The "General Games Chat" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
Videogaming has undergone many changes since it's hobbyist inception. Quantum leaps in hardware have enabled richer and more immersive home gaming experiences, previously only experienced whilst simultaneously feeding a large metal cabinet all your hard earned pennies and fending off a queue of sweaty palmed fanatics.
Now, it is possible to spend over 100 hours completing one game, becoming involved in the subtle nuances in a character's role, in essence, developing your own persona within the game, rather than spending a frentic, button battering 60-120 seconds trying to pulverise opposition to a bloody pulp using pre-prescribed personalities and qualities.
The newest gaming mantra is about using games to generate deeper "emotion" in players, backed up by an industry trend heading towards film type production values, with detailed plots. Hardware and software producers alike seem to be pushing towards development tools and methodologies that will push interactive game play much further than the average player is currently used to.
Whilst pushing towards games that are more immersive, the element of multiplayer interaction is coming to the fore of console technology. Already the Dreamcast contains a built-in modem so that players can showdown on-line, rumours are also abound the the US / European version of Playstation 2 will play host to some kind of expansion to allow network gaming. The latest Xbox specs from Microsoft feature an "expansion port" of unspecified use, which could be used for a modem, and also "100MBps Ethernet", which I take to mean a network card of some description, which is strange as the overwhelming majority of homes have no such network, does Microsoft know something we don't? With improvements in WAP technology just around the corner, multi-player mobile gaming is nearly upon us.
Add into the mix that the next generation of consoles are due to have hard drives, the Playstation 2 via an internal expansion, the Xbox will come with hard drive storage which is measly in terms of current PC benchmarks, but massive when compared to the memory cards that consoles use today.
These advances, not only in technology, but also in industry thinking and gaming trends, whilst not appearing to be a conscious effort overall, could culminate into something larger than the sum of it's parts. Imagine, through the console of the future you could take part in a game online. The game may have a form or objectives to it, but they may become more personalised to you as you make your way through the game. You may meet real-world friends online within the game, form communities, trade items and knowledge, make peace or war with other players, or you may chose to go it alone. At the end of a heavy session, your progress can be stored on the consoles hard drive, which now enable you to store the many thousands of game variables that may be set.
Even after you turn your console off, the game world still carries on, hosted on servers, with players the world over logging onto the gaming system at the peak times applicable to their country, a real-time, 24 hour, round-the-clock game world. If something happens within to world that affects your gaming experience, it is likely a sophisticated mobile messaging system will contact you through your mobile, PDA, e-mail, or even fax to inform you of recent happenings.
Admittedly, the logistics and programming expertise needed to realise this future of gaming is many years away, but already parts of it are fitting into place like the pieces of jigsaw, which the industry has no picture to, but is experimenting with by turning the pieces around to see which bits fit where.
Now, it is possible to spend over 100 hours completing one game, becoming involved in the subtle nuances in a character's role, in essence, developing your own persona within the game, rather than spending a frentic, button battering 60-120 seconds trying to pulverise opposition to a bloody pulp using pre-prescribed personalities and qualities.
The newest gaming mantra is about using games to generate deeper "emotion" in players, backed up by an industry trend heading towards film type production values, with detailed plots. Hardware and software producers alike seem to be pushing towards development tools and methodologies that will push interactive game play much further than the average player is currently used to.
Whilst pushing towards games that are more immersive, the element of multiplayer interaction is coming to the fore of console technology. Already the Dreamcast contains a built-in modem so that players can showdown on-line, rumours are also abound the the US / European version of Playstation 2 will play host to some kind of expansion to allow network gaming. The latest Xbox specs from Microsoft feature an "expansion port" of unspecified use, which could be used for a modem, and also "100MBps Ethernet", which I take to mean a network card of some description, which is strange as the overwhelming majority of homes have no such network, does Microsoft know something we don't? With improvements in WAP technology just around the corner, multi-player mobile gaming is nearly upon us.
Add into the mix that the next generation of consoles are due to have hard drives, the Playstation 2 via an internal expansion, the Xbox will come with hard drive storage which is measly in terms of current PC benchmarks, but massive when compared to the memory cards that consoles use today.
These advances, not only in technology, but also in industry thinking and gaming trends, whilst not appearing to be a conscious effort overall, could culminate into something larger than the sum of it's parts. Imagine, through the console of the future you could take part in a game online. The game may have a form or objectives to it, but they may become more personalised to you as you make your way through the game. You may meet real-world friends online within the game, form communities, trade items and knowledge, make peace or war with other players, or you may chose to go it alone. At the end of a heavy session, your progress can be stored on the consoles hard drive, which now enable you to store the many thousands of game variables that may be set.
Even after you turn your console off, the game world still carries on, hosted on servers, with players the world over logging onto the gaming system at the peak times applicable to their country, a real-time, 24 hour, round-the-clock game world. If something happens within to world that affects your gaming experience, it is likely a sophisticated mobile messaging system will contact you through your mobile, PDA, e-mail, or even fax to inform you of recent happenings.
Admittedly, the logistics and programming expertise needed to realise this future of gaming is many years away, but already parts of it are fitting into place like the pieces of jigsaw, which the industry has no picture to, but is experimenting with by turning the pieces around to see which bits fit where.
Page:
Nice post.
Videogaming has undergone many changes since it's hobbyist inception. Quantum leaps in hardware have enabled richer and more immersive home gaming experiences, previously only experienced whilst simultaneously feeding a large metal cabinet all your hard earned pennies and fending off a queue of sweaty palmed fanatics.
Now, it is possible to spend over 100 hours completing one game, becoming involved in the subtle nuances in a character's role, in essence, developing your own persona within the game, rather than spending a frentic, button battering 60-120 seconds trying to pulverise opposition to a bloody pulp using pre-prescribed personalities and qualities.
The newest gaming mantra is about using games to generate deeper "emotion" in players, backed up by an industry trend heading towards film type production values, with detailed plots. Hardware and software producers alike seem to be pushing towards development tools and methodologies that will push interactive game play much further than the average player is currently used to.
Whilst pushing towards games that are more immersive, the element of multiplayer interaction is coming to the fore of console technology. Already the Dreamcast contains a built-in modem so that players can showdown on-line, rumours are also abound the the US / European version of Playstation 2 will play host to some kind of expansion to allow network gaming. The latest Xbox specs from Microsoft feature an "expansion port" of unspecified use, which could be used for a modem, and also "100MBps Ethernet", which I take to mean a network card of some description, which is strange as the overwhelming majority of homes have no such network, does Microsoft know something we don't? With improvements in WAP technology just around the corner, multi-player mobile gaming is nearly upon us.
Add into the mix that the next generation of consoles are due to have hard drives, the Playstation 2 via an internal expansion, the Xbox will come with hard drive storage which is measly in terms of current PC benchmarks, but massive when compared to the memory cards that consoles use today.
These advances, not only in technology, but also in industry thinking and gaming trends, whilst not appearing to be a conscious effort overall, could culminate into something larger than the sum of it's parts. Imagine, through the console of the future you could take part in a game online. The game may have a form or objectives to it, but they may become more personalised to you as you make your way through the game. You may meet real-world friends online within the game, form communities, trade items and knowledge, make peace or war with other players, or you may chose to go it alone. At the end of a heavy session, your progress can be stored on the consoles hard drive, which now enable you to store the many thousands of game variables that may be set.
Even after you turn your console off, the game world still carries on, hosted on servers, with players the world over logging onto the gaming system at the peak times applicable to their country, a real-time, 24 hour, round-the-clock game world. If something happens within to world that affects your gaming experience, it is likely a sophisticated mobile messaging system will contact you through your mobile, PDA, e-mail, or even fax to inform you of recent happenings.
Admittedly, the logistics and programming expertise needed to realise this future of gaming is many years away, but already parts of it are fitting into place like the pieces of jigsaw, which the industry has no picture to, but is experimenting with by turning the pieces around to see which bits fit where.
Now, it is possible to spend over 100 hours completing one game, becoming involved in the subtle nuances in a character's role, in essence, developing your own persona within the game, rather than spending a frentic, button battering 60-120 seconds trying to pulverise opposition to a bloody pulp using pre-prescribed personalities and qualities.
The newest gaming mantra is about using games to generate deeper "emotion" in players, backed up by an industry trend heading towards film type production values, with detailed plots. Hardware and software producers alike seem to be pushing towards development tools and methodologies that will push interactive game play much further than the average player is currently used to.
Whilst pushing towards games that are more immersive, the element of multiplayer interaction is coming to the fore of console technology. Already the Dreamcast contains a built-in modem so that players can showdown on-line, rumours are also abound the the US / European version of Playstation 2 will play host to some kind of expansion to allow network gaming. The latest Xbox specs from Microsoft feature an "expansion port" of unspecified use, which could be used for a modem, and also "100MBps Ethernet", which I take to mean a network card of some description, which is strange as the overwhelming majority of homes have no such network, does Microsoft know something we don't? With improvements in WAP technology just around the corner, multi-player mobile gaming is nearly upon us.
Add into the mix that the next generation of consoles are due to have hard drives, the Playstation 2 via an internal expansion, the Xbox will come with hard drive storage which is measly in terms of current PC benchmarks, but massive when compared to the memory cards that consoles use today.
These advances, not only in technology, but also in industry thinking and gaming trends, whilst not appearing to be a conscious effort overall, could culminate into something larger than the sum of it's parts. Imagine, through the console of the future you could take part in a game online. The game may have a form or objectives to it, but they may become more personalised to you as you make your way through the game. You may meet real-world friends online within the game, form communities, trade items and knowledge, make peace or war with other players, or you may chose to go it alone. At the end of a heavy session, your progress can be stored on the consoles hard drive, which now enable you to store the many thousands of game variables that may be set.
Even after you turn your console off, the game world still carries on, hosted on servers, with players the world over logging onto the gaming system at the peak times applicable to their country, a real-time, 24 hour, round-the-clock game world. If something happens within to world that affects your gaming experience, it is likely a sophisticated mobile messaging system will contact you through your mobile, PDA, e-mail, or even fax to inform you of recent happenings.
Admittedly, the logistics and programming expertise needed to realise this future of gaming is many years away, but already parts of it are fitting into place like the pieces of jigsaw, which the industry has no picture to, but is experimenting with by turning the pieces around to see which bits fit where.
Page: