Kensue Kiatoukaysy: Exploring an Aesthetic // Video Game Realism

Video games have come a long way since the mid 1900’s, and they certainly aren’t on a road to end any time soon. As the technology of video games come more advance, so does their ability to match realism inside them. The aesthetics of video games as a visual art have become so popular that almost all video games try to match reality in order to make the players more connected to the game.

Detroit Become Human follows a group of androids who are learning to become human, and the player plays as these androids in order to fight for equality in their civilization. This game explores this realism aesthetic in video games because it simply displays real world issues, allows the player to make their own decisions to chose the outcome of the game, and finally with advances in the graphics of today’s videos games, all the characters come to life on screen and allow you to connect to them. There are many games made to be as realistic as possible but I believe Detroit Become Human is the definition of how far videos games have taken realism through when allowing the players to make their own decisions.

Some Traits to this Aesthetic of Video Game Realism:
-Realistic characters with problems which the player can relate to
-Realistic Cities/Areas
-Humans
-Political issues
-Real world weapons
-incredible graphics to show realism.

Sources:

“Aesthetics of Video Games.” The Trinitonian, 8 Feb. 2018, www.trinitonian.com/aesthetics-of-video-games/.

Image from Website”https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/detroit-become-human/home”.

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2 Comments. Leave new

  • Kensue, your exploration holds weight but I think that a lot could be gained from clearly defining your concepts. Namely the tenets of “realism” how the game fulfills those tenets. You cover several points which could define realism, but they’re fairly weak and left of to fend for themselves. You mention the graphics of the game several times, citing how realistic they are. This by itself is one part of realism, but realism is also focused on expressing reality truthfully and without artificiality. Detroit Become Human, from what I’ve seen, is a cyberpunk action packed visual novel. Essentially your exploration would benefit if you could really explain to the reader why your points tie back into realism. Without this background it becomes a little less convincing.

    Reply
  • Hi Kensue, great post.
    You bring up some great points about how video games that attempt to mimic reality are pushing the bounds of visual and story-telling aspects. I think the realism aesthetic in video games is especially interesting because it maintains the fictional story-telling narrative while also allowing for incredible immersion into the game, since it appears almost real.

    One thing I wonder is where this ‘realism’ aesthetic ends and where something akin to ‘realness’ begins – I ask this specifically related to VR and the newer developments of the Oculus Quest, Vive, etc. These new technological advancements essentially transcend the boundary of a game within a screen; what are your thoughts?

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