Wizard's Blog

Battlefield: Bad Company screenshot

Dear game developers;

Over the years you’ve done a lot of thing right and a lot of things wrong, but what I want from you is more.

I want more guns to choose from, more cars, more detail, more realism. Especially more realism.

Realism comes from a lot of things, most of which have been improving over the years – for example Doppler sound, HDR lighting, physics and damage.

Physics makes a huge difference to realism, and in a lot of cases it’s done very well. Game physics seem to consist of rigid-body physics (a paint can falling off a table) and rag doll (the way a limp body falls and interacts with the objects under it). While these can add a lot of realism, when they go wrong they can take you right out of the game. For example when a body floats in the air because part of it is resting on a ledge (I’m looking at you, Call of Duty 4).

The other annoying thing about the current state of game physics is the limited number of physics objects. Why can I knock the paint can over but not the cardboard box? It’s illogical and once again, takes you out of the game. I realise there are limits set by the hardware, but the number of physics objects in games doesn’t seem to be increasing relative to increases in hardware power. In case the reason for the limited number of physics objects is that you don’t think gamers care about them, let me just place my vote for more, much more.

The other (and more important) thing that I think we need more of is persistence. When I shoot a hole in a wall and I come back in an hour, I want the hole to still be there. When I kill a baddie and I come back in an hour, the body should still be there. When I do donuts in my car and I come back in an hour, the skid marks should still be there. Permanently. Persistently. I realise there are hardware limits but push them, please.

Battlefield: Bad Company, which comes out later this year, has destructible buildings – bravo! I look forward to your game and I will pre-order it sight unseen.

However. Some press types that have played an early version of it say that like Red Faction (which, let’s face it, did the destructible walls thing years ago) not everything is destructible. I understand why – nobody wants to play on a flat gravel lot, which is what you would end up with eventually if everything was destructible. But it will definitely take you out of the game when someone’s sniping at you from behind an indestructible garbage can.