Personal Assignment One – Three Pieces of Game Art: The Good and the Non-Realistic

BioShock Infinite

BioShock Infinite strives to create an immersive environment of the fictional city of Columbia in early 1900s America. The amount of detail and polish put into the player's surroundings gives off a very believable setting. When I think of America during that time period I expect to see that Victorian style architecture so prevalently used within the game. Even the attire of the characters such as the bathing suits of beach-goers visually convinces me that I am perhaps on a beach in a 1920's setting. The buildings and level design within the game embellish a city thriving in the Industrial/Machine Era, and in-turn is a successful piece of artistry.

The realism in Infinite is driven away by the exuberant colors and high saturation of the player's surroundings. Although gorgeous to look at and admire, the exaggerated colors, lighting, and shadows give the viewer a surreal experience instead of a photorealistic one. In addition, the jagged outlines of less important objects such as balloons and plates still show that they are in fact simple textured polygons. The human eye, given enough time, will eventually pick up on these details, and once they do, the experience is sort soured like a fly in your soup. For a realistic display, all game assets need to maintain a level of consistency of detail throughout. (Ears too. I've always noticed that ears of characters are always blocky and of a low polycount.)

Half-Life 2

There's a particular part early on in Half-Life 2 where you step outside and see City 17 for the first time. The viewer immediately gets the sense that they are now located within a small part of a European town. The train station square and the surrounding apartments comprise a familiar setting that could be a destination possibly in the Ukraine, Hungary, or another close country. Although the city tainted with dark, mechanical, foreign structures, the town setting is relatable to the viewer, like I've seen this in a picture or movie before. I believe that's very important to the success of artwork used within a game that the user can identify with certain scenes bringing up memories and invoking strong emotions tied to those images.

Apart from the alien structures set up in City 17 and its futuristic aspects, the game still struggles in terms of realism. The shadowing and lighting within the train station square are not particularly accurate and the quality of the trees is something left to be said. The vegetation tends to be a little too stringy and flat, and thereby takes something away from this immersive scene.

Botanicula

Botanicula is an odd little game that visually draws heavily from the minuscule natural world around us. The artists of this game took into account a multitude of features and characteristics from the Animal and Plant Kingdoms and managed to craft a familiar, but incredibly unique collection of settings and creatures from those observed features. The viewer gets the sense that if they were shrunk down to, let's say the size of a grasshopper, that would be how the world would be perceived, a vast network of branches and epic horizons filled with unfamiliar creatures all over the place. The artwork is a refreshing and successful display of what could be in a bush outside your front door. However, the artwork within Botanicula is so alienated and unusual that the viewer can't help but imagine that they are within a carefully crafted fantasy. The oddity of the characters with their disproportionate eyes and legs further separate the viewer from a serious and realistic experience.