All The Colours of The Brownbow

You know, I honestly didn't know there were so many shades of brown. Brown it seems, is a versatile colour, especially if you're making, say a gritty first person shooter. Lets pick three examples, Gears of War, Killzone and Resistance. Now before I get a buttload of fanboy rage, I loved all three, well Gears Of War not so much but it deserves it's popularity. Anyway, this is a rant not a review. In resistance, a large chunk of the game takes place in Cheddar Gorge in the south of England. Now I'm an English chap, god save the queen, rule Britannia etc and do you know, it turns out that our green and pleasant land is actually brown, brown rocks, brown grass, brown sky, brown buildings, brown cars, brown aliens in brown ships with brown guns. Gears of War and Killzone are just as bad but at least Killzone provides the believable excuse that the planet Helghan is just a shithole with a dust clogged atmosphere. I guess I'm being cruel to Killzone actually, the later levels in Visari's palace do have a rich colour palette. Still, lets compare these games to Modern Warfare 2, this is a game that presents the horror of war in a very visual way, and the thing that really hits you is, the way everyday locations are turned into places of horror because when you're walking nonchalantly through a Russian airport slaughtering countless civilians the horror is brough home by the depiction of the environment as one you may walk through every day without fear. The reason for this is that my hindbrain knows, that any modern airport is fairly light on the brown and therefore the enriched palette makes the entire experience even more absorbing. Suspension of disbelief anybody? No? Resistance, Gears of War and Killzone are almost perfect, but ADD SOME GODDAMN COLOUR.