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"A giant leap for gaming kind..."

When games first started, as everyone knows, they were very basic and were mostly monochrome. Then came sound and colour. Still the games were only basic shapes, often only three or four sprites and a background if you were lucky. Pong and Space Invaders ruled and Pacman became a gaming icon in his world of mazes and ghosts.

Then new technology meant that a world of more believable characters and interactive backgrounds appeared, giving us a glimpse of the classic years of gaming, with Gauntlet providing speech (and who can forget phrases like 'red valkyrie is dead') and Rastan showing us the hack and slash moves that were obviously borrowed from the Barbarian movies. Suddenly the future was bright and 2 player multicolour extravaganzas exploded with action and thrilling music. Acades began to sound like a pretty violent wrestling match, or something far more illegal and cabinets tempted you with all kinds of graphical effects in order to get you to slot some money in them.

Games like Starwars appeared and wowed audience with their wireframe 3D effects, while 2d games like Metal Slug got smarter and contained a whole host of surprizes. Then came the 'true' 3D arcade games.

Suddenly, things changed and a whole host of 3D racing, fighting and even flying titles appeared on the scene. Tekken, Daytona, Soul Edge and many others dripped quality and the graphics were to die for. Older 2D games, such as the side scrolling efforts, got shoved to the back of the dusty arcade and shiny new 3D cabinets moved into their spaces. The age of the Polygon had truly arrived.

Did this revolutionise gaming? Well it certainly had a knock on effect with Sony and their new Playstation console. Customers had been knocked out by the 3D games and wanted a chance to play them at home, the Megadrive and SNES just couldn't cope with the demands of these new games and the Playstation and Saturn came in just in time to ride the wave of polygon popularity. This was truly an influencial leap in gaming, whether people liked it or not, and most seemed to lap it up.

Nowadays the legacy of these 3D titles has taken over and we are seeing more and more detail in the characters and scenery of our games, both in the arcades and at home. Until there is another radical change in graphics or gameplay though, we will not see another leap as big as this for a long time to come.

Whether you like them or lothe them, 3D games are here to stay and gaming would be lost without them.

hi,
There are lots of small codling to be caught of the Raglin pier in Port Erin, at the moment they are very small in size.
Best tactics would be to use small hook rigs with small strips of mackerel, fish on the inside or on the end of the pier for best results, fish close to the pier wall.
Unfortunately the fish are small in size, but hopefully they will increase in size through out the winter months.
Tight Lines
Cameron

Hi

are there any places that are reliable for codling down south?

thanks
Dan

Dan uk wrote:
> The next step up is holograms.

Have mini earoplane Dogfights in
> your living room...

Earoplanes eh?

Whats one of them then?

The next step up is holograms.

Have mini earoplane Dogfights in your living room...


I'm trying to get the FOG Prime Forum going again.

It's gone dead at the moment...

Bonus wrote:
>, although some will have you
> believe that you can walk up stairs which aren't there,

Its true I tell you... and there is a magic box that allows you to see things that are happening far, far away...

> but that can
> truely be the next step.

>ouch!< terrible pun man! ...

Bonus said that VR will be the next big thing.

I don't think it will because alot of people get sick in those VR headsets.

Altough the prospet of really being in the game sounds great, I doubt it will happen in our homes for quite some time.

It's true that graphics don't just make a game, although that has already been mentioned many times here, so I'll spare the lecture! There were many fine games back in the 80's that were very playable, and still outshine some of the 'prettier' stuff that's out today.

The main point though is that 3D graphics have revolutionised the way we 'see' a game, although maybe not the way we play it. I still love the 2D arcade games and will gladly pay money to play them at an arcade. Well, I have MAME too, which helps, but there are some lovely 3D arcade cabinets out there and you have to give them credit for keeping the arcades alive with customers, at least for a while.

I saw a TV programme which was actually about improving pilot response times when flying combat missions etc., one of the devices they had was being used to play Quake on line.

This kid had a peg/clip on his finger, which was apparently similar to the machines they use in hospitals to check your blood oxygen content. It does this by picking up on the small electrical changes in your skin with the change in oxygen content, against a calibrated norm for a person.

You can see where this is going, the premise of the technology had been adapted to respond to the electrical impulses transmitted through your skin when you look at something and think about, well shooting it. Sort of Firefox thing going on there me thinks. But it worked, the boy ruled at Quake, as everybody else had to complete the brain to hand type action where as he only had to think about it and the rest is down to the speed of electronics, which as we all know is very fast indeed.

You think F-Zero is fast now? Think how fast it could be if they didn't have to account for that extra second or so for you to hit the right button.

Don't know if it will ever filter down to the game players level, would be fun if it did though.

I think the next true leap in gaming will be when it is physically possibe to have VR in people's homes, I'm not expecting full immersion into an environment here, although some will have you believe that you can walk up stairs which aren't there, but that can truely be the next step. The next step may also be one which is in terms of AI, a console which actually thinks about it's next move in an RTS, not just sticking to a set patter. Admittedly AI at the moment is very good, but playing the computer is no where near as rewarding as playing another person, so to play a computer which is actually thinking, may also be the next step!!

the game? wrote

Whatever it is, it's a very good
> read and a dam sight better than what you've posted!

Least i don't sign off every post with game like it's a well known posse and I've never seen anything of yours worth reading to the end.