Why realistic graphics freak us out
As we all get ready for the Xbox2, PSP, Nintendo DS and Revolution and the PS3, console makers are constantly hyping up which platform will have the better graphics and who will whip who's ass when it comes to making in game characters (traditional the hardest thing to code) look the best.
Well did they ever think maybe we don't want that? Check out this article from M$ own puppets over at Slate. The author argues that
"It's part of the malaise that currently affects game design, in which too many designers assume that crisper 3-D graphics will make a game better. That may be true when it comes to scenery, explosions, or fog. But with human faces and bodies, we're harder to fool. Neuroscientists argue that our brains have evolved specific mechanisms for face recognition, because being able to recognize something "wrong" in someone else's face has long been crucial to survival."
How true is that. I mean in today's age of "Let's make sure HL2 characters kick Doom's characters asses" I have never seen a game that made me think "Oh shit that person is actually a real-life actor". As the author states our human eyes can always pick out what's fake.
The author goes on to say "In the real world of plastic surgery, face-lifts used to look horrifically strange but now go unnoticed. Likewise, we've played with dead, fish-eyed characters for so long that they seem kinda normal. Creepiness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder." Amen to that brother! Well you do work for M$ SO let's just say Amen to that thought.
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