# kojima's old snake and valve's new engine aka toilet polishing compare and contrast new and old character models of hideo kojima's soild plissken snake with a leaked alleged screen-shot of the plantation level of left4dead2 seen in valve's source engine 2 the old and new solid snakes side by side // image here an alleged source engine 2 screenshot of a left4dead 2 level // image here the standard message is still graphics is everything! - when in fact it's only something once again the implication here is that higher resolutions = better games that realism still rules yet poor old wrinkly snake is arguably no less an uninspiring generic and basically 2d character than ey ever was - despite forever reappearing in higher-rez with ever more polygons if perhaps not as cool everyone in the left 4 dead series is perhaps more interesting then snake - indeed has way more character even if a realtime fully sentient model of kiefer sutherland with infinite detail was possible - it still wouldn't make a dead pixel of difference to the fact you can't graphically improve poor ideas consider kojima production's "fox engine": a prime example where impressive increases in an engine's technical capability software complexity and raw computational power.. almost guarantee a decrease in interest in what's actually played / playable - like creeping about reading dirty magazines and shooting stuff (ie. the same old story) as for valve's own "source 2" engine suspect another potential lack of imagination engines only capable of churning out largely untouchable dead museum (tech) exhibits - far more visually complex but still as static and non-dynamic as ever like many industry figures mr. kojima seems firmly stuck in wistfully imagining "accurate physics-based lighting" is all easily impressed scientists need to convince themselves it's still not 1998.. oh wait graphical fidelity / realism are too often used as lazy substitutes for _anything_ more meaningfully interesting - eg. new forms and processes for game object interaction or potentials for complex emergent social dynamics games thrive on challenging ideas - and questioning traditional concepts - not just **+** improved shadows **+** higher quality models / architecture **+** nicer looking lighting techniques **+** moar explosions / brown-haired heroes any modern engine can churn out passably good looking cookie cutter games - and they often do // video here // republic of bob