“I was really there!” Game immersion at its best

It’s been way too long since my last entry, but better late than never (and other suitable cliché’s) for this one.

It can be an extremely satisfying experience when you’re standing at the top of a tall Gothic styled building and looking down at a group of thugs below. You then jump straight down and into the middle of the thugs and before they can yell “It’s the Batman!!” you’ve already taken them out with some brutal melee moves that send them flying to the ground. You are the goddamn Batman and you love it. That’s the feeling I got while playing Batman: Arkham Asylum and it really does impress me how far this game goes to make you feel like the dark knight. There are many games that feature established characters like Batman, and sure, they do feature their trademark moves and gear, though few manage to make you feel like you really are that character and can pull off all of their moves just like how it’s done in their TV show or movie or whatever.

After I finished playing Arkham Asylum for the day, I began to think of other games that made you feel like you really were playing through a scene just like in the movie/TV show or really were in that environment as that character.

Another game that made me feel like I really was playing through certain scenes in the movies was Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader. The game has become fairly old now and you can notice a lot of the visual imperfections now than you could back then, but since it’s a game set around the original Star Wars trilogy, it’s kind of like you’re watching your old VHS copies of the movies lol. The first level in Rogue Leader is an epic moment to start off with: The Battle of Yavin. Factor 5 did a great job setting the scene, using all of the assets available to them thanks to LucasArts and created a game where you really felt like you were going down the Death Star trench run. I love how they even mimicked the exact same camera motions and flashes of light you see when Luke, Biggs and Wedge dive into the trench. Very cool… almost too cool.

Two more games that gave me a great sense of immersion are the Metroid Prime trilogy (Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption) and Dead Space. The first Metroid Prime, like its predecessor Super Metroid, allowed us to experience a universe with very lush, alien environments that felt very much alive with every step you took. Metroid Prime also introduced the concept of looking out through Samus Aran’s eyes for the first time. We got to experience her universe through her visor with very effective HUD graphics and read-outs. It also gave an extra sense of immersion as you saw the rain drops hitting your visor as you looked up at the stormy sky of Tallon IV.

Dead Space took a different approach but was just as effective as Metroid Prime’s take of putting you inside the character herself. Just as I wrote in my Game Spotlight for Dead Space, there are no traditional menus in Dead Space and looking through your inventory won’t suddenly pause the game. Everything concerning menu’s and such appear to you through holographic projections that your character’s suit projects. Dead Space also does a brilliant job of using shadows and sounds to make you react, entice your senses and to even dull them on purpose. There are moments in the game where the sounds of the ships engines or ore processing is so deafening that it masks the approach of the necromorphs meaning that you have to be on your guard with your hearing no longer being a reliable tool.

These are only a few games mentioned, but I’m sure the rest of you out there can tell of your experiences of immersion with other games.