Penny Arcade - Comic - The Realest

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Penny Arcade - Comic - The Realest

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

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R.Z.

I'm admitting this in shame, but I actually bought a copy of Watch Dogs (on sale) just for the Chicago Sight-seeing.
I ... I wanted to see if I could recognize spots that I had seen on Early Edition when I was a kid ...
Decent game though, if I can judge by the five hours I have spent on it.

Enlong

"Hey Joe, where'd you get the idea for this person you painted?"
"Oh, that one? That one's an actual person. Didn't have to imaginate the features at all. He just sat in front of me and let me paint. It was so easy."

RenegadePhantom

Ubisoft games have basically become sightseeing tours. They need the fidelity to cover up their terrible mission design.

GrassHopper

R.Z. wrote: »

I'm admitting this in shame, but I actually bought a copy of Watch Dogs (on sale) just for the Chicago Sight-seeing.
I ... I wanted to see if I could recognize spots that I had seen on Early Edition when I was a kid ...
Decent game though, if I can judge by the five hours I have spent on it.

If we're being honest, I couldn't get through Infamous but I played all through Second Son just to see more of Seattle. I've only seen it from a shuttle drive through and now through the magic of video games

ziddersroofurry

I once played The Secret World and found a house that looked just like the house in Rhode Island I grew up in. Aside from the giant radioactive crater Fallout 4 doesn't look too different from how New England looks now. Especially RI. Lots of old haunted houses, vacant buildings turned into high priced condos by the few survivors of the states latest financial apocalypse and government buildings full of ghouls.

Rhesus Positive

As somebody who lives in the UK (and not in London), all of these places might as well be fantasy

Get a Watchdogs set in Bradford or an AssCreed in Cambridge and I might be able to have an opinion

Darkewolfe

Fallout 3 was neat, but it sort of annoyed me that it was DC but not really DC at all.

Zomagic

I'm both with and against Gabe on this. On the one hand, it's conceptually lazy. On the other hand, I do respect the work that goes into the models and textures. Games aren't (usually) high art.

identeregare

Yeah, where do these game designers get off, being so derivative? With film, at least, you have to trek all the way to Toronto in order to shoot a New York street scene.

Rhesus Positive

identeregare wrote: »

Yeah, where do these game designers get off, being so derivative? With film, at least, you have to trek all the way to Toronto in order to shoot a New York street scene.

That would be the best game: set in New York, but a 1:1 reproduction of Toronto

AngryRobot

Gabe, you son of a B*tch.
"Big RED bridge?" As a bay-area local, I cannot stand for this. They call it the "Golden" Gate Bridge for a reason!
...because it's not gold....

Smrtnik

Wait, you can go to RI in Fallout 4?

wallywest

Smrtnik wrote: »

Wait, you can go to RI in Fallout 4?

Yep, the entire US is in there. For Detroit they didn't really have to change anything.

Commander Zoom

wallywest wrote: »

Smrtnik wrote: »

Wait, you can go to RI in Fallout 4?

Yep, the entire US is in there. For Detroit they didn't really have to change anything.

You know, I've been saying for years that the problem with trying to copy the aesthetic of the first two classic games to other settings/regions is that most of the Southwest is already a barren, uninhabitable wasteland.

Golden Yak

Enlong wrote: »

"Hey Joe, where'd you get the idea for this person you painted?"
"Oh, that one? That one's an actual person. Didn't have to imaginate the features at all. He just sat in front of me and let me paint. It was so easy."

Seriously. Like, this is a really weird thing for an artist to say, if this is an actual sentiment from Mike. Even simply re-creating something from life isn't easy. I mean sure, I'm less interested in running around LA than I am in running around Azeroth, but still... re-creating an entire real-life city is an effort worth a little respect.

Quid

I very much doubt it's how Mike really feels.

RatherDashing

Golden Yak wrote: »

Enlong wrote: »

"Hey Joe, where'd you get the idea for this person you painted?"
"Oh, that one? That one's an actual person. Didn't have to imaginate the features at all. He just sat in front of me and let me paint. It was so easy."

Seriously. Like, this is a really weird thing for an artist to say, if this is an actual sentiment from Mike. Even simply re-creating something from life isn't easy. I mean sure, I'm less interested in running around LA than I am in running around Azeroth, but still... re-creating an entire real-life city is an effort worth a little respect.

To be fair, while making a painting or sketch look just like the real thing is *hard*, people don't usually praise such a work as a stand-out piece of art. Especially if they did it by tracing a photo. Now, using GPS data, city maps, etc, to construct a digital model is by no means as easy as tracing a photo of a person's face. But it's also not as if they are looking out their window at LA, squinting one eye, and doodling on their computer screen. They have very precise tools, I would imagine, to make the city models accurate. But from an art perspective, I would say it shows more imagination and vision to create a realistic, logical, and aesthetically appealing building, city, or world entirely from your mind.

Tube

Please note Gabe and Mike are not the same

Swainwalker

also see that second guy in the third panel, saying how it might actually be hard

Mike had to draw that guy and put the words in the bubble...

(I think he might be in on the joke)