DoomMunky

Games that nail atmosphere and immersion

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Deus Ex:HR was the first game in a long time where I felt immersed in a game's world. The music, the way people dressed and talked, it almost made me feel like I was actually there.

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Deus Ex:HR was the first game in a long time where I felt immersed in a game's world. The music, the way people dressed and talked, it almost made me feel like I was actually there.

Second on Deus Ex:HR, really fell into that game's world.

I think it's time to finally install Morrowind with that updated graphics mod.

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No, what I meant is that I don't fully grasp the meaning of either concept and that's they are "similar" to me.

So immersion is more or less how good is a game at making itself look like a game in the sense that you forget about you score, XP, and other "game-y" things?

Well, if the "game-y" things aren't somehow part of the world, then yes, the more the game makes you forget about those things the more immersive it is. But if it's a football game, forgetting about the score is not more immersive. The point for me is that immersion is about feeling like I am in the narrative as a participant, specifically as the participant the game has cast me as, just like being immersed in a movie consists in feeling like I'm actually watching the events taking place on the screen rather than watching a projection on a screen in a movie theater.

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I fear that the Morrowind graphics mod will make me feel like I'm not playing the same game I know and love. Then again, maybe I've fallen into the trap of remembering the game as far more impressive and beautiful (visually) than it really is.

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I fear that the Morrowind graphics mod will make me feel like I'm not playing the same game I know and love. Then again, maybe I've fallen into the trap of remembering the game as far more impressive and beautiful (visually) than it really is.

I think, depending on what you get, it can do just fine. I haven't tried the overarching mega mod, but I used to try and cram every mod I could run into a single game of Morrowind. Some people did really well in maintaining the same atmosphere, some didn't. Hopefully this one does.

Personally I'm waiting for OpenMW. A project to recreate Morrowind's engine in a more modern, open source related way. It's going quite well still, though probably months from release. I worked on it myself in the beginning (years ago now, wow). New AI, new scripting, elimination of bugs, new options for extending the graphics. www.OpenMW.org for those interested. http://www.openmw.org

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Dark Souls did this in a huge way. One of the most well realized worlds and narratives with about 5 minutes of actually explicit narrative content. The rest is told through one of the best uses of world building I have ever seen. Almost every item found means something. The place you found it, the way the body looks to have died, the enemies nearby; it all means something. Same can be said about the location of enemies and types of areas you traverse. To be fair you only notice most of these aspects after reading online about it, but once you do it adds a whole level of atmosphere in a interesting and unique way. And on a subsequent play-through (and there will be a subsequent play-through) the earlier areas take on a whole new meaning.

Although I didn't finish it Darksider 2 also had some pretty great atmosphere, especially compared to other action-rpg games. One of the most enjoyable worlds to explore, at some points leaving me breathless. Swimming in the water in one of the early dungeons was one of the most artistically beautiful moments I had in a game in awhile. Should also mention the bang up soundtrack, it leans on acoustic guitar but fits well with the world. Especially when the world color is muted it fills the void with a great sense of style and place. It was simply a great world to just exist in, and also fairly relaxing. Man, I should really finish Darksiders 2.

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I'm well hyped for Darksiders 2. Still got some way to go in #1, currently in some desert place with a ginormous worm. The atmosphere is so great in this game, one of those you just can't wait to get back to. Any Zelda fans apply within.

Also playing BioShock properly on the 360 for the first time. Shit man, what a convincingly horrific, tragic, and thought-provoking world.

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Darksiders 2 is good, but I personally liked 1 better. Temper your expectations accordingly. That said, I played the shit out of 2 anyway, and really enjoyed my time with it.

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I've probably never been as immersed in a virtual world as when I played Riven. I love all the Myst games, but Riven stands out to me as the most creepily immersive, especially when the graphics and sound came together to form this other place that felt completely real. Even though the locations were fantastical, the amount of attention paid to realism was incredible. The texture, sound and animation of the various materials was top-notch. Even though the monorail was completely unbelievable and went all over the place and into the sea with crazy energy force rings that made tunnels in the water, it was all grounded in the reality of the world, and you felt the clunking as the car passed between sections, and see the wiring and everything.

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I find myself in total agreement. Cyan were the best in creating strange, but incredibly beautiful worlds, yet grounded in their own internal logic. I also think they set the bar for things like that really, really high and I don't think anyone has been able to surpass it yet. Although I'm not sure how many folks are trying to. Do correct me if I'm wrong.

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I really enjoyed the atmosphere in certain parts of Halo 3:ODST. Specifically, the hub area where you play as the rookie. Walking around darkened streets with squads of enemies patrolling around was my favorite part of that game. It really did make me feel like a lone soldier cut of from the rest of his unit in enemy territory. Plus, smokey sax.

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Nobody has mentioned

outcast2.jpg

;(

And the Thief games.

Also, besides what has already been mentioned, Primordia really pulled me into it's world. Of course, with a point & click adventure it's a bit harder to actually get immersed, but it worked for me mostly.

And although it was already mentioned, I must second Read Dead Redemption -- those were the most amazing landscapes I've ever seen in a game. And STALKER series of course, but for me it was the first one that may have actually given me a heart condition.

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Nobody has mentioned

outcast2.jpg

;(

And the Thief games.

Also, besides what has already been mentioned, Primordia really pulled me into it's world. Of course, with a point & click adventure it's a bit harder to actually get immersed, but it worked for me mostly.

And although it was already mentioned, I must second Read Dead Redemption -- those were the most amazing landscapes I've ever seen in a game. And STALKER series of course, but for me it was the first one that may have actually given me a heart condition.

Haha, oh god. I was trying to name Outcast some time ago and couldn't fathom its name for the life of me. I remember getting lost in its at-the-time incredibly open world and being pretty much amazed, although I had no idea what was going on and it ran at about one frame per second.

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Oh, man, Outcast... OOOOUUUTTTCAASST. It's great, but also a bit terrible, just how I like it. It's nuts what they pulled off n that game.

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It's weird but I have not felt this in a long time. Maybe Beyond Good and Evil was the last, but not when I played the HD version when it came out.

The strange thing is it seemed like a lot of what has motivated my immersion in the past was naivete and environment. Young me used to wrap himself in a blanket with all lights turned out and computer monitor on only with headphones, just completely isolating myself. My family mostly kept to themselves, so there wasn't always a lot of noise or bothering going on. I can think of really getting into countless adventure games this way, where I was just completely taken over. Full Throttle, Space Quests (I remember 6 especially for some reason), Monkey Island, The Dig, Discworld Noir, Grim Fandango, Neverhood, Tex Murphy, Willy Beamish (this game seemed insanely huge to me), Freddy Pharkas, Another World, and Kyrandia. I don't really have that kind of calm atmosphere anymore and my life is no longer so carefree and there's always some kind of stress floating around.

The main requirement has always been that the game should have a good cinematic quality, nice music, and the feeling of openness, but not the tedious open world sort. The problem is, I'm now older and just see adventure games and such as pictures on a screen and things I have to click on. If I see bad art with weird or funky construction, the artist in me gets annoyed at bad craftsmanship. I'm sure a lot of bad Sierra art and animation would really bother me now, and I think I'd get annoyed more at the fuzzy green screen edges of Under a Killing Moon. Newer immersive 3D worlds are just systems to go through. Nothing feels like nice dose of another reality now that my cynicism and knowledge of game design is prevalent.

Really the only time I feel immersed in the same way now is by watching a good movie in a dark movie theatre. I wish some games still compared to that.

So yeah, useless introspection aside, I guess I recommend old adventure games(?).

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Synthetic, I think you strike a good point, which is that the player brings a lot to a game themselves. Playing in the right atmosphere can really enhance an experience. I may start experimenting with this; playing in isolation and darkness, to see if I can get that done. Atmosphere is a super important ingredient, and old adventure games could shine with the right conditions.

Outcast is a game I love very much and played to death (but never finished it due to gamestopper designer bugs) when it came out. A few years ago I tried it again, but it was a hard sell primarily because the resolution (below 640x480) is really low and stands in the way of this fully realized world. The voxel engine is amazing, but the game wasn't designed with the future in mind, ironically. It was so ahead of its time, but they should've incorporated (if that's possible at all, I don't know!) resolution features for at least twice what they had. Sure, no PC at the time could run that, but even in 1999 everyone knew tech was growing at crazy speeds.

Now that I dig around a little, there are apparently some high resolution patches, but none especially stable. Worth checking out, maybe.

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How about Metroid Prime?

Now, that game actually has really great music, but try turning it off for extra immersion, because there is also a really phenomenally rich soundscape in that game.

While I'm at it, Super Metroid too. The opening to that game is still eerie and affecting all these years later.

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Playing Deus Ex: HR for the first time. My god, the feel of this game! I've not experienced anything like it for years.

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Going to come out of left field and say Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, for a strategy game it did an amazing job at establishing atmosphere, or is that tone? I'm going to say atmosphere, I felt like I was some commander of this weird sect of human civilization reading data pads and over a strategic map. They also had these interludes that we're just written text that ackowledge you as a character in this world, it was really cool.

Which reminds me, DEFCON had great atmosphere... unless, again, I'm mixing up atmosphere with tone.

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Now, that game actually has really great music, but try turning it off for extra immersion, because there is also a really phenomenally rich soundscape in that game.

I played Metroid Prime without music this summer (and then wrote into Idle Thumbs about it!), I was amazed at how immersive it became. Just make sure that you try it with the Trilogy version. Meta Ridley was given a goofy-ass stomp attack for the Wii rerelease for some reason, and it makes a rhythmic metallic clanging noise that acts almost like a natural score. It really adds a lot to what's already a very tense personal duel.

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Can I say HHGTTG? After that, was Eye of the Beholder 1,2 & 3. Then: Doom [Remember a friend excitedly coming into lectures with a huge sheaf of printouts - installation instructions and stuff about it. Think it was 0.6d or something at the time. We got hold of a copy]. I also remember playing it at uni (on my 486 DX2 dontch'a know) with the lights turned off and the sound piped through my stereo. The speakers were behind me. Absolutely terrifying - especially those pink bastards that would snarl from the darkness. X-Wing/TIE Fighter around the same sort of time. Dark Forces, another one that Tycho mentioned, although that was a bit later and I had to play it on a friend's pentium when I should have been revising for my exams. This was also back when star wars games were any good :tup: .

Then I couldn't afford a PC, and everyone had PS1s (excepting me) - until my friend, who wouldn't stop banging on about this game called 'Half Life', booted it up. ZOMG! I stayed as late as I could, but had to drive back to bristol. Still skint, so it wasn't until 2000 that I actually got to play through it. It was in this period of being poor that I also missed Full Throttle and Fandango :tdown:. As it happened, at this time I was sys/network admin of a multimedia company, who had HL DM games at lunchtime. Bliss. Also discovered Q3A online (then CS, DOD and the rest), and that was it. Cue many, MANY late nights using the company's 256K leased line (woooOOOOOooooo! Price at the time: £11K/year) for mass murder in space.

Depends on your definition of immersion, but it wasn't until I got hold of a more powerful machine to play Rome:TW that I got so absorbed again. Like 14 hour game sessions absorbed. Fabulous game.

I'm sure there were a few between then and 'modern' times, but more recently Dishonoured and Journey. Not much can absorb me now - so few games actually grip me long enough to finish them. Dishonoured as well became more of a trial towards the end, which killed the atmos, as I was just racing to get through it rather than *playing* it.

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Oh goodness how on earth did we all collectively forget Pikmin?

That game. Maybe I'm being a little loose with calling it "atmosphere" or "immersion", but that game had such a beautiful world and just playing it and walking around in that scenery made me happier. Ugh. Gorgeous.

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My favorite thing in the new XCOM is right after a soldier of yours dies, and hopelessly mousing over the corpse to make something happen. At this point, a lot of games might have some text box that says "deceased comrade" or something like that, but XCOM gives you nothing as a way of reminding you that your guy truly is no longer among you.

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