3.4. Realism vs. video games

People who play the FPS games a lot when seeing weapon in reality are surprised with the small size and the width of which resembles a „plank”.

Solutions in video games are not coherent with the reality. Sizes are understood similarly to the way they are presented in comic books. Everything seems to be scaled up, huge. It concerns both the models in the world of game and the weapon put in a player’s hands. Weapons used in a game should be solid, massive and of considerable size. All the features should be highlighted in a proper way, presented cartoonish so to say.

Up to some point it derives from purely technical issues (bigger seems better) and from the need to show the power of the weapon (more massive seems stronger). Very realistic models look ridiculous, as if not in the right place.

Yet another noticeable difference between a real object and the game one, is highlighting bulges on the side. In reality weapon is pretty flat – in games we can clearly see the drive to highlight convexity, roundness, etc. Thanks to that an object has definitely better shading and the light (reflections) is better displayed.

Weapon from Brink game and its diversified construction can be a perfect example. Click for marmoset viewer