Yes, I’m banging this drum again, or if you haven’t seen me mention it before, for the first time. Games and realism don’t mix, and they never have. The first home console games that popularized the medium were Tennis For Two and similar games, an unambitious design by today’s standards with a couple of pixels sliding up and down the screen with a square “ball” bouncing around. Stepping a little further in the timeline, Final Fantasy characters aren’t real because you’d need to get up 3 AM to do your hair like that. Realism is stupid in proper video games, not only because we’re either trying to escape from it or delve into a world of fantasy, but because it doesn’t feel right.

That is none more apparent than in reason years and months. Video games have, for the most part, flared off into four branches: Indie games doing something interesting, trend chasers such as Fortnite clones, Souls-likes, and Minecraft-likes, the multiplayer skinner boxes (Destiny, FIFA, and their ilk), and then there are the remasters. There are exceptions to the rule, with some making the mold for a more mature way of storytelling. There are some that provide a classic fun world with an effortless and blunt toolbox of mechanics, or those with the pretension of realism. However, for the most part, that is the entire industry for this past generation as a whole.

Shadow of the Colossus, the Kingdom Hearts series, every Zelda game, Oddworld games, Pokémon games, Tomb Raider (1997), Warcraft 3, Yakuza, the Command & Conquer series, Call of Duty, Spyro, The Prince of Persia, and many more have been remastered. Believe it or not, I’m just listing games or series from the last 15 or so years with that treatment. Remakes/remasters and ports of games have been around since the late ’80s. Yet, unlike those late 80s remakes or ports, we’re delving back into our childhoods and times we all understand as when games were more fun.

I’ve yet to find a fan of the Silent Hills or Resident Evil franchises that don’t want a release of what is their “best game.” Recently with the leak of The Sands of Time remake, some have voiced their desire for the trilogy to be re-released, and the same was said of Scott Pilgrim for years. Though there is one time in gaming culture I know I have been dying to return to for over a decade, a time when I could do like Elphaba and defy gravity. I love when games are unrealistic. I’ve seen people argue of Watch_Dogs 2, “Well, it is not a real depiction of hacking!” Yeah, and John McClane really wiped out a helicopter with a cop car?

I have the same problem with the morons that yell “Wrestling is not real!” Those people are joyless and must love to stand up in the theater when Tom Cruise is halfway up a building holding on with only magic gloves and yell, “he’s on a wire, that’s fake!” Take your pretensions of the early days of film and stunts somewhere else. Back then, someone could and would die or get injured regularly. I hate these people, and I hate these people with a passion because sometimes a work of fiction requires a bit of fiction in it.

My point is, the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 release improved the series far beyond where it ever was while holding onto the physics of those early games. It is not realistic. I’ve been arguing this like a madman in his underpants in Time Square shouting “Jesus is coming back as the lizard king, and he’s going to eat the young!” Video games don’t need to have a horse that goes plop plop in real-time, genitals that shrink in the cold, or a witcher with a beard that grows in relative time. It is ancillary rubbish that is like looking at a normal pizza, yet thinking you need fireworks shooting out that explode in the shape of strippers just so you can enjoy it.

It is pizza! As a man (which some find debatable), there are two things that you will always enjoy, even if it is the greasiest, dirtiest, ugly, unfashionable, or boring slop: Pizza and sex. I assume for women that is just pizza and fantasizing about killing men who say “you should smile more.” My point is, you can add your toys or pineapples, but I (and many others) don’t want to be included with some of that, because pineapple is awful.

Sometimes distilling a game down to the simple things that made that genre brilliantly popular in the first place is all that is needed. Yes, THPS 1 + 2 added a whole catalog of challenges that keep you playing and unlocking. You can pursue 75 trick combos with no grinds, but that’s not adding to the gameplay. I’m sure some could take or leave that, but once you’ve completed the game, it is giving you something else to do. Having a horse with a small penis and a tight storage sack, that isn’t adding gameplay or providing something else to do.

“Oh, but it is realistic that you’d feel cold and he might feel cold too.” I don’t care! I’ve shot many scared and pretentious horses, or as some would call them “deer.” I’ve never felt an ounce of remorse for killing an animal in a game where I’m mowing down the humans like Dichondra, why would I care about genital shrinkage on my pony? I’m sure I said it in a video recently over on our YouTube channel, but I’ve seen people argue that F1 2020 (and probably 2019) is bad because the Safety Car isn’t the 2018 Mercedes-AMG GT R Pro, but is the 2015 AMG GT S. Something 99% of people, myself included, wouldn’t notice or care about.

Sometimes a smidge of realism works. In Sniper Elite games you want that solid sniper line up with the wind and sound to mask your shot. Then you have things like Euro Truck Simulator 2, which you’d hate if you really drove for a whole 48-hours for one trip. Yet we’ve shifted towards these games with the pretensions of “realism” under the guise of it somehow making games better. I’ll argue for days on end that Tomb Raider (2013) is the blandest grey paste squirted out of an old and dusty ice cream machine. “It is more realistic that she has emotions,” but is it also realistic that she dies in gruesome murder porn scenes where her skull is caved in several times? No, it is horrific and gratuitously, solely done for the impact on you as the player.

The Just Cause series is one of just going mental with the most action-packed B-movie plot and half a billion-dollar budget. It is brilliant for how absolutely bonkers it is, but it is not pretending to be realistic and is fun for that reason. Dark Souls, isn’t realistic, being rammed from behind that hard is only reserved for those games. Doom (2016) is about hell demons on Mars, and it is fun to rip them in half, the first couple of times the contextual button prompt comes up. Games don’t have to be realistic to enjoy them or for them to make an impact.

The prime example is God of War (2018). A story that is so personal and meaningful, surrounded by some of the best superhero fights ever. It is grounded in gaming fiction and two ancient mythologies. The only thing realistic about that game was me wanting to drop-kick a child off of a mountain. To continue on the dad game, or if I were to segue into anything else it would be “the hairy dad game,” the Yakuza series is one so personal and grounded in strong characters that the unrealistic segments still work. You don’t need gritty “realism” in games to make something acceptable, as I’ve seen some argue.

Sometimes you don’t even need characters, as the THPS 1 + 2 roster normalizes both women and non-binary people in skating more than most games ever have. As a result of that game, I’ve been watching women’s skateboarding from the X Games and other competitions. While it has expanded in recent years it is still under the radar. How? I don’t know, given the X Games last year featured Sky Brown, Cocona Hiraki, and Misugo Okamoto, who are all under the age of 15. They are tiny little bundles of skating brilliance and energy, they will dominate in years to come.

My point is, showcasing Leo Baker, who competed in street for several years as “Lacey Baker,” does so much for queer and non-binary people who could find acceptance in skating. Seeing the likes of Aori Nishimura and Leticia Bufoni lead to me watching these competitions. The competitions are filled with a wealth of young women that 20-years ago you’d never look at twice other than seeing them standing on a skateboard. That is real, and showcases someone without holding them up for their traumatic experiences, or the box you’ve assigned them to stay in. It makes them more realistic than your gritty, tragedy-filled faux-realism.

I have several problems with The Last of Us Part II, but I knew at least some of it was going to be about killing homophobic nutjobs since about 2018. This is putting aside the depiction of a trans character (Lev) just for the tragedy, and the “fan” reception to Abby for being a woman with muscles. None of it realizes the characters without tragedy, which is a large trend not only in gaming but Television and film too. Yes, tragedy is one small part of life, but it is a part, not the whole thing. Character is not just built on tragedy, but a whole experience as a human.

I mentioned it earlier, Tomb Raider (2013) is about Lara being smacked about and put in horrific situations. She’s following in the mold of Uncharted‘s Nathan Drake, and I hate him already for lacking character in the first place. David Cage’s triple-header of tragic nonsense played with the three tragedies of a dead kid, mental issues and homelessness, and clumsy racism metaphors. All these games tried too hard to lay sad situations in front of you so you become empathetic towards characters, which is not how it works. Often it creates apathy instead.

Both The Walking Dead and Life Is Strange first seasons build character before delving into the tragedy and horrific situations to deal with. Less so with Life is Strange, as that was more a slightly supernatural high school drama, but it was fine. The build towards the season finale of Telltale’s The Walking Dead is still one of the few moments in gaming that I’ll never forget. It was so well done, and did well showing people as characters. Were they perfect? No, they had a few weak links, but they did better than most games have with their cumbersome and clunky cinematic pretensions.

Even the attempts to make gameplay more “realistic” feel off-putting and too robust to compel what is attempted, or too arcade-like for that same feeling. Often adding this fake realism is over-complicating what could be pure fiction, such as The Witcher 3‘s swords. In reality, it seems stupid to have two massive swords on you, but in the game you have a reason and it is understood because… it is a game and a piece of fiction, no matter how illogical it is. Yes, it is a joke of the horses in Skyrim climbing mountains, but it is bloody annoying as Link to climb rocks after it has rained in Breath of the Wild.

We use game design and mechanics to give a fictionalized feeling of something, but you also want to make it as quick and easy as possible. This is why VR is a troublesome beast to work with, especially when it comes to the use of guns and movement. There is little to no force feedback, you’re not really holding a gun, so every now and then you’ll see arms (when rendered) that are in several directions and what medical practitioners would call: “AHHHHHHHH!”

The same could be said of the conventional game with a typical PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo controller. You aren’t realistically doing anything because you are pressing buttons and moving sticks. You can get lost in a game, you can lose yourself in a deep and rich world full of characters full of personality, but that doesn’t require this fabled “realism.” It is the idea of The Search for Animal Chin, to bring this back to why I started this, you are searching for something that’s only in legend.

That or you want to be an actual cowboy, truck driver, skateboarder, superhero, 19th-century businessman, racing driver, go head to head with the devout of God-president Reagan, be an accountant, hacker, or MasterChef contestant without all the hassle. I understand that, but that hassle is what makes it real. Falling down and breaking a bone after attempting a McTwist would take time to recover. Going to prison for hacking into something and being caught would take time, the time you don’t want to serve. That’s what games do, they are unrealistic and fun because they cut out all the boring bits like picking up cans of peas in RDR 2.

What started me on this was continuing to play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 for hours, not because it is realistic, but because it is fun. Once I’m done here, I’ll be going back to complete more challenges and unlock more in the game. If there wasn’t a deadly pandemic, I’m sure I’d be out skating local spots, but right now I’m more than happy playing the game. A game that is so unrealistic, that is unencumbered by useless pedantry, but back to when games could just be about fun.

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