I began playing last night and thought I would make a quick post on my first impressions, the first thing I noticed about this new instalment is that it feels dumbed down a little as far as mechanics are concerned, for example the signature lantern no longer requires a supply of oil, I found this odd to begin with but then I realised that the darkness was not making my character insane any-more.
After realising the dark no longer poses a threat it makes sense that the lamp has infinite power as clamouring around in the dark for oil and tinder-boxes would feel utterly stupid and a waste of time.
Now do not let the simplification of mechanics here put you off playing, because as before Amnesia truly shines when it comes to it's terrific sound design and writing, the plot this time around feels much more established and adult, touching on religion, monetisation and industrial issues in Victorian society. As before the diaries and notes are back and work as a great supplement to the story and sending chills down your spine in fear of what is to come.
One downside to Amnesia is that textures are rather flat and bland in places, which removes you from the experience, this along with glitches like the player climbing the walls when you back into them, and enemies not ever leaving your vicinity forcing you to reload to proceed, now the latter two issues i am sure will be corrected through a patch, but I can't help wishing the visuals where a little more impressive, especially after playing the gorgeous Outlast.
I will have more on Amnesia when I complete it. Here are a few links for reference.
Yesterday I began playing a new horror title known as Outlast brought to us by the talented team at Red Barrels, for those of you who haven't heard of them, the team consists of designers whose previous works include Assassins Creed, Splinter Cell and the Prince of Persia series. On top of this Outlast is one of the first Unreal Engine 4 games, it looks great, texture resolution, lighting and particle effects all look gorgeous. If this sort of quality can be achieved with relatively new software I have high hopes from what we can expect games later down the line when the software can be used to it's maximum potential.
Immediately Outlast triggers memories of playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent, from the use of dynamic lighting, chilling audio cues and your complete weakness as a player, Outlast clearly takes inspiration from Amnesia and other older horror classics like the Silent Hill series, and rather than simply trying to emulate those titles it takes the genre in a direction of it's own which feels new and interesting.
If you haven't played Amnesia and you are a fan of horror go pick it up on steam before the sequel is released on Sept 10th.
I have only played around one hour of the game so far, and I have heard if you are fairly quick at beating it the game will last around four hours; so this post is in no means a review.
From what I have gathered so far you play a reporter sent to investigate a series of strange events at an Asylum, this approach allows the game to introduce the video camera mechanic without it feeling ham-fisted.
Basically you use the video camera to document your finding, akin to the mementos in Amnesia, except unlike Daniel your character will not document his thoughts unless you have the camera out at the time. This I really enjoy about Outlast as I find myself sweeping every inch of the beautifully detailed asylum looking for clues, reminds me of playing Metroid Prime and scanning absolutely every item.
In addition to this the camera also has a infra-red mode meaning in Outlast there are no torches or lanterns, just your trusty camera, such a simple change makes a huge difference to the atmosphere of the entire game, the eerie green hue an hum of the camera replace the flicker and crack of a flame perfectly, as this would have felt rather out of place in Outlast; and don't even get me started on how the game makes you feel when your trapped in a dark room and your cameras batteries begin to beep and die out.
I'm going to finish up this post with a video link to the game trailer for you guys. I will be posting my full review of Outlast once I have completed the entire game. Enjoy.
Right, so before getting into this I want to first talk a little about the term Game-play itself, it seems like everyone says it but what does it actually mean, most people probably can't tell you. Now I did a little research and I found this quote " A game is where 2 or more competitors compete for set goals within the confines of a set of rules".
Now taking into account this definition is clearly referring to sports or board games, this does not mean we can't apply the same logic of thinking to a video game. For example in an online multiplayer game such as Call of Duty , players compete against each other for either the most kills or the most flags etc, this is your set of goals, the set of rules applied is what guns are available to you along with gear and perks. Whereas in a single player experience you are competing against an AI or the game itself to win, your goal being to complete the game and the AI's goal is to stop you, both of you still have a set of rules you have to follow, the AI's usually will differ from the players but it still has rules otherwise you would never win.
So taking this into account this means that game-play is the manipulation of the goals and rules the game is built around, enjoyable and well thought out goals and rules in-turn results in good game-play and vise versa. Meaning good game-play is the core of any game, because controls should be built with the rules in mind and visuals an sound are only stimulants to enhance the experience of completing the set goals, as most people wouldn't enjoy staring at a page of code and inputting values to progress.
But to complicate things further you do have to take the genre of your game into account when creating your goals and rules, for example an RPG is going to have much more complex goals and rules than say a point A to B shooter simply due to the nature of the game with varying paths, gear, exp progression, skills and side quests being a few of the main points.
But on the whole I feel that as long as you abide by the fact that your goal needs to be challenging but fun and your rules are fair then you will be okay.
My personal opinion on who some of the lead developers in Gaming include, Rockstar for their GTA and Red Dead Redemption games.
Red dead Redemption at its time of release was highly praised for being a huge open world game with great horseback and gunplay mechanics, it captured what you imagine to be the spirit of the Old West perfectly. Along with this it had great online multiplayer modes where you and your friends would set up a posse and wage wars against other peoples gangs, fighting over land and supplies.
Rocksteady for the Batman Arkham games.
To be frank the Batman Arkham games are the only good superhero games ever made, in my opinion obviously, they introduced us to a fluid fighting and combo system that was previously unheard of in games, shame it's been poorly ripped off by many other series'. On top of this the games sport tight controls, interesting environments, tonnes of content and stellar voice acting.
Naughty |Dog for the Uncharted series, Jak and Daxter, Crash Bandicoot ad The Last of Us.
If you want to know about The Last of Us you should read my blog on it.
I didn't want to think of just AAA titles so I want to include Behemoth for the Alien Hominid games, Castle Crashers and Battleblock Theatre.
Behemoth always make fun an innovative co-op experiences that hearken back to the 16-bit era where you would invite a few friends round and sit down with Golden Axe and just have fun.
What i find most important when I play a game is to ask myself " am I enjoying this " because generally if your not enjoying playing the game then there is not much point playing it, now not enjoying the game doesn't mean it's bad, it may just not be your style, so finding what kind of games you like is the most important factor. I absolutely love playing RPG's, spending hours molding my character, finding the best gear, doing side quests and exploring the world. But I have friends who hate that now does that mean Skyrim for example is a bad game? No, no it does not, it just means it isn't right for them.
Gaming is all about personal opinion and choice, my girlfriend will spend hours on end day after day playing Animal Crossing, because she enjoys collecting all her things for her house, interacting with her town and so on, I find it dead boring yet Animal Crossing sells millions, so am I wrong? Again no, for me it is dead boring but for her its the exact opposite, it is for this reason the term game-play has such a abstract and watered down meaning, in turn causing knowing what makes good game-play hard to put your finger on.
I feel Sid Meier, creator of the civilization series, quote to have hit the subject on the head.
He says "Gameplay is best defined as a series of interesting choices set out for the player".
The key word here being Interesting.
So where do I even begin with this game, I suppose I could start by saying if you own a PS3 and haven't bought this yet, go give Naughty Dog your money because they've earned it. This game was the reason why I bought my PS3, it's the only game I own for it, but you know what; it was worth it. Yes its that good.
The Last of Us is a third personal survival / shooter / horror experience. Now I'm going to try to explain the premise of the story without actually spoiling anything. Joel and Ellie (above) are the stars of this game, you take the role of Joel, a down to earth, tough but fair trader of sorts, who for reasons I won't divulge ends up escorting the feisty young girl Ellie across post apocalyptic America. I'll get into characters a little more later.
First lets talk visuals, this game looks astounding it's quite possibly the best looking game on console. From the clouds in the sky all the way through the city-spaces down to the moss and mold on the ground, every inch of the world oozes detail, rays of sunlight refract off broken window panes, leaves sway in the breeze, water moves and reflects dynamically.
Simply gorgeous, if your not convinced take a look at these in-game screenshots.
Character and enemy models are no exception from this. Both Joel and Ellie's models are especially detailed and the enemy clickers are quite a sight to behold. The below image is an in-game shot of Joel's face, check out the detail.
Next I want to talk about the actual mechanics of the game and how it feels to play. Not surprisingly it plays rather like Uncharted except ten times more fluid and accurate, its clearly the games spiritual successor. The gameplay features advanced enemy AI, as well as optional stealth and scavenging, these three points combined create one of the best survival experiences in any game I've played too date. Being given the option to completely bypass entire sections of combat is extremely liberating for the player as well as rewarding the player with additional loot for exploring.
While on the subject of loot, I may as well explain how the system works.
Loot comes in one of eight varieties each with it's own purpose, scissors, rags, alcohol, sugar, explosives and binding tape are used for crafting items, where parts and pills are used for permanent upgrading.
For example, rags and alcohol can be used to create a Med-Kit, Sugar and Explosives for a smoke bomb, but all creations have components that overlap with each other. The Molotov cocktail requires the same parts as the Med-Kit, this aspect of the system combined with the entire crafting process being in real time forces the player too make tough decisions on the fly.
Weapon customisation can only be done at a crafting table using parts, aspects such as accuracy, recoil and damage can be upgraded, pills are used for permanent buffs to Joel himself such as extra HP and Abilities.
The enemies in The Last of Us come in a decent variety, from military soldiers to bandits, thugs and the infected. Humans come in different roles, some wield grenades, others rifles and shotguns, some with simply an axe or crowbar. Infected also come in a few varieties the most common being the runners and the clickers, the human enemies are challenging opponents as they communicate and have weaponry; but the infected are the real danger in this game, they have no concept of pain or fear and wont flinch or retreat in the face of a shotgun like the Human AI will.
They are usually vast in numbers and will easily overwhelm you especially the Clickers as they will one-shot you on any difficulty. Luckily the clickers are blind due to fungus sprouting from their face and rely on sound to navigate akin to a bat with sonar, they do this by creepily wandering around clicking to map their surrounding hence the name.
The noise they make is truly horrifying and would always have me on edge when entering an infected zone, this brings me to another point that the audio in this game is top-notch.
Runners causing Joel more trouble than he expected while a clicker edges ever closer.
This video gives a good insight into what the games all about, it is only five minutes long so i would recommend watching, if the video doesn't work there is a link URL below.
I know this post is quite long already but there is just so much to talk about with this game.
I want to touch on characters a little without spoiling anything lets just say you meet quite a few people on your journey across America; some bad some good. What The Last of Us does that most games fail to do is it really gets you invested in the characters, even ones you have only known for maybe half an hour or so.
The way the game does this is through Joel and Ellie's interaction with these people it makes them feel less like some random NPC who's here to guide you through this area of the game, and more like a real, relate-able person who is struggling to survive and has real issues just like Joel and Ellie.
Speaking of Joel and Ellie, their relationship throughout the game starts out quite shaky but you get too see them slowly begin to grow on one another and the interaction between the two main characters always creates interesting dialogue as Ellie is often questioning Joel about the outside world and the way things used to be as she has never known a world before the Infected.
Above is a photo of the character Bill who you meet fairly early on in the game, he's my personal favourite of all the characters you meet purely because he's a bit unstable and shouldn't be messed with.
This is probably a good point to end on, one last thing too mention though is that this game isn't short by any means it took me around 24 hours to complete on hard and there is even a new game plus mode and the survivor difficultly to tackle.
So in conclusion The Last of Us is a superb example of what video games can really achieve and is a must own for any gamer.
Recently I went to the cinema to see Pacific Rim, a film about a group of giant human piloted mechs known as Jaegers fighting against giant Kaiju ( monsters ). Now I wasn't expecting much as far a characters, acting and story; if I'm honest I was simply there to see some amazing visuals and cool fights. But the film really surprised me it actually had good acting and a main character that I genuinely began to care about, on top of that the visuals were better than any CGI that's come before it.
Now even as similar the film may be to a certain Japanese anime series from the 90's known as Evangelion, you can't really compare or knock it, because Evangelion has never seen Cinema release in the western world.
Now onto the game, its available for 800 MS points on Xbox arcade which equates to around £7.
The game works as a 1v1 fighting game akin to a PS2 title called "Destroy All Monsters". or many of the Godzilla games released in Japan.
Now the graphics in this game are not awful by any means for an Arcade game they're decent enough. Check out these screenshots.
The problem comes when you realise that the developer has spent more time on creating what can only be described as a farce of a story mode, rather than on the multiplayer aspect of the game which actually shows signs of a good game. Let me explain what I mean in more detail, for example the story mode has you playing as the Kaiju, and even pitting the Jaeger's against one another, this makes no sense at all and simply feels like a cheap way to extend the campaign.
Now the combat system the game employs at first may seems rather basic but it has a few neat features that add a decent amount of depth, for example, there are two basic attack buttons, a special attack and a block. This is all basic stuff. where the combat shines is each character has its own unique special move, can do dodges and rolls as well as charge up basic attacks for slower more powerful hits, this makes fighting a human opponent a decent amount of fun as you try too read their moves and it is genuinely satisfying when you manage to land your special attack and send your enemy flying through buildings and onto his ass.
What baffles me is that there's no 2v2 mode even though a scene in the film it supposedly follows has a tag team fight. The leveling up system and exp gain is simply a joke to be frank, the online match-up system works off a xp system meaning players that have no skill but have grinded can be pitted up against players much more skilled leading too frustration for the weaker player.
All in all the game is okay, its nothing special and I wouldn't recommend it unless your a really die hard fan of the film, if your just after a game where you play as a giant robot I would suggest looking into MechWarrior Online, Crome Hounds or Mechassult for original XBOX.
Anyone Interested or who has played Infinite should check this article out and watch the video interview as this looks more like the kind of experience I wanted from Infinite in the first place.
I recently completed Bioshock Infinite after months of eagerly waiting for my chance to play this highly rated, highly anticipated game. I managed to avoid all possible spoilers in order to keep the story as shocking as possible. So where do I even begin with this game.
Lets start by talking about the gameplay, Infinite's combat is much more refined than that of it's predecessors, the movement feels more accurate the guns have a better weight and sound to them than before and your Vigor's, which now take the role of the Plasmids have more flashy animations, and do more damage than they used too. But why the developers felt it was necessary to now limit you to two weapons at a time, rather than the previous eight in other games, is a mystery too me. If anything, this feels like a step backwards as it really limits your options in combat making the experience less varied. You will often find on your first play-through that you are entering a fight with the wrong weapons for that situation; and being ill prepared is just frustrating.
One final point on gameplay is the addition of the skylines, they essentially allow the player to zip-line around the current area at high speeds and can be used to reach vantage points. One part in particular is especially awesome and it involves using a series of skylines to reach a huge Zeppelin and bring it down, moments like this are what made the game great, unfortunately these moments are few and far between.
Next I want to talk about the enemies. The standard enemies in Infinite will be extremely familiar to those who have played the original Bioshock, now this isn't a bad thing, why change what is broken. Splicers are now crazed fanatics and police officers, the Houdini Slicer is reworked into a bizarre crow shaman enemy. Infinite's enemies come into their own with the addition of the heavy hitters, this ensemble of Mini-boss characters replaced the much loved Big Daddies of previous instalments, meaning they have a lot too live up to.
First up is the Mechanised Patriots, these are robotic representations of past presidents. carrying Gatling guns, shouting war propaganda while endlessly pursuing the player akin to the terminator.The Patriots are great, they are by far my favourite of the four.
Next are the Handymen, these humongous enemies are extremely dangerous and deceptively agile for their size, nowhere is safe when they are around as they can leap through the air to reach any vantage point. On top of this they have a neat little trick where they discharge into the skylines causing the player to fall if currently using a skyline.
The Siren is an ethereal being able to summon ranks of undead enemies over and over again, this creates a unique battle scenario, because you cant simply clear out the enemies then kill the siren. Meaning you need to find a good balance between clearing out the enemies and chipping away at the siren, problem is she is hard to kill as half the time she is immune to damage.
Boys of Silence are the final heavy hitter, these creepy, bulbous helmet wearing guys act as a security system if they see or hear you they let out a deafening scream which attracts all nearby enemies.
The problem is that none of these four manage to achieve the same as the illustrious Big Daddies, they commanded a real sense of fear when being faced, especially on harder difficulties you really had to prepare and even then you were still in for a rough fight, none of the heavy hitters manage to achieve this.
Lastly lets talk about the story and the world, Infinite has a beautifully created and well realised world where everything from the shop signs to the weapons feel right at home, bu this was no surprise as we all expected this as Bioshock's Rapture set the bar so high, I'm happy to say the world of Columbia more than lives up to raptures legacy, personally I still prefer the much darker and eerie world of rapture but thats just preference; no one can deny when looking at Infinite that it's not one of the most visually appealing games ever made, the use of colour and lighting is astounding and the very premise of the flying city is nothing short of magical, supplemented by wonderful musical scores. This is where Infinite really shines.
The problem I can't help but feel the story is a little half baked, I found the game comes to a rather abrupt end, it's a little anti-climatic. Though it does keep you guessing from start to finish slowly teasing you with little snippets of information. I guess I just expected more from it because of how brilliantly the original games story unravels, maybe I expected too much.
One final point I would like to talk about is Elizabeth and the Songbird, Elizabeth is the reason you are in Columbia, the entire game and story revolves around her and she is integral to the plot, her character is so well designed from all her facial expressions, to animation cues and snide or charming remarks, problem is she is so good that she makes the rest of the character seems under worked in comparison, even though they're all great in their own respects.
The only thing I need to say about Songbird is why go through all the effort of creating such an amazing antagonist character one that I feel is even better than that of the Big Daddies and then barely put him in the game, and when he is present its always cut scene or scripted combat, why is there no epic show down with the Songbird? Baffles me it really does.
After much thought Bioshock Infinite is a great game and well worth a play, but it have definitely been hyped up far too much, the amazingly high quality of the original Bioshock is this games undoing, so I would recommend to anyone who has played Infinite and was disappointed to go back and play the original.
THE SCORE 8.5/10
+ Beautifully realised world + Great cast of characters, especially Elizabeth. + Sylines and Heavy Hitters - Doesn't live up to Bioshock's legacy - Not enough Weapon/Vigor variety - Story ends abruptly
Looking back on my first year on Game Art I feel like a changed person both in my art and my work ethic, I now realise there really is not time to mess around and have breaks whenever your feeling a little lazy, as Chris has told us many a time throughout the year, being good at art requires hard graft and he was not wrong there. I believe my work has progressed and its overall quality has improved as far as technical aspects are concerned, I'm not as good as I would like to be at this point and plan on doing extra work over summer to improve my basic drawing skills as well as my digital art. My weight of line still needs a lot of work.
When it comes to the 3D side of the course I would like to believe I have improved a great deal considering this time last year I had never even touched 3DS Max or UDK, looking back at projects like the wheelie bin and house in comparison to the quality of the Tree project is rather shocking, my textures are blurry, unwraps inefficient but now this has changed. I do feel as far as the 3D work goes more class time with Heather and Simon would be extremely valuable considering the steep learning curve of this area of the course, I realise this may not be possible though due to their busy schedules and thats why we have the labs so we can ask second and third years for extra help, but I did notice that some of my year were afraid to ask the other students for help, and sometimes you feel bad for pestering them when they are busy with workloads more demanding than our own. This is my only real issue with the course other than that everything has been great and everyone is really nice and friendly.
For the critical studies area of the course I have found that with my blog entries I have begun to develop my own writing style and I do enjoy writing entries, I've even done a few extra ones just because I felt like writing something. I really enjoyed doing my presentation and feel it was a good first effort and with more work on professional presentation I'll be sorted because I have never had a problem with talking in-front of groups of people so I pretty much have the verbal side of it down.
On the whole I feel my first year went well, not without it's fair share of sleepless nights and hick-ups but that's how you learn I guess, practice makes perfect, now all I have to do is make sure I'm perfect by October this year and everything is plain sailing..... shouldn't be so hard right?
With the Microsoft press conference on the horizon I wanted to take a moment to express my thoughts on the current situation, so far all we have heard from Gaming press and people in the Industry is pretty much rumour and speculation, but rumours usually stem from some version of an initial truth, Chinese whispersso to speak. So if we take this into account all these negative things we are hearing such as always-on DRM, non-optional Kinect functionality, no second hand games and others like this then combined with Microsoft's own lack of information provided to negate these accusations, I'm worried about what exactly Microsoft are planning on announcing and what direction they are going in with their new system.
If they plan to take the family entertainment route then they will have engaged in a battle with Nintendo's Wii and Wii U, although looking at the Wii U's current state of affairs there isn't a interest in family friendly gaming any-more because they Wii satisfied the casual market, but the Wii U's failure to sell significant units could be simply due to its lack of killer titles, for example the only reason I haven't bought a Wii U yet is because their are not any games, if at launch I could get my hands on a new Zelda, Metroid, Bayonetta, Xenoblade or Smash Bros, any one of these titles would have had me sold, and this is the same with everyone I have spoke to about the Wii U, they all say "we are waiting for good games".
So if the Xbox does lauch with a good line-up for casual gamers it could steal the living room from Nintendo's grasp, but I highly doubt this will be the case. I really hope Microsoft go in the same direction as Sony, no gimmicks, no nonesense just hardware specifications and good games because if they don't they will drive away the hardcore gamers and they, like myself are the people who spend a lot of money on new games and hardware, also if they decide to go casual then Sony has the hardcore market locked down with the PS4 and this is bad because competition breeds innovation and advancements, I fear if one console has sole dominance the market will cease to evolve at any speed resulting stale, recycled content.
So here's hoping that Microsoft show us a load of really great looking Xbox exclusives and there's no mention of any off the nonsense being spread in the rumours one can hope...
I have been playing through Dead Space 3 and I just wanted to do a short post about my thoughts and feelings on the game, bearing in mind that I'm still currently playing the game, at about the three-quarter mark so far, so I wont really touch on the story points in the game as I don't know how it ends. I will instead just be talking about the game-play and mechanics as well as new enemy types.
So whats new or changed in Dead Space 3, lets make a list and I'll go into more detail below:
Co-Op Gameplay,
Weapon Creation / Customisation,
Suits and Inventory,
Optional side missions,
New enemy types.
Okay so one of the biggest changes to the game is the addition of Co-operative play, necromorph slaying aficionado Isaac Clarke can now be joined on his journey by soldier John Carver, now if your like me when you first heard about this you were not too happy about the idea of having a terrible AI running around getting in your way if you don't have someone to play with, but luckily Visceral games seem to have picked up on the negative feedback around Sheva's character in RE5, so when playing alone, you are alone. The game will then modify certain aspects of the game, from numbers of enemies, bosses and even cutscenes and dialog. On top of this the game does reward you for playing with a buddy in extra mission segments that cant be played alone and extra story about John's character and his struggle with the Markers Hallucinations.
Weapon Creation and Customisation have had a major overhaul in this new addition to the series, with the introduction of a universal weapon system, the ability to actually build a weapon from scratch from parts, the old nodes system is now completely gone and has been replaced with upgrade circuits, on top of all this you can also now only carry two weapons as opposed to four.
This is what your new gun creation screen looks like
Now all these changes may at first seem very alien and not very intuitive, but when you get deeper into the weapon customisation you realise how good this new system actually is and allows for much more elaborate customisation, and is especially fun when playing with a friend and catering your weapons to compliment one another.
Also the ability to scavenge the environment for parts and then use them for various ends, this lends itself very well to DS3's survival aspect as you do end up in situations where you will have to decide between crafting yourself some more ammo or med-kits or an upgrade for your suit, and you will have to pick because you cannot afford them all. Also being able to scrap old weapons and parts for salvage is a nice touch which means you don't get sick of picking up multiples of the same object because it will still come in handy.
Lets talk a little about a few of the new enemies in Dead Space, the lovely fellow you can see above is whats known as a Waster and he has a little trick up his sleeve for Isaac, he retains the clothing of the host human in an attempt to fool unsuspecting victims, he also has a horrible habit of sprouting large spiked appendages from his waist or back in response to being shot at.
Above are the Feeders another new enemy type, these little nasties are formed when humans digest necromorph flesh, they are the only necromorph type encountered in Dead Space that dont Attack Isaac the moment he enters an area, they will actually scavenge around and go about their business as long as you dont disturb them, this makes your encounters with them all the more creepy, because ohh boy if you do disturb them they will swarm you at a moments notice and call for reinforcements. Plus just look at them, something about them is just nastier than regular necro's
Side missions in Dead Space have not been received all too well being referred to by many reviews as Backtracking and Time Wasting, I feel that this is really unfair on Visceral as all the Side Missions are in entirely separate areas and provide some unique spoils to be plundered. Yes you do have to walk back to get to them but that's the point are you willing to put in the extra time for extra loot, plus one of the best moments of the game so far has been within a side mission, and without spoiling to much it revolved around the creepy feeder enemies.
I'm not going to score this game because I am yet to complete it.
In this entry I will be talking about Environment Design within games and why a games environment can make or brake the experience for a player. Environment Design and Art Direction go hand in hand when creating a game world, as I mentioned in my Art Direction blog, good Art Direction is key to creating a cohesive world and from that a more fluid game experience for the player, a few key points that should be addressed when creating a game world are how its linked to the underlying storyline of the game and its relevance to the characters and enemies it holds, a good example of this being done well is in the original Dead Space by Visceral games, from the environment, characters, weapons and enemies everything feels like it belongs, even if it is set in a Science Fiction universe, the reason it works so well is everything you see in the game from the initial concepts to the final works have their ideas and structure based within reality.
For example the Zombie-like Necromorph enemies have twisted and broken bodies that seem very alien at a glance but if you examine them more closely you can see how they are designed through manipulating human anatomy.
I hope these images help to illustrate my point.
The last two images bring up an important point about design in games and how a simple visual stimulants in games are a great way to convey purpose, i'm referring to Isaac's RIG which serves as the players health bar throughout the game, using his suit in this way rather than the usual Heads up display not only creates functionality within the world but also provides a more visceral ( poor choice of words ) representation for the player, as the player you always dread seeing your rig turn red as your trying to survive.
The theme of functionality runs deep through Dead Space's design and this is what helps to create a realistic game world for the player to explore, everything aboard the Ishimura feels like its part of a once living environment where people went about their daily lives and jobs, from the inclusion of mess halls, lavatories, dorm rooms and so on, to even a huge air farm to provide oxygen for the ship.
Another good example of environment design is the city of Rapture from Bioshock which right from the start draws the player in with a sense of mystery and wonder as the events of the game unfold, the combination of the destroyed beauty of the city plays off so well against its stark raving mad inhabitants.
Here are some links too the developers speaking about there work.
