Oblivion's incomplete physics
If snow falls in the magical realm of Tamriel, will a battlemage leave a footprint as he traverses Bethesda Softworks' beautifully rendered landscapes? Does it even matter? Aaron Stanton of GamesFirst! attempts to address these questions in his discussion of casual physics and its absence from next gen games such as Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Although developers attend to specific targeted physics in a game, such as the rag doll behavior in enemy deaths, a 3D environment's accidental interactions tend to be ignored, due mostly to a lack of dedicated physics acceleration in today's hardware.
A quick excerpt from the article: "The impact of wide-scale physics acceleration in video games is going to be responsible for the next significant shift in how gamers perceive our industry. Good graphics won't be defined simply by things like dynamic lighting, but by the ability to play a game 100 different times without ever seeing a scripted scene that plays out twice in the same way. How your sword is deflected, and how a shield is moved, during an attack would be different in nearly every swing depending on the angle and the force of the strike."
Stanton suggests that advanced physics processing units will be the hallmark of true next gen gaming. Do you agree?
[via GameBanshee]
