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The Eye Of The Beholder
One of the most overused words in the videogame writer’s lexicon is the word ‘realistic’. I’m as guilty of it as the next person, but I always feel slightly, um, guilty whenever I use it, especially in reference to graphics. Because even those titles which are widely seen as exemplars of game realism, be they Crysis or Mass Effect or Grand Theft Auto, are themselves stylised in some way. So what is it that we mean when we say that a game is realistic? Are we talking about verisimilitude? Detail? Atmosphere? More interesting to me are the conventions that games have amassed over time – from double-jumps to infinite depth of field to lens flare – that end up creating a type of videogame reality that we rarely have reason to question. Until some development comes along that forces us to do so.
I had a moment like that when I first received my Xbox 360 review unit in 2005 along with a slew of launch titles from various publishers. From Perfect Dark Zero to Condemned, from Project Gotham Racing 3 to Need For Speed: Most Wanted, each game made me feel as though my eyes were being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of onscreen visual detail. It was as if I didn’t know where to look, or even how to look at what I was seeing, so different did those titles seem to me from their last-generation counterparts.
In hindsight, a good deal of this is probably due to overdone, poorly implemented effects like normal mapping and depth of field, and in fairness, it takes developers time to master their new tools. But what I blamed at the time on ‘too much realism’ had, in fact, been caused by the gap between what I’d come to understand as ‘videogame realism’ from the previous six years of games and what I was now playing. But after several months of playing Xbox 360 titles, followed by those that launched with PlayStation 3, I became accustomed to this generation’s adjusted standard for videogame verisimilitude and never looked back.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when Killzone 2 elicited a similar sense of visual disorientation. After all, when I went hands-on with the game’s opening mission at E3 2007, I distinctly remember feeling as though there were something oddly unnerving about the texture of Killzone 2’s imagery, only to have Guerilla’s leads explain how each of their post-processing techniques could help take what looked like a sunny mid-afternoon and transform it into an environment that looks as though all of the hope has been leached out of it. But at the events leading up to E3 as well as E3 itself, I all but ignored Killzone 2 to focus on other titles that were making their debut at the show. So it wasn’t until late last autumn and early this year, while playing the first 30-40 per cent of the game, that I had the chance to reflect on the various ways in which it calls into question our notions of what constitutes videogame realism.
Cliff Bleszinski described one of Gears Of War’s aesthetic premises as ‘destroyed beauty,’ the way that the environments combine the splendour of Seran architecture with the detritus of the planet’s ruins. Gears 1 and 2 have their share of slimy surfaces and gruesome killings, but the images themselves are by and large appealing to the eye. That’s because for all of the additional graphical details that Gears may have when compared to last generation’s titles, people still expect to derive a certain amount of visual pleasure from the games that they play, whether it’s Halo 3’s gleaming green-purple-chrome colour palette or the saturated deep blues and nightvision greens of COD4.
Killzone 2, by contrast, consistently denies us those pleasures. Yes, its graphics engine is unquestionably stellar. Yet based on the creative and technical art direction for Killzone 2, the guiding principle for Guerilla’s PS3 debut must have been ‘decrepit ugly’. Helghan’s grimy environments clearly weren’t much to look at before the Vektan invasion, but the way that the war has chewed them up further isn’t helping matters. All of this is subtly reinforced by Guerilla’s penchant for supplying a single hint of beauty – lapping waves on a beach; the barest glimmer of sunlight peeking through Helghan’s thick cloud cover – that only serves to augment the game’s overall gloom.
It might be churlish of me to say so, but I’ll do it anyway: Guerilla may have succeeded in its aesthetic aims a little too well. For while all of its visual effects are impeccably implemented, in contrast to the clumsy attempts at the start of this generation, I could have done with the suggestion of devastation instead of a meticulous recreation of it. I’d have preferred a more distanced, iconic representation of Helghan’s scorched surface rather than the flawlessly dismal illustration in the finished game. Four holidays into this generation’s titles, the last thing I expected was that I’d find myself clinging so hard to my long-held assumptions about what defines videogame reality. But if wanting a little more beauty in my games is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
N’Gai Croal is a writer and videogames consultant. You can follow him at ncroal.tumblr.com.
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
I quite enjoy the appearence of killzone, personally. I think the setting conveys the helghan feeling well, and is very atmospheric. I also think that this kind of atmosphere better matches the gameplay style of killzone, which is much slower and more tactical than say Halo or COD (i.e. I can't spin in midair, my gun takes ages to reload, etc.), and the weapons types, which again all feel big, brutal and sluggish, unlike halo with its shiny purple space-lasers and that weird spike thing. In contrast, I think Halo is very pretty but never really conveys an atmosphere to the same extent, and is much more plot driven.
I didn't feel that the lack of plot in killzone took too much away either, as it felt sort of like, you're a soldier there, you don't actually get told everything that's going on. On the other hand Master Chief is always in the know, as he's the big dog.
Anyway, this post wasn't meant to be a weird KZ2 Halo comparison (there are presumably 10,000,000 of them on the net already). What I actually wanted to say was; hopefully there might be some DLC for killzone set in a pretty forest or something! It would be cool to see what guerrilla could do with their uber-graphics engine to make some waterfalls and stuff. Maybe visari has a big eden-style greenhouse or something where he spends his spare time being all luxurious and emperorish. Sounds fun to invade.
Although there is truth to this piece, there are those of us who really enjoy these aesthetics, and I suppose Guerilla Games feel the same.
I've heard many of the similar comments on Fallout 3, the depressing crushing world. But me? I love it. I enjoy that world greatly and Killzone 2 really pleases me with it's bleakness. It is a world destroyed and although I am certain living in one is terrible, it is thrilling to visit.
If you're actually from the DC metropolitan area, it's fun to visit a desolate wasteland of rubble and go "hey, this is where I went to kindergarten!"
I agree whole heartedly with NGai on this one. From almost the first moment I ever saw footage of KZ2 I disliked it. I was impressed by the graphical prowess and the pretty particle effects, but the art style was so lacklustre and dull that I found it impossible to get excited.
After buying the game, I only played it for 3 or 4 days before taking out of the PS3 and never touching it again, and IMO it stands as one of the most ridiculously over-rated and poorly designed games of this generation alongside Prince of Persia.
Anyway, the point you all seem to be missing is that the art style didn't need to reflect the storyline of KZ2, and this is because the art style and the plotline would have been develped hand in hand. Had the designers wanted to set the game in more interesting and attractive environments, they could have simply changed the plot to match their vision. Let's face it, the storyline for KZ2 is one of the weakest ever seen in a AAA title so it's not like they would have been sacrificing the game's integrity much to throw in a forest or a mountain. The only reason Vekta is war-torn and ugly is because the writers MADE it that way, the reason it has no culture is because the creators didn't bother to make any! This game is fiction, remember, straight out of the imagination of people who apparently think only in the colour grey.
Halo didn't look so lush and beautiful because the plot demanded trees and beaches: they simply chose at an early stage to make a beautiful game. And say what you will about GoW's 'Destroyed Beauty' concept, but at least they tried something different.
Killzone subscribes to the exact same Space Marine cliches that have been around since Warhammer 40K and beyond (ESPECIALLY the character models, which are incredibly forgettable...oh, and the Helghast are direct ripoffs from Jin Roh), and I can only assume that the visual concept for the game was 'let's make this look incredibly dull and then cover it all up with shiny particles, yay!'
I'm glad some people found what they wanted in this game, but I honestly don't understand how. Walking through my local run-down town centre gives me all the grey, gritty realism I can stand, and I do not expect the same from videogames.
Good article!
>>Killzone subscribes to the exact same Space Marine cliches that have been around since Warhammer 40K and beyond (ESPECIALLY the character models
Wait, is this the same 40k where giant space-knights painted in bright primary colors with skulls and eagles hanging off their gigantic shoulders fly at each other with holy chainsaws?
maybe you're mistaking 40k for something else, here's what 40k is.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/landingArmy.jsp?catId=cat18000...
you may notice a large blue man with claws bigger than his torso and a halo made of gold.
I'm a big fan of dystopian themes and styling.
Sadly though, franchises like Killzone and Gears exploit these ideas. They just don't have the emotional consistency to live up to their design. They make me see depression and destruction, but not feel it. Rather, they're both like any other gun-crazed shooter out there.
So far, the best dystopian settings I'm crediting Final Fantasy VI and VII and Anarchy Online for. And to a lesser extent Half-life 2 - though for some reason shooters never become as emotional or impressive as other genres.
KZ2 and GOW2 are both great games. But their gritty settings are more gimmicks than mood-inducing.
In terms of the core group of sci-fi themed FPS franchises (Halo & GOW being the other two most folks will think of), Guerilla has actually nailed the battlefield "look" the best. The game reminded me of some actual war footage as well as a couple of favorite war films, including Robert Aldrich's Attack! (1956).
If you get a chance to play through the original Killzone (a good idea for those who for some reason can't "get" the sequel's story for some reason), it's clear that the art direction was also going for as naturalistic/unattractively realistic as the PS2 allowed. War is indeed hell, especially on the landscape.
The story itself needs to be taken into account. Review the history of Vekta provided to us in the game. The planet was never a nice place to live. It was never a place of art and archetecture like Sera colony was. It was never idyllic and then bent to war. Vektan resources were always put into the military, to defend itself. It's people live in squallor in order to have a hope off fighting a more powerful and more established enemy.
Killzone 2 is unique in this way. I'm all for destroyed beauty but I don't need it to be in every shooter I play for the next three years.
It's funny you mention this -- I once discussed Fallout 3 with a friend who said he simply couldn't play the game for long periods of time because the world was so drab, dreary, and depressing that he couldn't enjoy himself, which, to him, is of paramount importance when playing a video game. And I'm sure that "decrepit ugly" was on the docket for that game as well as for Killzone 2 -- it just seems like that's the type of world both developers wanted to create, and the emotions that the Capital Wasteland and Helghan evoked in my friend and in you, respectively, were probably 100% intended (and the desired results for Bethesda and Guerrilla, respectively).
Killzone 2's probably the best looking shooter out right now to me though because of its art direction and character design. Gears has great environments, but I love the design Killzone puts into the soldiers, weapons, and vehicles is really a step beyond to me. There's a sense of culture behind the helghast's look. I used to think "man, they look so cool why can't I play as one", then I realized "shooting at them lets me look at them more often". There's a distinct sense of culture behind the faction's designs. Often in gears i'll be shooting at my own guys at a distance because everyone is a beefy man in grey body armor. Gears is a great looking game, but the locust and cogs basically look the same in guns, armor, and being big and beefy.
It just seems very odd to me that an article specifically about the look of a game, and nothing is mentioned about the character design. Does that sort of thing not register to you when looking at a videogame's aesthetics, or did Killzone's designs just not stand out to you?
At the same time, when a game has terrible character design, it stands out to me no matter how nice their graphics engine or environments supposedly are.
>>It might be churlish of me to say so, but I’ll do it anyway: Guerilla may have succeeded in its aesthetic aims a little too well. For while all of its visual effects are impeccably implemented
I feel you are missing the point though, it's an environment to see cool looking helghan soldiers run around, shoot their guns, and drive their tanks in. The point of Helghan is also, yes, this is an ugly, terrible planet. Gears was "this was once a livable and quite nice environment but then the badguys destroyed it". for Killzone it's "this planet is brutal and ugly, it was never beautiful, this is where the helghast are from". Their ancestors didn't go there by choice, they were forced to. At the same time, it's their home now. You fight miners who are going to protect their ugly little planet from you, the invader, because that ugly little planet is all they have.
Doesn't this ugliness actually fit Killzone's story, just as Gears's destroyed beauty fit theirs?
If you want to get even deeper into it... the only beautiful thing on helghan is the helghast. They were created by that planet, their struggles have made them strong, they use really cool lookin' equipment. There's no flowers in the meadow, but there is a wonderfully designed special forces helmet, or a solid looking grav tank. That's their artwork, only in war do they express themselves.
>>But if wanting a little more beauty in my games is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
yet to me Killzone 2 delivers on that beauty (gears does too). For you to not think so, I want to know what the difference is in what we see.
One thing to consider is that, before you even picked up Gears, you already knew what to look out for
"Destroyed Beauty", Cliffy B already put the idea in your head this game's aesthetics would be something else.
Now for Killzone, did any of its creators give you a buzzword? I don't recall any. That already changes your experience if you already have the idea on your head of how it'll be in the first place. The same way movies advertise certain points to sell them.
You put that very well. There is an element of the pre-fed expectations, Gears IS about the destruction of a beautiful world, and you see it everywhere perfectly but without being told that to begin with I NEVER would of thought to myself "wow, this all must of been beautiful once", I'd enjoy it the same but not apply a description.
And yes, Helgahn is supposed to be a desolate and violent planet with the only value being immensely valuable resources to be mined out. The world is supposed to be (as the really, very silly) name implies, Hellish.
There is no denying the story in Killzone 2 is not all that, but the direction of the art is achieving exactly what it should. And it would be ridiculous for them to have tried to pretty it up despite the two previous games making a big point about how miserable Helgahst is supposed to be.
Killzone and Liberation are both set on Vekta, a previously liveable and pleasant planet invaded by the Helghast (such a poor name!) invaders from a desolate and brutal planet. Killzone 2 is the first venture TO that miserable planet. And I think it was done very effectively.