MegaManFan said:
I'm not arguing for total realism, I'm just arguing for certain points in games where more realism would have satisfied my lust for carnage. Just once I'd like to see the quivering halves of a body on either side of my blade. Just once I'd like to crash a car into a wall on Gran Turismo and see it explode (or at least be SCRATCHED). You get the idea. I think that's probably a fundamental thing Grand Theft Auto 3 tapped into that gamers love and parents hate - it really empowers you as the player to do all the mayhem you want. Blow stuff up, and when the cops come to take you down, blow them up too. Can't beat that. Or as my friend David would yell, "SAY HELLO TO MR. GRENADE!"
I haven't played it much, but I think that's one thing that would really bug me about Gran Turismo: I've heard it's that way because many (all? most? maybe just some) car liscensors won't let their cars be shown damaged, so they skip that part.
I thought Tao Feng was kinda supposed to have that realism you're talking about, but after reading a review, I guess not. Some concepts of limb damage, but nothing really realistic.
I think GTA3 finds a pretty good balance. I mean, it's pretty unrealistic in many many ways, like how our guy can take so many bullets, (and how there's no damage to your person 'til your bodyarmor gets worn away) how much traffic stuff cops ignore, etc, but by having a decent physics model and setting the player lose, they really make a great world. Like in Vice City, they really make good use of their physics model to put in so many sidequests and amusements...