The "General Games Chat" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only.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.
In this festive season of ‘Giving’ (and taking) we all get caught up in the games producers traps; go for the most graphically outstanding game we can find but is this reality? We need more than graphics to amuse us we need depth and most of all we need to feel that the person that we are playing as could be us (if we were more suave, sophisticated and better looking)
Manners:
Ok you are wandering around a town passing citizens and you say to an old lady ‘Do you know if any thing strange is going on around here OLD ONE!?’ I’m sure she’d be most impressed(??) yet still they ansaw and without a shred of thanks, but what if things were a bit different what is ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ or even ‘Excuse me’ figured more in our games. I remember when I was about 12/13ish I had a paper round and for the most part it was elderly people I delivered to, over the months I noticed that if I smiled, waved and said ‘hi’ they seemed to like me better and at Christmas I was glad of this politeness getting plenty of tips. So why not add this to games and perhaps get a bit more (maybe even 50p from the old people you speak to)
Ageing:
We are beginning to see our character ageing in games now (well by that I mean project ego) and to me this seems like a welcome and really quite exciting development because, with ageing must come time; the 4th dimension adding a new form of immersion to our games. The prospect of you character growing old and getting slower or wiser, learning from his mistakes and getting ‘decrepid’ although being almost scary is fantastic. With ageing you could also get character development something we saw in ‘Black and white’ where you could take the black route or the white one, good or evil, yin and yang and as you made your choice it was visible with your commanding ‘Hand of god’ turning red and blistering or white and unscathed. This as with ageing is a subtle change yet one that worked to great effect making the game a truly monumental occasion.
Freedom:
We need to feel free in a game every so often, we need to have a challenge with no boundaries. I have yet to see a game (well that is a GREAT game) that demonstrates this. Racing games I have felt for a long time could be much improved by this, simply for the challenge obviously you would still have signs to direct you but getting to know a track would be the main aim of the game, to cut corners and so on. Can you imagine racing towards the finish of an online game in first place and suddenly your friend skids out of a side-street in front of you and cutting you off to take your beloved gold medal? All genres would of course be improved by more freedom and beat ‘em ups could figure strongly in this, we started to see this in dead or alive 3 with scenes often changing or windows getting smashed.
Movement:
The biggest flaw in today’s games is, in my opinion the movement of characters. Not all games are like this however beat ‘em ups seem to be the most advanced but still the moves are the same, click forward and he will shuffle click it again and the same shuffle will occur. Mainly however it is games with the 3rd person view that have these most prominent flaws, even splinter cell, a high tech, next generation game with outstanding lighting effects and great bump mapping had the age old movement flaw with Sam seeming to stay still when he didn’t do a silent jump or the way he walks the same way no matter what the situation.
Marks:
Ok so we have sort of seen this before but I feel that we need games that remember what we did 10 minutes or even an hour later. What I mean by this is your car leaving skid marks, bodies leaving blood stains, tiles getting chipped and even leaves staying on the ground when you hit a tree. I can remember when I first played on Turok evolution round my friends house and I killed a dinosaur (with great glee I might add) then as I stood waiting for some more defenceless meat the corpse disappeared in front of my eyes, I was gob-smacked to say the least and truly disappointed. I was amazed that acclaim a company I had before a bit of respect for could do this to us.
So whilst you are enjoying your Christmas with your games demonstrating such graphical splendour you think you eyes will drop out, I will be at my house waiting for that one special day when games designers realise that they can take graphics no further and start to concentrate on our immersion in their products. On that one day when I find that one game with that one special difference I will let out on special smile.
Manners:
Ok you are wandering around a town passing citizens and you say to an old lady ‘Do you know if any thing strange is going on around here OLD ONE!?’ I’m sure she’d be most impressed(??) yet still they ansaw and without a shred of thanks, but what if things were a bit different what is ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ or even ‘Excuse me’ figured more in our games. I remember when I was about 12/13ish I had a paper round and for the most part it was elderly people I delivered to, over the months I noticed that if I smiled, waved and said ‘hi’ they seemed to like me better and at Christmas I was glad of this politeness getting plenty of tips. So why not add this to games and perhaps get a bit more (maybe even 50p from the old people you speak to)
Ageing:
We are beginning to see our character ageing in games now (well by that I mean project ego) and to me this seems like a welcome and really quite exciting development because, with ageing must come time; the 4th dimension adding a new form of immersion to our games. The prospect of you character growing old and getting slower or wiser, learning from his mistakes and getting ‘decrepid’ although being almost scary is fantastic. With ageing you could also get character development something we saw in ‘Black and white’ where you could take the black route or the white one, good or evil, yin and yang and as you made your choice it was visible with your commanding ‘Hand of god’ turning red and blistering or white and unscathed. This as with ageing is a subtle change yet one that worked to great effect making the game a truly monumental occasion.
Freedom:
We need to feel free in a game every so often, we need to have a challenge with no boundaries. I have yet to see a game (well that is a GREAT game) that demonstrates this. Racing games I have felt for a long time could be much improved by this, simply for the challenge obviously you would still have signs to direct you but getting to know a track would be the main aim of the game, to cut corners and so on. Can you imagine racing towards the finish of an online game in first place and suddenly your friend skids out of a side-street in front of you and cutting you off to take your beloved gold medal? All genres would of course be improved by more freedom and beat ‘em ups could figure strongly in this, we started to see this in dead or alive 3 with scenes often changing or windows getting smashed.
Movement:
The biggest flaw in today’s games is, in my opinion the movement of characters. Not all games are like this however beat ‘em ups seem to be the most advanced but still the moves are the same, click forward and he will shuffle click it again and the same shuffle will occur. Mainly however it is games with the 3rd person view that have these most prominent flaws, even splinter cell, a high tech, next generation game with outstanding lighting effects and great bump mapping had the age old movement flaw with Sam seeming to stay still when he didn’t do a silent jump or the way he walks the same way no matter what the situation.
Marks:
Ok so we have sort of seen this before but I feel that we need games that remember what we did 10 minutes or even an hour later. What I mean by this is your car leaving skid marks, bodies leaving blood stains, tiles getting chipped and even leaves staying on the ground when you hit a tree. I can remember when I first played on Turok evolution round my friends house and I killed a dinosaur (with great glee I might add) then as I stood waiting for some more defenceless meat the corpse disappeared in front of my eyes, I was gob-smacked to say the least and truly disappointed. I was amazed that acclaim a company I had before a bit of respect for could do this to us.
So whilst you are enjoying your Christmas with your games demonstrating such graphical splendour you think you eyes will drop out, I will be at my house waiting for that one special day when games designers realise that they can take graphics no further and start to concentrate on our immersion in their products. On that one day when I find that one game with that one special difference I will let out on special smile.
In this festive season of ‘Giving’ (and taking) we all get caught up in the games producers traps; go for the most graphically outstanding game we can find but is this reality? We need more than graphics to amuse us we need depth and most of all we need to feel that the person that we are playing as could be us (if we were more suave, sophisticated and better looking)
Manners:
Ok you are wandering around a town passing citizens and you say to an old lady ‘Do you know if any thing strange is going on around here OLD ONE!?’ I’m sure she’d be most impressed(??) yet still they ansaw and without a shred of thanks, but what if things were a bit different what is ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ or even ‘Excuse me’ figured more in our games. I remember when I was about 12/13ish I had a paper round and for the most part it was elderly people I delivered to, over the months I noticed that if I smiled, waved and said ‘hi’ they seemed to like me better and at Christmas I was glad of this politeness getting plenty of tips. So why not add this to games and perhaps get a bit more (maybe even 50p from the old people you speak to)
Ageing:
We are beginning to see our character ageing in games now (well by that I mean project ego) and to me this seems like a welcome and really quite exciting development because, with ageing must come time; the 4th dimension adding a new form of immersion to our games. The prospect of you character growing old and getting slower or wiser, learning from his mistakes and getting ‘decrepid’ although being almost scary is fantastic. With ageing you could also get character development something we saw in ‘Black and white’ where you could take the black route or the white one, good or evil, yin and yang and as you made your choice it was visible with your commanding ‘Hand of god’ turning red and blistering or white and unscathed. This as with ageing is a subtle change yet one that worked to great effect making the game a truly monumental occasion.
Freedom:
We need to feel free in a game every so often, we need to have a challenge with no boundaries. I have yet to see a game (well that is a GREAT game) that demonstrates this. Racing games I have felt for a long time could be much improved by this, simply for the challenge obviously you would still have signs to direct you but getting to know a track would be the main aim of the game, to cut corners and so on. Can you imagine racing towards the finish of an online game in first place and suddenly your friend skids out of a side-street in front of you and cutting you off to take your beloved gold medal? All genres would of course be improved by more freedom and beat ‘em ups could figure strongly in this, we started to see this in dead or alive 3 with scenes often changing or windows getting smashed.
Movement:
The biggest flaw in today’s games is, in my opinion the movement of characters. Not all games are like this however beat ‘em ups seem to be the most advanced but still the moves are the same, click forward and he will shuffle click it again and the same shuffle will occur. Mainly however it is games with the 3rd person view that have these most prominent flaws, even splinter cell, a high tech, next generation game with outstanding lighting effects and great bump mapping had the age old movement flaw with Sam seeming to stay still when he didn’t do a silent jump or the way he walks the same way no matter what the situation.
Marks:
Ok so we have sort of seen this before but I feel that we need games that remember what we did 10 minutes or even an hour later. What I mean by this is your car leaving skid marks, bodies leaving blood stains, tiles getting chipped and even leaves staying on the ground when you hit a tree. I can remember when I first played on Turok evolution round my friends house and I killed a dinosaur (with great glee I might add) then as I stood waiting for some more defenceless meat the corpse disappeared in front of my eyes, I was gob-smacked to say the least and truly disappointed. I was amazed that acclaim a company I had before a bit of respect for could do this to us.
So whilst you are enjoying your Christmas with your games demonstrating such graphical splendour you think you eyes will drop out, I will be at my house waiting for that one special day when games designers realise that they can take graphics no further and start to concentrate on our immersion in their products. On that one day when I find that one game with that one special difference I will let out on special smile.
Manners:
Ok you are wandering around a town passing citizens and you say to an old lady ‘Do you know if any thing strange is going on around here OLD ONE!?’ I’m sure she’d be most impressed(??) yet still they ansaw and without a shred of thanks, but what if things were a bit different what is ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ or even ‘Excuse me’ figured more in our games. I remember when I was about 12/13ish I had a paper round and for the most part it was elderly people I delivered to, over the months I noticed that if I smiled, waved and said ‘hi’ they seemed to like me better and at Christmas I was glad of this politeness getting plenty of tips. So why not add this to games and perhaps get a bit more (maybe even 50p from the old people you speak to)
Ageing:
We are beginning to see our character ageing in games now (well by that I mean project ego) and to me this seems like a welcome and really quite exciting development because, with ageing must come time; the 4th dimension adding a new form of immersion to our games. The prospect of you character growing old and getting slower or wiser, learning from his mistakes and getting ‘decrepid’ although being almost scary is fantastic. With ageing you could also get character development something we saw in ‘Black and white’ where you could take the black route or the white one, good or evil, yin and yang and as you made your choice it was visible with your commanding ‘Hand of god’ turning red and blistering or white and unscathed. This as with ageing is a subtle change yet one that worked to great effect making the game a truly monumental occasion.
Freedom:
We need to feel free in a game every so often, we need to have a challenge with no boundaries. I have yet to see a game (well that is a GREAT game) that demonstrates this. Racing games I have felt for a long time could be much improved by this, simply for the challenge obviously you would still have signs to direct you but getting to know a track would be the main aim of the game, to cut corners and so on. Can you imagine racing towards the finish of an online game in first place and suddenly your friend skids out of a side-street in front of you and cutting you off to take your beloved gold medal? All genres would of course be improved by more freedom and beat ‘em ups could figure strongly in this, we started to see this in dead or alive 3 with scenes often changing or windows getting smashed.
Movement:
The biggest flaw in today’s games is, in my opinion the movement of characters. Not all games are like this however beat ‘em ups seem to be the most advanced but still the moves are the same, click forward and he will shuffle click it again and the same shuffle will occur. Mainly however it is games with the 3rd person view that have these most prominent flaws, even splinter cell, a high tech, next generation game with outstanding lighting effects and great bump mapping had the age old movement flaw with Sam seeming to stay still when he didn’t do a silent jump or the way he walks the same way no matter what the situation.
Marks:
Ok so we have sort of seen this before but I feel that we need games that remember what we did 10 minutes or even an hour later. What I mean by this is your car leaving skid marks, bodies leaving blood stains, tiles getting chipped and even leaves staying on the ground when you hit a tree. I can remember when I first played on Turok evolution round my friends house and I killed a dinosaur (with great glee I might add) then as I stood waiting for some more defenceless meat the corpse disappeared in front of my eyes, I was gob-smacked to say the least and truly disappointed. I was amazed that acclaim a company I had before a bit of respect for could do this to us.
So whilst you are enjoying your Christmas with your games demonstrating such graphical splendour you think you eyes will drop out, I will be at my house waiting for that one special day when games designers realise that they can take graphics no further and start to concentrate on our immersion in their products. On that one day when I find that one game with that one special difference I will let out on special smile.