HL2:Lost Coast most realistic game?
December 12, 2005 1:30 PM   Subscribe

Is there a game out that is more realistic than Half-Life 2: Lost Coast?
posted by pwally to Media & Arts (28 answers total)
 
Yes. Half-Life 2: Lost Coast played on this monitor.
posted by pmbuko at 1:34 PM on December 12, 2005


I don't think so... Half-Life 2 is an absolutely beautiful game. After I finished it, I went to play something else and was amazed at how much the other game looked like crap.
posted by clarahamster at 1:55 PM on December 12, 2005


realistic in what sense?
posted by delmoi at 1:57 PM on December 12, 2005


There's something about the colors of HL2 (HDR-enabled or not) that makes it seem less than real to me. And the HDR rendering resembles the perspective of a dynamic-range limited camera more than it does the human eye.

I mean, it also depends on what you mean by realistic. HL2 didn't pass the realism test to me partially because so much of it is on rails. A "realistic" game would allow for more choice of movement and advancement.

To me, a game like Battlefield 2, despite the abstracted gameplay, is more "realistic" because it features freedom of action in a believable environment and unpredictable (human) adversaries.
posted by selfnoise at 2:00 PM on December 12, 2005


The Source engine and the Doom 3 engine both have significant limitations, but at this moment are probably the front-runners for realism. Source has HDR, Doom 3 has bump/spec mapping and dynamic shadow-casting by all geometry, and Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory has (as of the latest patch) parallax mapping. It will be interesting to see who wins the race to precomputed radiance transfer functions.
posted by Ryvar at 2:53 PM on December 12, 2005


HL2 didn't pass the realism test to me partially because so much of it is on rails

Ruby, on rails = good
HL2, on rails = bad

???????????????


Slightly on-topic: skallas, what sort of machine do you have? I have a medium-good rig right now (AMD Athlon64 2800+, GeForce 6600GT 128 AGP, 1GB DDR RAM, SATA HDD) and the only time I had any framerate issues with Lost Coast was at the very end as I was being lowered down the cliffside in the basket elevator.

Played it twice through on varying settings, same thing. I had more problems with vanilla HL2 and the stutter-during-teleportation-sequences issue, than with Lost Coast.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 3:03 PM on December 12, 2005


Maybe Doom 3 when it's dark and there's sirens flashing and flames being tossed by hell deamons or what have you. But that's only a tiny fraction of the game (or is it the whole game, sigh).
posted by furtive at 3:06 PM on December 12, 2005


Oblivion (Elder Scrolls IV) isn't quite out yet (it was pushed back till Spring), and it doesn't (that I'm aware) take advantage of HDR, but these screenshots are amazing. Check the forest shots in particular: 3rd, 4th and last rows.
posted by zanni at 3:10 PM on December 12, 2005


cyrus: being 'on rails' as applied to gaming means that the game is very linear in nature. Most FPSes very much lead you down a set trail from which no significant deviation is possible - designers use all sorts of tricks to create the illusion of freedom, but ultimately if you push the boundaries the immersion is broken.

In games like the Grand Theft Auto series, The Elder Scrolls series (Morrowind and the upcoming Oblivion), and Warren Specter's FPSes (Thief 1, 2, and Deus Ex) the game environment is very open with the ability for the player to accomplish the given task in a variety of ways. Making the game and AI react intelligently to all possible methods of accomplishing a task in such an open environment is a massive programming accomplishment, which is why it's so rare.

Also, it means that the scripted events level designers spend hundreds of hours on might be missed entirely by the player. Call of Duty, Half-Life, Doom 3, etc. are all very much on rails.
posted by Ryvar at 3:14 PM on December 12, 2005


zanni: Oblivion uses normal/spec/parallax mapping ala Splinter Cell 3 as well as HDR.
posted by Ryvar at 3:16 PM on December 12, 2005


Doom 3 is pretty realistic if you spend most of your time in pitch-black echo-y hallways. Half-life is on rails, as mentioned above. I would say halo 2. Battlefield 2 also.
posted by puke & cry at 3:18 PM on December 12, 2005


Oh and ditto on the Elder Scrolls comment above.
posted by puke & cry at 3:18 PM on December 12, 2005


Response by poster: I meant mainly in terms of physics engine, graphics, and how REAL it is. Specifically: if its not the most like real life, then what is? GTA is great, but I dont buy into how I dont die when I fall off my motorcycle, and that I jump like super mario.
posted by pwally at 3:26 PM on December 12, 2005


BR2 realistic and open-ended? It has an invisible fence around the playing area, for God's sake!

pwally: There's no more realistic game than HL-2, that I know of, according to the terms as you've defined them. Haven't played Oblivion, but I imagine it's not going to try to compete with Half-Life in those terms, either, though it will certainly surpass it in terms of open-endedness.
posted by Hildago at 3:46 PM on December 12, 2005


BR2 = BF2 :)
posted by Hildago at 3:46 PM on December 12, 2005


Red Orchestra mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 is disturbingly real in terms of how easily you die, etc. - you don't even get crosshairs unless you're aiming through your iron sights.
posted by Ryvar at 3:47 PM on December 12, 2005


Rvyvar: being 'on rails' as applied to gaming means that the game is very linear in nature. Most FPSes very much lead you down a set trail from which no significant deviation is possible - designers use all sorts of tricks to create the illusion of freedom, but ultimately if you push the boundaries the immersion is broken.

When I judge games I think of something Kurt Vonnegut says in his standard* speech. He remarked that people are always asking him whether we should have computers in schools. He replies "Of course, how else would the children learn what it is the machines want them to do?" At the time I was playing one of the Tomb Raider games, and it made me realize that the TR programmers were just trying to get me to perform a very specific sequence of button pushes. Now I have very little tolerance for that sort of thing. I see just a little of it in HL2.

* "Have you heard me speak before? Well, it's the same old crap."
posted by neuron at 4:05 PM on December 12, 2005


Half-Life 2, as far as the graphical look and feel, is probably the best-looking game I've ever seen. The physics engine also gives it a good boost in the realism department (although it needs some work -- when I shoot a grenade at a dead body, I want bloody pieces, dammit!)

The Doom 3 engine is the only good competition I've seen, mainly because of its dynamic shadows. HL2 beats the crap out of Doom 3 in the character animations and outdoor environments, though.

However I can see lots of room for improvement in the Source engine (HL2's engine for those who don't know). Character models don't have soft shadows, only have vertex lighting, etc. Dynamic lighting is limited (because despite all its shader advances, Source's world geometry is basically the Half-Life 1 engine, which is in turn basically the Quake 1 engine -- really!). Wide-open outdoor areas still aren't handled very well by the engine.

But man, that sun glistening off the wet sand in Lost Coast sure looks good.
posted by neckro23 at 4:21 PM on December 12, 2005


Ryven.
posted by -harlequin- at 4:33 PM on December 12, 2005


(apples and oranges, but the question didn't specify a genre, and I do love that art)
posted by -harlequin- at 4:37 PM on December 12, 2005


pwally, ultimately there isn't really one good answer to your question because different games focus on different things.

You're not going to get better outdoor graphics than Oblivion for a long, long time. Check video #2 from the E3 presentation - they talk about how all those forests in Oblivion are actually generated by a complicated series of algorithms that model soil erosion, rock formation, etc. Artists aren't responsible for those forests. This is in addition to the HDR/parallax mapping combo the game serves up.

For indoor graphics you're not going to do better than Doom 3/Quake 4. That engine's implementation of dynamic shadowcasting, the normal mapping, etc. really doesn't have much competition on the market right now.

For physics Half-Life 2 has no parallel (and for general-purpose rendering it's engine is great). Nothing else on the market that I'm aware of really comes close.

For accurate damage models in terms of your character and your enemies reacting realistically to getting shot (individual limbs being disabled, 1-3 shots being lethal depending on caliber) Red Orchestra and America's Army. Battlefield 2 is a good bit below those two but deserves mention just because it's a wide, open, interactive battlefield to play on. More to the point, it's probably the best compromise with realism I've seen that keeps fun gameplay intact.
posted by Ryvar at 5:13 PM on December 12, 2005


Harlequin, it's "Riven" (sorry, HUGE HUGE HUGE fan of the Myst games) but yes, gorgeous game it is indeed.

Ryvar--I know quite well what it means for a game to be "on rails", I was just being cute/sarcastic. Sorry :)

And while I agree that HL2 was quite linear, I personally didn't mind much at all; yea, it'd be awesome if a game with such immersive graphics and attention to detail had more room to explore, but as it is I enjoyed it thoroughly. Just finished my fourth or fifth playthrough (albeit as a heavy mod which added some minor-to-major touches here and there, not least of which was a lot more weapons).
posted by cyrusdogstar at 5:17 PM on December 12, 2005


I meant mainly in terms of physics engine, graphics, and how REAL it is.

In that case, I'd imagine it doesn't compare to a recent flight simulator like MSFS 2004.
posted by mendel at 5:35 PM on December 12, 2005


The Unreal 3 engine certainly looks promising.
posted by ludwig_van at 5:42 PM on December 12, 2005


Funny, harlequin, my first thought on looking at those screenshots was "wow, it's [almost] as pretty as Riven".
posted by Mars Saxman at 10:30 PM on December 12, 2005


Gah, Ryven was an online Myst/Riven fansite, I don't know how that came out instead of Riven. Oops :)
posted by -harlequin- at 3:30 AM on December 13, 2005


Actually, I blame Ryvar :)
posted by -harlequin- at 3:31 AM on December 13, 2005


There are some highly-realistic fishing/hunting sims, and any chess game, for example, is a closer approximation of playing chess than Doom is an approximation of fighting demons in a postapocalyptic wasteland (or whatever). Also, what mendel said about flight sims, and driving sims in general.
posted by box at 7:25 AM on December 13, 2005


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