Taking inspiration from video games environments/ terrain/ scenery

[Daeothar]

I'm still biding my time for the opportunity to build a table's worth of terrain based on Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I love that game; it's one of my favourites. In fact it's the only one (bar the DLC expansion and crappy Ipad to PC port) I played to 100% achievements on Steam...

I think it would work really well as terrain for Infinity, and maybe one day I might even decide to use those rules to actually recreate some of the DXHR battles on the tabletop. Wouldn't a Boxguard be awesome to deploy?

And then there's my alltime favourite UFO - Enemy Unknown (or: X-COM). But I always found that such a game could be played on any contemporary or natural terrain.

[Connectamabob]

I remember being very inspired by the PS2 Ratchet & Clank games. They did IMO a very good job of creating scenery and hardware that balanced scale with detail in a way that would transfer brilliantly to tabletop scenery.

Resident Evil 4 had a lot of seriously inspiring environments for me in terms of detail and texture. The entire Silent Hill series of the PSX-PS2 eras (1-4, plus the PS2 version of Origins/Zero) as well.

More recently...

I'd totally agree about Deus Ex: Human Revolution. That game has some really beautiful design work (and yes, I would love me some tabletop boxguards).

There's a F2P game called Hawken which has "pretty/ugly" mechs that are great painting references for "gritty" mecha or AFVs.

Tempting to say Mass Effect, but that's a bit cheating IMO since Mass Effect's hardware designs are so very, VERY Syd Mead inspired that you might as well just cut out the middleman and reference Syd Mead.

Spec Ops: The Line's sand-flooded city does a bang-up job of feeling dream-like surreal yet real at the same time. As it should, since the game is basically a re-imagining of Apocalypse Now (in turn a re-imagining of Heart of Darkness)

Could probably learn a lot by looking at how XCOM's (the remake) maps are made to both look real and operate on a grid system almost directly translatable to a tabletop.

The principles of good "grey box" design for video games are pretty much the same as with good tabletop layouts. The video gaming industry has all but made a formal academic discipline of it, so reading about video game level design or deconstructing the maps of the video games you play, regardless of subject or genre, could potentially improve one's own tabletop layouts a lot.

[The-closet-gamer]

Deus Ex The Conspiracy is one of my favourite games of all time. Human Revolution was a great effort after the some what dire Invisible War. Hengsha lower district has a very cyberpunk feel. If the chances of living in a real city like that and not getting violently murdered I'll be moving straight away. I'm guessing after Cyberpunk 2077 is released next year I'll be planing scenery.

As for Mass Effect, yep I can see the inspiration of Syd Mead, but it also has its own feel. I'm also planing to do 2"x2" modular boards in a Space Crusade feel or like the Forge World 3d Space Hulk boards but instead of a constant generic look each one will be different like a market place or a hab complex or loading bays just like on Omega. What an awesome place to live if there wasn't for the chance of being burtally murdered by a psycho blus skin alien I'd move tomorrow.

Bit of trivia for you. Mass Effect was originally going to be Star Wars KOTOR 3 until EA decided they didn't want to pay Lucas Art for the licence, but Bioware had already put in a lot of work so it was reimagined, rebranded and reborn.

I'm still contemplating if I should pay £70 and pre order ME 4. I'm just still a little sore about ME 3 with the ending and those bloody war assets. Also tell me why as captain of the ship I had to go though that security check every time I wanted to phone home and the go through the same rigmarole  when I leave. Yep it was me when I went in and it's still me. I've not been replaced by a body snatcher in the back.

[FramFramson]

Oh I almost forgot that I've used Age of Empires III buildings as templates for fantasy buildings before.