by James Spiller

Created on: January 28, 2009

Gamers are a diverse bunch. There are large markets for all sorts of different types of games, from first person shooters, to RPGs, to puzzle games, to sports games, and trying to get gamers to agree on which genre is the best, let alone which is the best game, is an exercise in complete futility. Every gamer has their own favorite video game. They may love a game for a bevy of reasons such as its graphics, gameplay, innovation, or nostalgia, and it is impossible to get them to agree on very much. However, there is one thing that all gamers share in common, the reason that they play games.

We play video games to escape, to get away from our mundane lives, even if it's for only a few moments. They give us a chance to break free from reality and allow us to explore worlds that we never thought possible. We become fighter pilots, pit fighters, soldiers, explorers, detectives, sports stars, and anything and everything else you can think of, with just one flick of a power button. But as gamers we seek one thing above all. There is one quality that we hold above everything else, and is the determining factor of a good video game. We all seek this quality in our games, whether we realize it or not.

Immersion.

When we sit down to play a video game, we don't want to think about school, work, or relationships. We want to get away from our problems for a while and get lost in a virtual world. The better job a game does of creating a world that helps us forget our lives, the better quality the game.

So what is it about games that makes us get lost in them? They are just pixels on a screen, how do they fool us into wiling away the hours in front of a television? The answer is easy. Games use graphics, sound, and gameplay to create a lavish sensory experience.

When we want to get away from our lives and jump into a fantasy world, we want realism. The better the graphics are, the easier it is to believe that we are in that world. It is easier to imagine that you are Kobe Bryant, driving the lane for the game winning dunk with the seconds ticking off the clock, when there are beads of sweat dripping from your nose. In past sports games, players on the basketball court were nothing more than pixelated sprites that clunkyly skipped around the court. Today, we have full motion capture, rendered in high definition. The players look photo realistic and you can see every detail down to the creases in each player's jersey. As graphics get closer and closer to reality it becomes harder

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