The Video Game Revue

Physics is the Sweetness

Alright, I admit, this is a pretty simple observation to make. Anyone who has been paying attention to video game technology in the last ten years knows that a lot of games have physics engines. The only point I'd like to make here is that lately there seems to be a greater mainstream emphasis on physics in video games, and that this latest round of fascination with rigid-body physics and rag-doll physics has detracted from some of the usual emphasis that gets placed on graphics engines.

This is a rant that I really should have made last year when Burnout 3 and Half-Life 2 were all the rage, because those are two of the games that I think emphasize this trend the most strongly. Both of these games have great graphics engines, but they also both heavily employ the use of visually stunning physical interactions between in-game objects to wow the audience. In a sense, the physics engines in these games are as big of a deal as the graphics engines, and certainly a bigger deal than any of the in-game animations (no offence to the animators who worked on those games.)

Game physics doesn't just affect the visual quality of a game, however--it also has a lot to do with the gameplay. Katamari Damacy is but one simple example of a game that employs some basic physics to influence or even define gameplay; many games are like that. For a recent example of a game that makes heavy use of physics in gameplay, I'll turn to Shadow of the Colossus: while playing it, I was really struck by just how much you can feel the physics in the game.

Obviously, modern video games lack the ability to make the player directly feel physical motion while playing. Also, some people get motion sick while playing FPSes and other motion intensive games, and I am not one of them. But while playing Shadow of the Colossus, I could definitely feel the hulking movements of those colossii. The visual cues of a colossus stretching, swinging, and shaking, and the little in-game hero clinging on for dear life, are so true to life that picking up on them is effortless, and you find yourself getting that "wooooaaah" feeling that is usually reserved for rollercoasters.

The net result is that Shadow of the Colossus feels seamless in much the same way that Half-Life 2 and Burnout 3 do: stuff that happens simply looks right, and it's as much because of the physics engine as because of the graphics engine. Hooray for physics!

posted by Parappa @ 9:05 AM