Normally when I hear about a new videogame being realistic, it is more in the sense of the virtual reality we talked about a few weeks back where the requirements were that it be subversive, allow suspension of disbelief, offer up sensual experience as well as in depth interaction. Primarily, realism sought through an attempt to make visual, audio, and possibly even tactile experience as close as possible to something that the human senses would accept as being close to real with plot lines that could engage the mind. The week after that, we talked about online identity, and a new form of "real" life lived in games where virtual interaction was in some way substituted for life in the "real world."
On the other hand, this article has a different definition for "realism." The above examples would accept a game with dragons and people who fly because visually the game shows this to you and the storyline and rules of the world permit it. Galloway would rather look at "realistic" games as ones that have some sort of "congruence" with the actual world in which we live. It's not just about fooling the senses.
One of the most interesting features of the article, I felt was the story of Toywars. From the graphic shown in the article, the graphics appear to not be at all great, and are at best lego men with gasmasks in a 2-D world:
Yet, Galloway defends it as a game that had a real socialist critique: eToy.com who had its domain years earlier and supported its own version of (potentially semi-pornographic) digital art was literally sued off the internet by late-comer eToys.com an actual toy retailer who feared its customers entering the wrong site. Ultimately, eToys won, but the Toywar that developed on the web, of which the MMOG was a part may have (and Galloway suggests it directly did) led to the financial plummet and eventual bankruptcy of the legal victor. In this case, the game achieved realism by making a real commentary on the world and then actually affecting it.
As an interesting side-note, it appeared that eToy (no longer online - nor is toywars) pushed the boundaries in a number of areas, getting in trouble for securities fraud with its version of coporate "shares" and pushing the question of whether digital art could be considered real art. More here.
Another critique was on the game America's Army. Offered free online as a recruiting tool by the American military, there can be no doubt that its graphics are some of the best available in such a format:
And just as a laugh on the side, I enjoyed this: "the virtuoso photorealism of detailed texturing, fog and deep resolution available in the army's commercially licensed Unreal graphics engine. " *L* -- the visual effect of realism made as faithful as modern technology will allow by a graphics engine named UNreal :D
But anyway...Galloway criticizes the game as realistic graphically but not "realist" in that it misses the mark on social critique, portraying the world as it isn't really is with America touted as the ultimate country and supporting a war that really doesn't have much support in the real world.
Instead, he favors other games for the realist quality, including the Hizbullah's Special Force and the Syrian Under Ash.
There can be no doubt that Under Ash in particular fails the realistic test if we are talking about graphics:
But Galloway argues that it has more realist qualities, offering a real critique of current events and offering more real interaction. Indeed, its probably worth noting that in this game the player is not a fairly anonymous heavily armed soldier (as in America's Army) so much as he is a 19 year old boy named Ahmed. Galloway compares it to a documentary, and others agree calling it a modern history.
Yet...I can't help but wonder. As an American playing Under Ash, I suppose it would give some perspective into the Palestinian world. Would playing America's Army give some of the same experience to a young Syrian? With all the propaganda flying around would he get some of the (albiet biased, but I'm sure Under Ash is biased some as well) feel of what it is to be in the american military? Then it would have some of the same achievement of being realist and offering "congruence". Certainly Under Ash offers a social critique showing some of the atrocities and making the player start by throwing stones, but, having not played either, I can't say that America's Army doesn't have some criticism of Iraq, or, at the very least, offers so much insight on American military experience that one could not criticise the very thing it is supposed to promote. I'd be interested to know if the reason Galloway and others talk of the real world congruence of the Palestinian game over the American version is because of the fact that it is a seldom shown insight to us whereas the other is common and loses its novelty and has messages so subtle we miss them because we see them every day. Anyway, just a thought...
So, ultimately, it brings about the same question we've been grappling with for a long while now: what constitutes real? Sensual experience? Suspension of disbelief? Ability for meaningful interaction? Or congruence and critique of the actual world? Clearly a topic that can be debated for a very, very long time.
