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"Double Standards"

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Sat 04/01/03 at 19:41
Regular
Posts: 787
Right, there is something fishy going on in the world of video games these days, and I'm getting a bit worried about some of them.

The first is the lack of support in today's games for current entertainment technology standards. We have a few floating around in the world today. We all know the debates arguing the need to have support for 60hz PAL, NTSC, Dolby 5.1, DTS, 16*9, HDTV, VGA and many more. Quite simply, this is something which has to be out squarely in the lap of developers, especially if a console has any of the capabilities mentioned above in its hardware. Being a PS2 owner, I see games such as Herdy Gerdy come out and support most of them. Widescreen, 60hz and surround sound modes for those people with a little extra cash to splash out on gadgets. Then all of a sudden, the most anticipated game of all time hits the shelves, and despite the massive budget available for the project, suffers from a lack of widescreen or 60hz support. Yes, you heard it from me first, MGS2 supports neither.

The next thing is the basic difference in quality across platforms, and even across just different games in the same genre. MGS2 is the most visually impressive computer game ever to be released. Have all the arguments about the basic lack of power available on the PS2 in your hand, and then argue that any of them should be applied to MGS2, and you’re a fool. Yes, we will get some people still moaning about the fact that the game has not been anti-aliased, but frankly who cares?? The quality of animation, effects and overall style of the game give it a visual style and appeal which no other game manages to recreate. That's the thing with this game, it has a style all of it's own. This is where other developers need to start taking the direction of their games. Good software houses need to get some style.

Look at all the major genre defining games of the Playstation, Playstation 2 and Nintendo Eras. All of them have a common factor which most people instantly recognize. They have all sent their project director into superstardom along with the genius likes of Steven Spielberg. Shigeru Miyamoto and Hideo Kojima are the most obvious two but other major players in companies such as Sega, Square, EA and many others can easily be added to the list. It isn’t the easiest thing in the world to make an artificial 3D image look acceptable enough that the vast majority of people will be happy with it. A great example of the sort of attention to detail which is needed to pull off a major gaming project, and make it a success, is drawn from the film industry, and one of the most successful directors of all time. As last months OPS2 mag pointed out, Stanley Kubrick went overboard when he designed 2001: A Space Odyssey, but that extreme attention to detail left a film which has lasted the test of time, and can still be regarded as a genre defining futuristic space exploration type film. The best games also have this attention to detail, an environment which makes playing the game a joy. Look at Goldeneye, MGS2, Zelda, or Shenmue. They all have this outstanding environment, and if what you have to do in that environment can be controlled properly, and isn’t let down by poor software glitches or hardware issues, then the console you are playing the game on becomes irrelevant, but the guy who sat down and masterminded that game becomes a legend which will outlast single console generations.

That’s what’s needed more in the games industry, a break from the generic shackles of the 8-bit era, and a dawning into the technology which allows the imagination and creative prowess of people to be realized. Proper script directors should be called in to write games, proper sound composers found write the score, and programmers should be left to program. That’s not to say that there aren’t programmers out there who couldn’t do a good job, and it’s also not fair to say that they should be excluded altogether. It is necessary to include programmers at ever level to curb creative talent and bring people down to a level which can be achieved on any given system without breaking the limits of a hardware system. And that’s where we get back to the same old story, from the word go in a development strategy, developers should be looking to maximize the hardware capabilities and support for their projects. All those hardware standards that go to waste on games consoles should be drummed into the head of every developer by the manufacturers, but in the current state of affairs, not even those manufacturers develop software which supports these standards, so where does the hope lie for improvement??
Sun 05/01/03 at 12:42
Regular
"previously phuzzy."
Posts: 3,487
Ratchet wrote:
> Yes, you heard it from me first, MGS2 supports neither.

Thought that line was a bit suspicious. 'Heard it from me first' implies that the game was either very new or not out...
Sun 05/01/03 at 11:42
Regular
"[SE] Shadow Elite"
Posts: 953
Steve, you're my friend an'all, but it's getting anoying wiht you copying posts now. People that are actually spending time writting stuff may be beaten to a GAD by people like you that copy posts from the archives. Schtop.
Sat 04/01/03 at 22:24
Regular
"---SOULJACKER---"
Posts: 5,448
There are many things I would like to take up with Sony...

Why do you not make 4-port consoles as standard while Sega, Nintendo and MS do? Clearly to make people buy multitaps.

Why is it so hard for your developers to implement 60Hz mode. While almost every game on the Dreamcast and Gamecube supports such options, the same developers do not do this on the PS2 - the reason can only be that it is harder to implement.

When are we going to see Tekken with 70 people (each individually rendered) surrounding fights like you showed us we sould when you unveiled the console.

Why did you force magazines not to call the PS2 the "Playstation 2" during the consoles development and instead call it the NGPS (Next Generation PlayStation)... only to come up with the name PS2?! Could your inept news publishers come up with nothing better to do?


And here are some questions that I would like to pose to all the manufacturers:

Why are you trying to make it so hard to import games? Aren't you pleased that people are trying to, legally, buy merchandise, or does it worry you that you don't make as much money from it?

Why should we have regionalisations of games? The ONLY answer to this is to make them more money by ripping us off!


Soni
Sat 04/01/03 at 19:41
Regular
Posts: 6
Right, there is something fishy going on in the world of video games these days, and I'm getting a bit worried about some of them.

The first is the lack of support in today's games for current entertainment technology standards. We have a few floating around in the world today. We all know the debates arguing the need to have support for 60hz PAL, NTSC, Dolby 5.1, DTS, 16*9, HDTV, VGA and many more. Quite simply, this is something which has to be out squarely in the lap of developers, especially if a console has any of the capabilities mentioned above in its hardware. Being a PS2 owner, I see games such as Herdy Gerdy come out and support most of them. Widescreen, 60hz and surround sound modes for those people with a little extra cash to splash out on gadgets. Then all of a sudden, the most anticipated game of all time hits the shelves, and despite the massive budget available for the project, suffers from a lack of widescreen or 60hz support. Yes, you heard it from me first, MGS2 supports neither.

The next thing is the basic difference in quality across platforms, and even across just different games in the same genre. MGS2 is the most visually impressive computer game ever to be released. Have all the arguments about the basic lack of power available on the PS2 in your hand, and then argue that any of them should be applied to MGS2, and you’re a fool. Yes, we will get some people still moaning about the fact that the game has not been anti-aliased, but frankly who cares?? The quality of animation, effects and overall style of the game give it a visual style and appeal which no other game manages to recreate. That's the thing with this game, it has a style all of it's own. This is where other developers need to start taking the direction of their games. Good software houses need to get some style.

Look at all the major genre defining games of the Playstation, Playstation 2 and Nintendo Eras. All of them have a common factor which most people instantly recognize. They have all sent their project director into superstardom along with the genius likes of Steven Spielberg. Shigeru Miyamoto and Hideo Kojima are the most obvious two but other major players in companies such as Sega, Square, EA and many others can easily be added to the list. It isn’t the easiest thing in the world to make an artificial 3D image look acceptable enough that the vast majority of people will be happy with it. A great example of the sort of attention to detail which is needed to pull off a major gaming project, and make it a success, is drawn from the film industry, and one of the most successful directors of all time. As last months OPS2 mag pointed out, Stanley Kubrick went overboard when he designed 2001: A Space Odyssey, but that extreme attention to detail left a film which has lasted the test of time, and can still be regarded as a genre defining futuristic space exploration type film. The best games also have this attention to detail, an environment which makes playing the game a joy. Look at Goldeneye, MGS2, Zelda, or Shenmue. They all have this outstanding environment, and if what you have to do in that environment can be controlled properly, and isn’t let down by poor software glitches or hardware issues, then the console you are playing the game on becomes irrelevant, but the guy who sat down and masterminded that game becomes a legend which will outlast single console generations.

That’s what’s needed more in the games industry, a break from the generic shackles of the 8-bit era, and a dawning into the technology which allows the imagination and creative prowess of people to be realized. Proper script directors should be called in to write games, proper sound composers found write the score, and programmers should be left to program. That’s not to say that there aren’t programmers out there who couldn’t do a good job, and it’s also not fair to say that they should be excluded altogether. It is necessary to include programmers at ever level to curb creative talent and bring people down to a level which can be achieved on any given system without breaking the limits of a hardware system. And that’s where we get back to the same old story, from the word go in a development strategy, developers should be looking to maximize the hardware capabilities and support for their projects. All those hardware standards that go to waste on games consoles should be drummed into the head of every developer by the manufacturers, but in the current state of affairs, not even those manufacturers develop software which supports these standards, so where does the hope lie for improvement??

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