Realism in Games - Armor

When developing a game, often a major question arises: how realistic should the game be? In other words - how close to real life should the game play to keep it fun? A game being "realistic" is often associated with the game being difficult, hardcore, and not for casual players. Instead, what I will be discussing and comparing here is game features that are realistic and those that are not, and what kind of impact they have on games.

This post will be focusing on armor.

Lets take a look at Counter Strike's realistic armor protection versus the armor system in the Rainbow Six: Vegas multiplayer. I am comparing two shooters because armor in melee or medieval games usually cannot be individually targeted due to limitations of the melee combat system from third person perspective. Also, I am not aware of any melee game that lets you target specific spots and break armor.

Implementations in Question

Counter Strike lets players buy a Kevlar vest which gives the player 100 armor points and therefore protects against a finite number of body-shots. Shots that hit other body parts do not take away from the vest's durability and damage the Hit Points of the player instead. This armor system is realistic as this is similar to how wearing a vest in real life would affect incoming bullets targeted at the vest and unprotected parts.

Rainbow Six: Vegas allows players to choose armor for 4 body parts: body, shoulders, arms, and legs. Each of these body parts can wear armor of varying protection and mobility ratios. The more protection an armor has, the less mobility it has to balance it out. However, when you target individual body parts, the damage dealt is not based on the protection attribute of the armor worn on the body part, but the overall armor rating of your whole armor set. This is less realistic but lets players customize their character and their gameplay experience in a more realistic way, as in real life you would be able to wear more protection than just a Kevlar vest and a helmet.

Improvement Possibility

Combining the armor system from Counter Strike with the one in Rainbow Six: Vegas would create the most realistic and customizable experience for the player. Having a selection of armor pieces for  different body parts and being able to target those armor pieces to decrease their durability and consequentially to use the broken armor as weak points to damage the player's hit points would be the optimal armor system for both shooters and first-person melee games. This will combine realism with customization in a fun package suitable for popular games like Call of Duty and Chivalry: Medieval Warfare.

Respectful comments, discussions, suggestions, and constructive criticisms are always welcome.