You may have already caught a whiff of the news.com article in question; Smell technology being tested in video games. Murdoch's newshounds know a good yarn when they smell it. The use of video games by the military establishment isn't news, but according to the report, computer scientists are now utilising new technology to stimulate the participants sense of smell, in an effort to make the simulations more realistic.
Now this makes perfect sense. Training simulators or simulation programs (as opposed to videogames) exist to provide the closest approximation to the real thing, at a fraction of the cost and without any of the inherent downsides of the 'real thing' – inconvenient stuff like dying. Anything you can do to bridge the gap between reality and the simulation to better prepare your trainee, without endangering their health and without increasing your costs exponentially, is clearly a good thing.
Imagine if you will a raw recruit, dropped behind enemy lines, into the still smoking ruins of a town lay waste by heavy artillery and aerial bombardment. Imagine your senses being assaulted; not simply the sights and sounds of this hellish landscape but by the smells as well - the stench of burnt flesh, raw sewerage, and rotting corpses (apologies to anyone still eating their breakfast). It would be enough to make you physically sick, or at the very least, take the edge off your razor sharp skills just long enough to... dead, you’re dead. Shot through the head by the sniper on the second floor of the bombed-out cafe, while you were busy heaving on the side of the road and searching for a bandana to cover your mouth and nose.
News.com interviewed Professor Bob Stone, of Birmingham University, who believes "Smell is the most underrated sense, but next to vision it is the most information-rich one we have." No surprise then that Professor Stone has knocked up a scent delivery system aimed at making training games more realistic. Professor Stone's contraption is made up of eight separate chambers, "each containing a pot of wax impregnated with a pungent smell ranging from gingerbread to a mix of odours designed to evoke combat".
On the nose gaming. No one wants to smell this.
Gingerbread? Unless you're a crack trainee commando planning on extracting Hansel and Gretel from the Gingerbread House and capturing the Witch alive, I'm not really sure I understand. Of course, I've never served in the army either so perhaps gingerbread scent makes perfect sense. Feel free to let me know.
Now here is where the news report gets a little silly. According to the report, this technology is coming to a console near you. "The effects will allow players to experience the odours of the virtual world they are playing their games in, such as a racetrack or the battlefield." Ok, time-out. I'm prepared to let the gingerbread nonsense slide but this is just crazy talk. To think this makes any kind of sense is to misunderstand completely the crucial difference between a video game designed as a training simulation tool and a video game designed to entertain.
Take the flight game Tom Clancy's HAWX for example, in which you play the role of an ace fighter pilot. Now you and I know that fighter pilots are regularly subjected to high levels of acceleration or g-force if you like. We can even simulate those g-forces in a human centrifuge, as indeed we do, to check that our pilots and astronauts have 'the right stuff'. You won't experience high levels of acceleration in any tactile fashion when playing HAWX and frankly why would you want to? Clearly it’s currently cost-prohibitive to create g-force in the manner of a human centrifuge, but even if it was economically feasible, would you want to risk throwing up all over your controller before losing consciousness, simply for the sake of heightened immersion? Such training, as physically demanding and unpleasant as it is, is obviously vital for fighter pilots or astronauts, but obviously not necessary or wanted in a video game that's meant to be a source of fun and enjoyment.
The quote above mentions bringing the odours of the race track into your home. Really? You want your lounge to smell of petrol fumes, burnt rubber, stale beer, Dagwood dogs and BO? Sure, it's an authentic experience, but at what point does that authenticity have you reaching for the air freshener and throwing open the windows? My guess, about five minutes into the experience. It just makes no sense. Apparently F1 drivers and our own V8 champs alike lose copious fluids out on the track. How about you dial the thermostat up to 35 degrees, thrown on a fleecy tracksuit, jump in a sleeping bag and sit down to four hours of Gran Turismo Prologue just so you can have the pleasure of wringing out a litre of sweat from your undies at the end of the race.
I'm a big fan of Dolby Digital Surround Sound, and the first to acknowledge that the aural fidelity of a game can make or break a title. I'm also guilty of cranking up the volume to heighten my enjoyment and immersion in a game (Killzone 2 - I'm listening to you), but even that has its limits. My Mum lives up on the Gold Coast, in the heart of Surfers Paradise. Her beachside apartment is smack bang in the middle of the Gold Coast Indy street circuit, and as such, I've enjoyed a number of Indy Race weekends. Anyone who has ever got up close and personal to a IndyCart open wheeler or even a pack of V8 Supercars in full flight can tell you how bloody loud they are. Put those same fire-breathing monsters into a canyon of high rise apartments and the noise is magnified even further. Experience it for the first time and you'll be mesmerised by the sheer noisy brutality of these machines - they are a sight and sound to behold. But after the initial joy and surprise at seeing these beasts running through your Mum's backyard wears off, you'll be reaching for the ear plugs and wishing you had the professional headsets that the pit crew are shielding their ears with. Simply put - it's just too bloody loud. I'd wager, that given a choice, anyone trackside would dial the volume down, and that even if your sound system could crank out such a volume, that none of us would choose to game in such a fashion.
Before anyone says Cooking Mama, I don't even see smell making sense when the smell is a potentially good one. If I'm smelling baked scones, fresh out of the oven, and hazelnut coffee brewing on the stove, then you'd better be about to serve me precisely that. Don't tease me with the scent of a culinary delight only to get me salivating for no good reason.
Don’t misunderstand me. The quest for greater realism is a worthy one. It drives the industry forward and most of the time it makes sense. Take visual fidelity. Photorealism makes sense when you are trying to approximate real life. If I’m driving a John Cooper Works Mini in a racing game then it needs to look like the real life counterpart it’s meant to represent. The closer you can get to that, the more immersed I’ll be. So too with people, because we know what people look like, move like and talk like. Speaking of which, great voice actors delivering well crafted lines can lift a game, and contribute to the overall authenticity of the experience, which is why we are now seeing so much effort being made in this area. Conversely, if the game features Yowies in the year 3099, it’s a safe bet that the target audience will be more forgiving if the developer’s interpretation doesn’t quite match their own. I won’t, but that’s only because my own personal Yowie encounter on the lower slopes of Black Mountain in July of last year remains to this day, a vivid, haunting memory.
Until next weekend, that's The Wrap.
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