When I push it, it falls over!

Anyone who's met me will be aware that my life basically revolves around five things:

1. Books and comics
2. Music
3. Computer games
4. Films
5. All of the above
   

I'm on a particularly virulent gaming kick at the moment, and have been thinking about realism in games, fuelled by this article and a piece in this month's NGamer magazine.

My five favourite games of all time are NiGHTS Into Dreams..., Christmas NiGHTS, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force III and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Which is to say, games involving flying androgynous harlequins, dragons, bird-men, rock-men, centaurs, fairies, monsters, wendigos and a goblin in this really nifty steam-powered armour-robot-suit thing. (Admittedly if you didn't allow Christmas NiGHTS to the party because it's essentially a glorified demo disc my fifth game would be ultra-realistic talk-to-people-and-feed-a-kitten-'em-up Shenmue, but bear with me.) I tend toward the fantastical, the weird, the stuff that you can't actually do in the real world.

I enjoy realistic games - hello, Shenmue - but the thing is, quite apart from the fact they look a lot older a lot quicker than games that have no grounding in reality (boot up a Mega Drive and Sonic 1 has dated a hell of a lot better than Desert Strike), realistic games are almost always po-faced games. And that's rubbish.

I'm a firm supporter of UK Resistance's "Blue Skies in Games" campaign. I'll play Ultra-Gritty Super-Real Angry Marines Shoot People Or Maybe Some Aliens In The Face And/Or Proboscis 7 if it's any good, but given the choice between that and this:

...I know which looks more fun. They're called video "games" for a reason.