Is Half-Life 2 realistic (research thread)?

[Pauly]

I just got back from playing hl2 and i fell ENRAGED. I want to hit someones head in with a crowbar. Man i am so influenced by halflife2.
(thats sarcasm for the slow ones)
No seriously, if a kid becomes violent after playing video games- his parents probably should of probably taught him right from wrong in the first place. games are games. I could tell you the board game 'trouble' influences kids to do bad things because the commercial says "Its fun getting into to trouble". Games are games- you play them because you want to do something you cant do in real life or to just have fun. Its just merely entertainment. Personally- I think movies are worse on kids then video games.

 

[CriYam]

Now, see if you can address the the following questions directly:

-What makes a game realistic? How would you define realistic?

-What makes a game violent? How would you define violent?
Are Doom 3 and Far Cry more violent than Half-life 2? If, so why?

To be realistic it has to reflect things exactly as they are in real life, which isn't done in HL2.

There is no real violence. If the HL2 DVD popped out of the drive and smacked you in the face that could be violent.


As for people turning psychotic from videogames: I have a book somewhere (I'm into true crime,cult - serial killers) and inside are pictures and stories of people arrested for murder etc. One is a 13 year old boy from the 19th century who walked into a store and shot the clerk in the face for like 3 dollars. It makes mention that his hands never touched a video game controller and has never seen a movie in his life.

Now to get back to eating my little white pills.

wakka wakka wakka

 

[alehm]

Half Life 2 is not realistic. How do I know? Because it was fun to play.

Real life isn't fun.

Seriously- there is a balance between realistic and ridiculus. Games that are ridiculus and semi-realistic can be fun. But I dunno what game that is realistic can be fun. Unless you like Tiger Woods Golf or Bowling using Havoc physics. Gee gee

 

[kenyo]

i would define realistic, in terms of violence, as being able to fool the player into believing theyre actually in the game harming real people. Also, having real feeling about those who youre killing would be necessary. By this definition i believe half-life 2 is very realistic, though in a good way. the player is totally absorbed into the game, and fights against a true enemy to liberate oppressed citizens.

im also a psych student and i have access to my universities psych database. ill go do a search and see if i find any interesting studites or journal articles.

bye that definition, i've never played an even slightly realistic game in my life! (the hl2 demo wasnt either, i ignited all on fire!!! zombies, citizens, combine, they all burned in the hell that is city 17! hahahahaha!)

 

[Mr.Wotsit]

I know this isnt grown up and all, but i gotta say, i've been reviewing ur posts and it looks like u really think u are so wonderfull and all, u seem to have little or no people skills at all, offcours u probably have 5 degrees in idontknowwhatkindofshit but people dont like u man, or i dont anyways, and i think im not alone here. I dont like to be called dumb, or having a small brain! insulting people isnt a good form of communication.

Hell u probably get a kick out of pissing people off, so im not gonna bother any more, enjoy ur puny life little man!

Admins and playingmantis sorry for this out of topic stuff!

People can sometimes take me too seriously, for example if they have tiny brains or don't understand long words I'm just playing - it comes across a lot better in real life, I assure you. That's why I'm really not too bothered by what you've said - if we met in real life and you aren't an arse clown, I'm sure we'd get on.

Anyway, my point is that this thread seemed to be investigating realism from an angle of immesiveness and then the knock-on consequences of taking violent actions. That was just how I interpreted it and so how I provided my answer.

To be honest, I love Half Life 2 so I come to these forums. There are just a lot more people about that seem to have very very tiny brains compared to the only other forum I have ever been in which was for UT2004. Before you say to go back there, I like Half Life 2 and intelligent discussion of it so it's worth hanging around for the dribs and drabs of interesting thoughts that pop up in between posts saying that G Man is Gordon from the future...

I'm sorry you misinterpreted my manner, it's slightly different from most and not best suited to a text-only format. After all, only a tiny proportion of what you communicate to someone is in the actual words you choose and I'm rather lazy sometimes.

 

[SqueakyWaffle]

Ofcourse this will never happen. Our current understanding of the human brain is, general at best.

Nah... we can already do this. We've done numerous experiments where electrodes in a monkey's brain control a robotic arm, and I even recently read about one where electrodes placed on a human's head were used to control a small robot. So, this isn't as far off as we think... but it's certainly the key to "realism," because we can't possibly define any simulation of a human body controlled by a keyboard and mouse as realistic.

Half-Life 2 is not realistic at all. Sure, it looks good- but in real life, I could look at the ground and see grass, or small rocks... or peel paint off the walls of an old seaside house. It's comparatively realistic, but as of now it's not convincing anyone.

I once was driving in my car, and I reached for the "F10" key for a chase camera view (battlefield controls) but that's about as far as video games get into my life. I never find myself getting an urge to shoot anyone, and even if I did, how would I access my gun? By pressing "3" twice and clicking my mouse? If anything, I find that video games actually let me take out my anger on something that doesn't matter (when I play halo multiplayer, I swear so loudly that people on the other end of my dorm complain ROFL). In real life, though, I'm generally a very happy person...

I think maybe instead of blaming video games, we should look into the past and see why people were killing each other thousands of years before video games appeared.