afraid nothing is. it all makes so much sense why people object to the controls once you understand how it changes the gameplay. i confess it is much easier to control a point in space than it is a person, but i don't think it is necessarily a bad thing to learn how to play games where you control a person instead.
i think i've been very clear on these points. there were other innovations i listed, but i figured these encapsulated our empass.
lastly, immersion is not a subjective quality at all. immersion has nothing to do with fun or replayability or online options or anything like that. immersion is about realism. anything that a game does to make it more realistic can up the immersion. the thin line games must walk is that if games were too realistic then they would not be fun. think about it. shooters would be terrible on account of the fact that once you got shot you would pretty much be screwed. game devs have to find the balance between raw realism and fun factor. i think killzone pretty much hit it spot on with the balance. obviously many gamers disagree. |
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Having better realism is NOT INNOVATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's EVOLUTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Plenty of games have tried for realism in FPS. As technology gets better, Realism gets better. Operation Flashpoiont, Battlefield, MOH Allied assault etc etc. Many games opt for reality.
LOL that Realsim is an innovation.
Ive heard it all.
