No I'm not going to talk about the environment! Even though "Earth Day" was this past Friday. I'm going to talk about the importance of the environment in video games!
The only time I hear about video games and their environments is when they are destructible. If the environment is boring to look at and uninteresting to explore, I don't want to spend any time there, even if I can blow it all to pieces.
I suppose that I consider video games to be a vacation, in that, if a video game doesn't have a beautiful, or at least interesting, environment I really don't like it that much. Nor do I even remember much of it. Most folk are visual learners. So, if what they are seeing is a bland, boring environment, then chances are that they will most likely forget all about it.
Crysis 2 has gorgeous graphics, that are intricately detailed and designed. However it took place in a ruined New York City. I, like many other gamers, have witnessed a city in ruin before and New York is no exception. The game Mirror's Edge also took place in a big metropolis similar to that of New York, but it was interesting to look at because of it's interesting and unique art style. That being said, Mirror's Edge was not the greatest of games and while it looked pretty, it didn't play all that well. Most of the missions and instances were rather forgettable.
Part of what players remember about games are the things that they do in these virtual environments. Freedom Fighters was not a great looking game, but I remember most of what the environment looks like because I remember doing some amazing things. Like blowing up a helicopter pad in a ship yard, or taking a post office over for the rebels. Another example of memorable actions is Call of Duty, the original. Call of Duty is full of fantastic crescendos which players have to fight through. For example, the first mission in the Russian campaign has players storming a Nazi foothold at the top of a hill... without a gun. The sheer fear and panic of just trying to move while having bullets rain down on your position is adrenalin pumping. However, we've gotten to the point where it is standard for a game to look good.
Mass Effect 2 is a great example of having both good looking graphics and interesting gameplay. Mass Effect 2 in itself is interesting as it crosses genres between a role playing game, with the ability to level up and strengthen skills, and a 3rd person action shooter with cover-based gameplay. The game looks cool with a realistic look, and takes players to unrealistic environments... space! Given the opportunity to work with the great unknown, Bioware creates a series of unique interesting places for players to interact with and explore.
There are many games that offer interesting and incredible environments. From the realistic, to the imaginative like the levels in Psychonauts. Level design is an important part of game design, and it should be worked on more carefully in a modern video game industry.
P.S. I have not been updating this blog daily (except on Sundays) like I promised that I would. So I am writing you, the internet, an official I O U. So, the next few days will have more than just a single review. What has kept me from frequently posting you ask?
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