Twisted Metal: Black

Keeping it real... but why?

Hey everyone, well I actually wrote a long post for this topic a few days ago, but guess what... power outage, and Tricho has no UPS. Anyway, I remember the gist of it...

While playing TM2 the other day, I remembered an old thought of mine. These days, there's a trend taken by designers of most video games, namely, to devote as much time as possible to improving upon the graphics of the game. The logic of the creative minds is that by attempting to use the capabilities of the console to its fullest, and by making the graphics more true-to-life, the player will end up being immersed into the gaming environment. Presumably, the player will be more motivated to play the more he "feels" the threat of his enemies in the game. A good thing, right?

Well, there are obvious problems with this trend too. It's fine if the designers want to make the graphics impressive, but it's another thing altogether if they focus so much on the graphics that other aspects of the game are neglected. And this is what I believe is often the case, there are simply too many games which look astounding, but have shallow gameplay. Luckily Twisted Metal is an exception to this.

Which brings me to my point. I can't speak for TM1 because I haven't had enough exposure, but think about TM2. It was released very early in the lifetime of the PSX, and its graphics were nothing to boast about. But anyone who played it was sure to give two thumbs up to the gameplay. And when you consider that a very significant proportion of Twisted Metal fans prefer TM2 over TMB, this should be evidence enough that gameplay is more important than graphics. Even to those who won't admit it.

And then consider the features of TM2 (and also TMB, though arguably to a slightly lesser extent) which made it unique, and which greatly enhanced its Fun Factor. The physics engine was not very realistic: 360-degree turns without driving; jumping vertically into the air without any damage the car itself upon impact; (and then) freezing other cars to stop their motion... from which they later recover; even the twisted fun of being allowed to drive happily over pedestrians on busy streets in Paris. I say that TMB was more realistic because TM2 also allowed the player to attempt many stunts which TMB did not, and these include: leaping from building to distant building high above NY city; the Turbo feature was more exaggerated in TM2.... but it made the gameplay as free and memorable as it was; being able to use Ravines in Paris to ramp onto high rise buildings, even with slower vehicles. Although TMB was also addictive, according to my theory, thanks to unrealistic features, the gameplay itself was generally more realistic than TM2. (This is a bit ironic, since TMB is the "Black Universe" where the unrealistic would be more expected to fit in... ).

And when you think even further on the topic, this idea that "unrealistic gameplay increases a game's fun factor" is also consistent with other classic titles. Think about it: there were classic video games dating all the way back to the 80s (probably even before?), yet the graphical capabilities didn't substantially improve for many years to come. And I for one would rather play Tetris, Pac Man, Super Mario World or any of those old, "inferior", games with bad graphics than say.... TM3 or TM4?

So I'm asking you this: why do game designers continue to limit themselves with reality, i.e. why do they make their games less appealing by not allowing their imaginations to run wild? And do you think that Twisted Metal would be the same if everything were completely true to life? Am I just completely wrong here?