Sunday 17 January 2010

technology eh?

For some reason, formspring posted a question I answered on here instead of my own personal blog, therefore, technology is a right pain in the arse. Take now for instance, this on my pc, is underlined, yet can I find out how to stop this occuring? No. I do believe old age is coming into effect.

So first of all, an apology to all for my lack of expertise in this field. It has however made me think a little. Technology is without a doubt the the reason we're all here now, reading blogs, playing videogames, watching tv etc etc. So what does everyone feel about how the gaming culture's future is looking?

Natal, the playstation 'wand', and the continued advancement of both the wii and ds will surely create some intriguing new ways of carrying out our beloved past-time? I will always remember seeing mario bros for the first time, and being hypnotised by the sprites and gameplay that was in front of me. I would never have imagined that 20 years later we'd be playing multiplayer games from our very own living rooms, waving our arms about and actually making mario move (my sister had a fantastic habit of waving her arms with a pad everytime she wanted mario to leap and she looked a dork then, which is why I was never worried about how I looked playing a wii!) or perhaps, as natal may be suggesting, actually being able to interact with games conversely.

So where may we be in another 20 or so years? Virtual reality makes a thrilling comeback and everyone has one in their house, immersed in some world while wearing some bizarre headset? Perhaps natal is the first step of what may become the infamous holo-deck featured in star trek? Its actually made me a little excited about games again, and for that, I am exceedingly grateful.

Lately, I've suffered a lull in my gaming, not playing as often as i may have 6 months ago, and not really being interested in trying anything new. I used to be able to play 5-6 hours solid on games likke gta or final fantasy 7, but now, I am bored within an hour of putting a disc in my machine. but I am geniunely intrigued with the new tech thats coming out, it may change the way we game forever.

For now however, its back to COD4.

again, sorry for the slightly random post, and feel free to comment. especially if its with some tips as to stop this underlined nonsense happening again!

7 comments:

The Faux Bot said...

Heh, I was gonna fix the underlined thing for you dude, but then half the post wouldn't make sense, so we should leave it in.

Anyway, I too am looking forward to the changes that new technology can bring. But my worry outweighs my excitement. There is so much unfinished business as far as 'regular' games are concerned. So few even get close to fully realised, interesting stories and characters, for example. My worry is that developers will loose sight of the desire to mature the genre, in favour of getting all giddy about motion controllers and peter molyneux's grooming simulator.

What worries me is that I don't even think developers have nailed the basics yet and all this new tech could cause them to stop trying.

Death By Die said...

yeah there is definately a worry there too, but i cant help get the feeling gamings become a tad stale. i cant help play a game and feel like i've been there before, hence why i think i've not been so enthused about it so much lately. hopefully some time off will do me good, i've been online about 3 times in the last week and a half, and that was mainly to play cod4 with a few others, which was good fun because there were actually people playing.

it made me think a little about the new streetfighter, from what i've read hey're having a lobby feature? we could potentially play a tourney in just a day or two. one thing i found a slight problem with the last tourney was how long it mite take between games, obviously theres noone to blame as people have commitments and these are much more important (to some anyway ha) but it did drag once or twice. maybe, just maybe i'll pick the new one up.

its been a while since i've felt i could really embed myself into a game, bioshock, halflife2, mass effect and a few others passe dme by simply because after an hour of play i didnt care. i know these games are highly respected, but i need something to grab me right from the start, perhaps why i think call of duty(the moderns) have been good for me. they dont take much commitment, multiplayer can be picked up and played for half hour or 3 hours.

Anonymous said...

I'm completely with TFB - I'm concerned that the current state of play is 'if its broke move on to something shiny, hopefully gamers are like magpies'. I'm not interested in grooming Milo, and refuse to pay for natal (which for some retarded reason is pronounced nat-arl, and not naytal) just so it can turn my xbox on when I walk in a room. Motion controllers don't make sense to me in any of the games I play, and there are going to be few people to make new genres because they will be afraid that it won't make money. All I see natal and the ps wands doing is adding in useless crud to clutter the marketplace and store shelves. I hope they prove me wrong but seriously doubt it. Games are now able to tell stories in ways they never could before, but there are several real untouched subjects. Not has any game really dealt with tragedy, which it should be able to do better than other media, but developers are afraid to tackle it. Again it comes down to money.


As for SSF4 there will be team battles, lobbies (a la MvsC2, SSF2THDR etc.) and generally every improvement that can be made to an online game.


I almost completely disagree that gaming has become stale however, there have been so many breakthrough games in the last 5-10 years. It strikes me as quite curious that you only mentioned FPS games in the ones that passed you by. Games such as Braid (a game so intelligent that it almost completely hurts - nothing this clever has ever been released before) and Flower (completely unique - the possible only good use of motion controllers and shows that just putting them into the pads works well enough) show that there are several people pushing the boundaries, another example would be Portal - it looks like an FPS but is purely a physical puzzle game with an awesome ending song that is available free on Rock Band 2.

It is, in my opinion, the AAA titles that are the ones that are giving the impression of games becoming stale - ooh look, another shooter, this one looks grey/brown and is made with the unreal engine but its completely not [insert last shooter that was released here]. New, innovative games are out there - they are just really hard to find. Whilst people are continuing to purchase remake after remake (I'm guilty of at least buying the beat em ups of my youth and Shadow Complex because I played a long time on Metroid/Castlevania) and ignoring the innovators it will always continue as such. It is the same in Japan, except you just need to swap out FPS/AAA titles for 'DragonQuest'.

I fear that if you want games to require less commitment then the innovative and intelligent gaming may be diverging from your position, examples would be any of the Bioware epics that have been released, the upcoming hard rain and even such titles as Alan Wake which will require at least 30 hours of individual play. Unfortunately the only games, and I think why you are becoming disheartened, that do not take such great amounts of time are online FPS games which are ten a penny at the minute, and in the west seemingly always will be.

Death By Die said...

see, i've owned a wii, and i've seen a lot of potential for motion controllers. wii sports was probably the best bundled game ever. i could happily play a little gold on my own, and multiplayer it was always a laugh. i was never able to afford a whole lot for it, so didnt get to try as many games as i'd like, but theres definately a great potential there for motion controllers.

yes i only mentioned fps, but mainly because thats all i could think of at the time. i've also had arkham asylum here for a couple of months completely unfinished, blood bowl was played a fair bit but still havent finished, grand theft auto 4 is still not done, and i doubt ever will be, along ith lost and the damned, plus i've got pure, lego batman and lego star wars here too. a couple of those havent been in the machine even.

as for flower, i dont own a ps3, nor will i ever be likely to afford one at least for a while, so i'm pretty restricted to xbox and retro.

also, its not that i want games that have less commitment, i simply want games to make me want to commit instead of trying them for an hour or so and quickly becoming bored because it either doesnt have that good a feel to the gameplay and/or the story just doesnt draw me in.

The Faux Bot said...

Another upshot of all this is that the market is becoming increasingly fragmented. Despite my seemingly gloomy outlook, I actually think the influx of new tech will be a good thing in the sense that it will further divide the gaming market.

Despite there being alot of idiversity, gaming is pretty much restricted to the themes of destroying/killing things and beating others. Games like Viva Pinata wonderfully break from this tired tradition. The potential with Natal and upcoming titles like Heavy Rain both suggest even more of a shift.

Compared to other mediums gaming is still in its infancy. So much so that it's difficult to predict what's going to happen. One day we'll consider ourselves truly lucky to have watched the medium develop and evolve. Or, we'll curse the day that 'real gaming died'.....just kidding.

Death By Die said...

man i have that opinion now, that i've been lucky to remember gaming almost at its birth and developing upto the current wave of technology. i remember the first time i held an atari 2600 joystick, and shooting my friend through a white blocky wall on a cowboy game. i remember hearing the ear catching tune from toejam and earl and exploring the mad and crazy world. playing wipeout for the first time and being amazed at how smooth the game was to play and the music at blasted out. the open top world of grand theft auto 3 in full 3d, and the first time i played a game online with friends on the xbox.

theres truly a remarkable process there, and the speed at which its grown and how far its advanced is incredible. when you enjoy a medium that has based its majority of success' on being faster and more graphically enabled than the last generation, i'm not surprised a games company havent gone back to try and create a game that has marked itself out when the pressue is on to create for the new systems being pushed by the big companies.

yes there are some people trying to do this, and its wonderful to see these men and women who are going back more to basics and creating games for downloadable games, but its not too often it happens by a big company.

i'm looking into getting a copy of viva pinata, as i've heard some good things about it, and i've played and completed portal, and in all honesty it was the only part of the orange box i actually enjoyed. seeing the song by the computer, glados? on rock band and playing it for the first time was also a moment i enjoyed!

i'm sorry if this is a little incoherent, i'm pretty tired and unable to sleep, a regular theme at the moment in my life!

Anonymous said...

Pick up Games TM Jan. and read pages 14 and 15 - it sums it up better than we ever will be able to

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