REAL game characters next year!

Super-realistic computer games which will feature human faces as they actually look are at most two years away, developers have told the BBC.

At present, developers have not been able to create games characters with photo-realistic faces and expressions.

David Kunkler producer for Obsidian Entertainment and makers of Neverwinter Nights 2, said games are currently in an "uncanny valley."

"They look strange - they're too close to real, but not quite real," he added.

"Give us another year or two, and we'll be able to completely get across that uncanny valley," he told BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme.

Getting emotional

This super-realism, where human characters look completely convincing, has been seen as an elusive next step forward for game programmers for a few years now.

But with motion-capture methods - where computers read sensors which monitor the movements of an actor - rapidly being perfected, it will not be long before it becomes part of the gaming world.