TITLE: Immersion, or why I couldn't figure any titles for this AUTHOR: Jim9137 DATE: 6/05/2005 01:33:00 ip. ----- BODY:

To bring you a break from all the specific game dissing and wowing, I present you an article of game immersiooon. What is this ugly word? What does it mean? How come we don't get enough- wait that doesn't relate to this discussion. Anyway, immersion. I'll be trying to focus on what makes a game an immersive one, why should it be an immersive one, and then get in the goo' ol' nostalgy train. All this was inspired by me remembering what it was like to blast those sectoids all those years ago in UFO: Enemy Unknown. So, without longer ado, click the read more and read away! --- As much as I'd like to argue that games should be fun or thought provoking and so on, you can't really achieve any of these without proper immersion. Okay, that was a blatant lie, you can. But not in the same degree if you HAD immersion. Tetris for example was fun. But did I get immersed in the game world, did I feel like I was there? That's totally different question. Assuming you get immersed, assuming that you really feel like you're in the game doing all those weird things the game wants you to do for a reason, then you're in for one helluva ride. Too bad all the modern games have failed me in that degree more than I can count. Starting from the famous Half-Life, I haven't gotten really impressed or immersed by anything really, not yet, but I hope I will someday. At least, that's pretty much only thing why I'm still playing games. Have you ever read a book that captures you in it's world so much that you lose the track of the time? Have you ever watched a movie so keenly that you didn't notice you're dribbling on your shirt? Yes, that's what I'm talking about. But with games, it's harder to achieve. You have to have few basic things in order to even consider the immersion value, and these are:

Graphics, you don't need funky 3D graphics to achieve the effect, XCom managed to do it and it was just VGA, as long as they fit the game and actually have something to contribute!
Gameplay, if you're struggling with the interface half the time, you can say bye bye to the immersion. If everything plays smoothly it's going to way easier to achieve. BUT! There are always exceptions. System Shock 1 had most annoying interface ever, and it still creeped me out. And to manage to creep me out, you need to have immersion!
Atmosphere, related to the last point. Halo loses it's atmosphere faster than a jumbojet falls from the sky thanks to it's BLATANT COPY PASTEING, and so goes the immersion! But System Shock 1 managed to keep it up with the help of various ways, and even Doom 3 have managed to achieve this with pitch-black rooms and monsters jumping out. For some at least. (Really, pitch-black rooms were last used in Doom as far as I know. Such simple way to give the player a heartattack!)
Story. And this is probably the most contributing factor to the immersion. Simply having a story doesn't mean it's going to be helpful to the immersion, but having a good story or one that gives you the feel that you're actually affecting the game world and it's characters in some way, it's going to immerse you in faster than a Joq drinks 36 pints. I could've labelled this as Interaction, but I'll just slap it under Story, because interaction is pointless if you don't have a reason why!

So, why should a normal gamer care about these things? Why am I even bothering to write about crap like this? For starters, X-Com wouldn't have been so successeful if it didn't provided the feel that you are in fact, the last unit in the Earth capable of fighting against the hordes of aliens. It's a kickass way to make a game kickass, and even if the story was lacking... Well, you were in fact making the story for yourself and you felt that your actions had effect. And they actually did, which is even better. A regular gamer should care about it because firstly they give you more your moneys worth than just shooting aliens in your crosshair without deeper meaning. IT'LL BORE YOU FASTER THAN I DO! And the modern games, they really try to achieve this. But in my honest opinion and this is what really matters to this blog, they try to achieve in wrong ways. They have pretty graphics, but the pretty enemies just rush at you and DIE. Or maybe even shoot a grenade at themselves. Only way you can interact is by killing them, you can't shout or beg for mercy or anything like that effect, which you should be able to with this modern technology of ours. But guess I'm daydreaming. Photo-realistic graphics inequals immersion if the inhabitants just stroll around aimlessly, and the trees don't swing with the wind. Story. Halo, although many of you will probably disagree with me in this, had a story copied straight from Ö-Class Scifi book's back cover. NOT FUN OR REALLY IMPRESSIVE. The whole guys jumping behind your jeep thing was cool, but they didn't really comment to the situation or contribute in any other way besides being cannon fodder. And then refusing to follow you without any particular reason. Heck, you can't even talk to them. WASTED POTENTIAL WARNING. Multiplayer games, and especially those hotseat or party games, they really don't need any of this. Just sneering and mocking or gasping in amazement as your unbeatable character finally falls, is enough immersion. Friend sitting right next to you gives an immersion what single-player games have to look from far away. Internet games on other hand, really need people you can play with. Not random leet3noob9399439 from random public server is going to give you a good immersion. No sir. Well, as afterword, I guess my point is that if the game doesn't make you care about the game more than just finishing it, it has failed. Might give you coffeebreak fun but it's not enough of a reason for me to spend 50€ or 60€ as it seems these days to be for a game that fails to amuse me in the long term. Immersion is huge part of the content and I'm expecting the game developers and publishers to finally re-realize that and actually give me that content damnitgoshdarnbee! PS: As some of you might've noticed, the titles of posts are now colored according to the author, to ease your reading. I'm pretty sure most of you are still thinking I'm writing all these articles forced by who else than John9137, but just to prove you wrong, neener! Next challenge will be to give them sort of label according to the type of post.

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