After my physics class in High School, I was so confident I would never grasp it but found my self asking so many questions. Why is the sky blue? Why is there gravity? I always was so fascinated by physics but did so bad in my class back then. In High School I was a huge gamer and I never questioned anything in a video game, even though most of the games didn't follow the rules of physics a lot of games did. This is the question that took me years to ask my self and that is, why is physics important in video games?
While I am a huge Counter Strike fan and a fan of Smash Bros, I will be using both these games to begin with. Counter Strike is a FPS game and stays pretty true to the laws of physics, with the characters, bullets, movement and more. With Smash Bros I never thought there was physics because I am flying extremely high, staying afloat and throwing fire! Although I assume there is no physics there surprisingly is a lot. With out physics, video games it would not make sense to the player. Although you think a person flying is not realistic to physics, the programmer needs to imply his speed and gravity with in the game!
Taking a closer look comparing both the games, lets see how involved physics is. When creating a game like Counter Strike the characters movements need to flow as if gravity exist. When a bullet is shot at another player it must stay true to distance and speed. You can alter the gravity in the console settings and it feels like a totally different game, almost like a physics games. If the programmer didn't understand physics this would not be possible. When you change the gravity higher, you can not jump nearly as high as you could before. Throwing a grenade in the game has to make the most sense because of distance. If you throw it aiming high it should go pretty far, if aim lower it should hit the ground sooner and roll. Physics is not perfect in the game, of course there is some parts to the game that can be better but they did a good job. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDK09mKjG2U this video is great at explaining how the grenade physics work.
In Smash bros there is still physics even though we are ignoring the laws of the real world! You see swords doing insanely fast spins, ice blocks appearing from no where and people flying in the air. Gravity is still playing a role in the game because a player can not stay in the air for ever. Although the physics is altered it is playing a huge roll so the game works properly. When a player gets punched they fly in the air or backwards, if physics had no roll than this would not make sense to punch someone and have them fall forwards. In this video it explains how physics works in Smash bros and its all very interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZvgyZ_ifu8. Smash bros took into account the different masses of each player and how each one is affected by gravity.
What I came to realize is that there is so much physics behind every game and it is extremely important. Without physics some of thee games would be lost and to confusing for a player. There is a lot of work that goes into programming physics into the game itself and keeping it true will result in a better game.
Reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDK09mKjG2U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZvgyZ_ifu8
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