Copyright (c) 2010 Craig Jaya

Games are most likely the final form of escapism. They have an aspect of interactivity that no other medium has, and that provides them the potential to really carry the player into a world they can take part in. This type of immersion is what sets games besides books or movies.

It is disappointing to see how often programmers get it mistaken.

You will get programmers who believe realism is all you have to immerse a player. They are convinced that the graphics all seem like real life that the player may imagine it is. They could not be more mistaken. Things need to behave realistically too. It does not matter how life-like your setting is, if the characters do not move or respond to your actions naturally, you may as well not have worried. It really works for movies such as Iron Man because they have got real people acting out a script, not automated characters that require to adapt to everything the player does.

Joysticks are another part where programmers have attempted and fallen into the immersion. Motion joysticks, such as the Wii remote and the upcoming Playstation Move look like a good idea at first: players emulate the actions they need to execute in game with the controllers. But, in point of fact, it just makes the joysticks gauche and annoying. Motions only superficially resemble the actions and without some type of physical reaction, swinging a controller may not feel like hitting something using an axe. Ideally, with joysticks, you wish the player to be able to think about what they need to perform in the game and just do it. That is more than possible with just simple switches. Gimmicky motion joysticks are not needed.

Voice acting can cause a game's immersiveness. Unfortunately, voice acting is generally an afterthought and the players are not given much context, just a few lines to read out. A line that sounds strange in context can throw you from the experience. Players for movies need to understand the context and their inspiration to provide a good performance, so why are not more programmers giving their voice players the same privileges?

We have seen games take action right, though, and they ought to be praised for it! Halo games are very immersive, with smooth joysticks and situation that set your character in the type of "controllable helplessness". Your character can be in the situation where they can not move, you can still look around. It is an easy trick, but just by not taking control away from the player, you avoid breaking the game's flow, making the tense moments all the more extraordinary.

The climbing and free-running in the Prince Of Persia games can be deserving of mention. There is no repetitive switch tapping, just hold down one switch and point where you wish to go. Your character just takes the suitable action to vault, swing or climb over what is in the way. They have developed it incredibly so that you get a way of the freedom you need to go everywhere, whatever barriers obstruct your path. You can just get lost inside the city.

If you can lose yourself in a game like that, you realize you are having fun! Immersion separates games from movies and it is also what separates an average game from a fantastic game!