Do you think that those screens of Wipeout 2048 are realistic? I can't agree with that. My point by displaying the concept art is that the stylistic elements inherent in the art director's and their artist's output does make its way into the final renders, examples like the lighting effects and glowing in those screens and pretty much any other Wipeout example seem obviously unrealistic to me. I say the same thing about the illustrations in boxart/manual and other published materials for MGS and the way the characters are modelled and rendered in the game (or not, for example in the codec sequences). The linear geometric structures that form the track and surroundings in that 2nd Wipeout screenshot and most of its tracks are in no way practical in real life and so objectively those inclusions are unrealistic and form part of the total image. I don't think it's true to say that the content in the frame of a image trying to be realistic can't make that image less realistic, because it is part of the image. This is circuitous.
Oh well. I think you're missing the difference between realism as a style in and of itself and other styles mixed in, as you asked what was meant by a "style", and how games can't really be realistic if they are emulating films, which I tried as best I can to explain critically.
What you're talking about more is photorealism or hyperealism, in that certain aspects of games like faces and eyes, global illumination or ray-traced lighting etc. are trying to exactly recreate what a photo might look like i.e. the way that light actually behaves to create an image similar to what we perceive, and I'm adding more detail to your arguments that games are inherently more about
reproducing and
representing reality rather than replicating it
exactly, which isn't a bad thing. My argument is that this is exactly the existential point of video games which are largely fantasy forms of art, as are, say, films heavily featuring CGI (games
are CGI because they do things that don't exist). To then take that same continuum from the past and suggest that Wipeout and MGS were successful in their efforts to be realistic, even given the technical limitations at the time, because maybe the lighting is better and models more detailed than a 16-bit game is absurd to me because they were not based on or very successful in reproducing realistic images.
But it is semantics, I appreciate that part, despite the comparisons I draw being interesting to me you basically want graphics to be "better" which to you means "more representative of reality". I think that undoes games to some extent and often makes them worse, and the more realistic they get, the more the uncanny effect prevails.
Like I previously said, the technology advances are interesting and useful in certain types of games but I don't think they enhance games as much as the industry and consumers think they do. And part of my argument is that therein the stylistic elements of games are under-appreciated, by for example, not recognising that games like Wipeout do a lot more than try to achieve realism in order to look the way that they do and the resulting cultural impact they have.
I'm not missing your point (although I think you're making more of an observation than an argument so there's nothing to contest anyway), just expanding on it and slightly reframing it with more accurate terminology and some historical reference in answer to the question you posted because, I thought I would probably be good at that.
I'm not talking about games being realistic here, I'm talking about realistic graphics.
I think they're somewhat inextricable due to so many aspects of games being fantastical in nature but what you are talking about and posting examples of in this thread is specific kinds of rendering, motion-captured animation, sub-surface scattering of flesh tones/textures, hair and so on which of course might be used in a game without that game actually being or looking realistic overall, because to do that would nullify the content. I'd look again at my point about the filmic comparisons because those are mechanical and technical effects particular to film as a medium and so if you are copying them, it can't be realistic, it's stylistic or "film-like". For example forced depth-of-field effects, colour-casting/grading, lensflares, over and underexposure of certain light sources, excessive bloom etc. prevalent in many "realistic" games are not actually realistic. If a game was trying to be truly realistic it wouldn't feature these element at all, but they persist because, games are trying as usual to recreate films rather than reality.
Star Wars
It's a better comparison than Wipeout for sure because Star Wars at least used to pursue the appearance of a world worn from living and some (but not all) structures and ship designs that actually make sense and the lighting for example is sometimes very realistic, largely due to it being as you say a part live-action film. But there are obviously unrealistic elements. I've compared Star Wars to realist films such as WW2 films in past criticism, seeing as they're both about war. Despite the similarities of both glorifying war in unrealistic ways because war is strawberry floating horrible, the aesthetics of Star Wars are overall not realistic but some parts could be considered photographic. It's a fantastical and unreal film that uses actors heavily made up in fancy dress and all sorts of practical effects and CGI to promote those fantastical and unrealistic elements, meaning it's purpose is not to be realistic and the claim it is kind of does the film a disservice because its success is to be fantastical and all-encompassing, in its fantasy, quasi-realistic aesthetic and world building. Maybe some movements and machinations are comparable to the real world, like the way actors in fancy dress behave and move and some effects like explosions recreate or were actual pyrotechnics, so there is some verisimilitude, but it's not a realist or realistic film.
So... some games will probably get more realistic and technology improves but that doesn't automatically translate to realism.
I have no idea why I'm writing this.
Edit: I think it might actually be better to term the kind of "realistic sci-fi" stuff you're looking at as "other reality" or romantacism, as per some good quotes:
Therefore a game with fantasy content as part of its imagery can't be realistic, even if elements of it resemble the same elements in reality.
Romanticism on the other hand:
Realism is a direct contrast to Romanticism, as it does not beautify [1], or makes things more appealing [2]. Romanticism typically shows fantastical situations, whereas realism uses facts to depict ordinary everyday experiences
(DoMarco, in McAdams et al).
[1] [2] Both things that games do all the time.
I think it's quite interesting that most games could then be considered romantic in historical context as opposed to realistic, regardless of what their aesthetic is like, which is perhaps less important than I thought.