The "General Games Chat" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only.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.
How far away do you think we are from "the Holy Grail of Gaming"? - i.e. a self-contained game environment which is totally interactive in every conceivable way.
A game in which the character you control can go anywhere within its borders and do anything.
A game wherein every building can be entered, in which every item inside every building can be touched, held, used at your character's descretion.
A game in which every virtual person moving within the gameworld is an individual with a unique personality, where every action your character performs has a real in-game consequence.
Many games have promised this kind of interactivity. Shenmue for instance claimed to be first title belonging to a new genre - namely: "F.R.E.E." [Free Reactive Eyes Entertainment], and even though it was one hell of an impressive game featuring detailed graphics, a huge gameworld and variable weather, it was only interactive up to a certain point, and ultimately the storyline was very linear.
Almost every adventure-style game these days features a certain amount of interactivity: cupboards can be used as hiding places, mundane items can be randomly picked up and used as weapons, but still no game can boast the kind of interactive gameplay which can truly be described as F.R.E.E.
Grand Theft Auto III took a further step into this direction with the game's character being able to steal any and every vehicle in the game and commit various types of [controversial] violence against all the people found in the gameworld, yet we still see buildings which cannot be entered and one-dimensional non-controllable characters.
So will the fully interactive gameworld ever materialize, or will graphical environments just keep on getting bigger and superficially more realistic and yet always have an obvious limit to their interactivity?
The only way I can see it happening some time soon is if the size of the gameworld is kept very small and the programmers concentrate on making everything within it fully interactive; but in many ways this would just be another kind of limitation.
I suspect that [like the real Arthurian *Holy Grail*] we will not properly drink from the Chalice of Ultimate Gaming Immersion for a very, very long time - but the day WILL come, and oh what a day it will be..... but will we be around to appreciate it?
A game in which the character you control can go anywhere within its borders and do anything.
A game wherein every building can be entered, in which every item inside every building can be touched, held, used at your character's descretion.
A game in which every virtual person moving within the gameworld is an individual with a unique personality, where every action your character performs has a real in-game consequence.
Many games have promised this kind of interactivity. Shenmue for instance claimed to be first title belonging to a new genre - namely: "F.R.E.E." [Free Reactive Eyes Entertainment], and even though it was one hell of an impressive game featuring detailed graphics, a huge gameworld and variable weather, it was only interactive up to a certain point, and ultimately the storyline was very linear.
Almost every adventure-style game these days features a certain amount of interactivity: cupboards can be used as hiding places, mundane items can be randomly picked up and used as weapons, but still no game can boast the kind of interactive gameplay which can truly be described as F.R.E.E.
Grand Theft Auto III took a further step into this direction with the game's character being able to steal any and every vehicle in the game and commit various types of [controversial] violence against all the people found in the gameworld, yet we still see buildings which cannot be entered and one-dimensional non-controllable characters.
So will the fully interactive gameworld ever materialize, or will graphical environments just keep on getting bigger and superficially more realistic and yet always have an obvious limit to their interactivity?
The only way I can see it happening some time soon is if the size of the gameworld is kept very small and the programmers concentrate on making everything within it fully interactive; but in many ways this would just be another kind of limitation.
I suspect that [like the real Arthurian *Holy Grail*] we will not properly drink from the Chalice of Ultimate Gaming Immersion for a very, very long time - but the day WILL come, and oh what a day it will be..... but will we be around to appreciate it?
Full interaction with every thing in the game's environment would be an amazing thing, but like you say, I can't see it happening in the near future.
Games are slowly becoming more intricately interactive, but we are a long way off "full interaction".
Games are slowly becoming more intricately interactive, but we are a long way off "full interaction".
RM18 wrote:
> As much as I agree with your points about Shenmue,it is still my
> favourite game.
*
Shenmue [I&II] is one of my favourite games too, I just don't think it can justify being called F.R.E.E. The gameworld is still the most immersive and beautiful yet created.
> As much as I agree with your points about Shenmue,it is still my
> favourite game.
*
Shenmue [I&II] is one of my favourite games too, I just don't think it can justify being called F.R.E.E. The gameworld is still the most immersive and beautiful yet created.
As much as I agree with your points about Shenmue,it is still my favourite game. I think that F.R.E.E. is a realistic and attainable goal but I hope that it is not taken to extremes like waiting for a bus of waiting for a kettle to boil, but giving the player a fuller experience.
I agree with you about blowing open locked doors - survival horror games take note. Why do we always need a little key when we usually have a shotgun with explosive shells.
*
A truly F.R.E.E. game wouldn't be boring - we could do anything. That's my point. Shenmue was very limited. It wasn't F.R.E.E. at all.
*
A truly F.R.E.E. game wouldn't be boring - we could do anything. That's my point. Shenmue was very limited. It wasn't F.R.E.E. at all.
I don't think it will happen anytime soon, mainly because they suck. Shenmue for example, I bought it, I played it, I finished it and then I thought: Wait a minute, that was totally boring!
One thing I think developers should focus on is the effects of weapons. I don't think games need to be much mor realistic than they already are, but the weapons do. For example, in Goldeneye (great game it was of course) you might need to get into a locked room for part of a mission, and you might think to yourself "Well I could try using this rocket launcher and blowing a hole through the door/wall" But you can't, in fact when you try theres not even a scratch on it. It did have bullet holes, but only 20, after the the first ones started dissapearing.
One game I've played that does do this is Red Faction, if you shoot a wall or the floor you blow a great big hole in it! And you can blast your way out of one room and into another. In the mines of the first level you get a digger and you can literally dig your way anywhere in the level.
I think its things like that that need to be improved on, not the ability to become a couch potatoe in Shenmue; spending all your gaming time controller a character to sit around and watch T.V all day.
One thing I think developers should focus on is the effects of weapons. I don't think games need to be much mor realistic than they already are, but the weapons do. For example, in Goldeneye (great game it was of course) you might need to get into a locked room for part of a mission, and you might think to yourself "Well I could try using this rocket launcher and blowing a hole through the door/wall" But you can't, in fact when you try theres not even a scratch on it. It did have bullet holes, but only 20, after the the first ones started dissapearing.
One game I've played that does do this is Red Faction, if you shoot a wall or the floor you blow a great big hole in it! And you can blast your way out of one room and into another. In the mines of the first level you get a digger and you can literally dig your way anywhere in the level.
I think its things like that that need to be improved on, not the ability to become a couch potatoe in Shenmue; spending all your gaming time controller a character to sit around and watch T.V all day.
How far away do you think we are from "the Holy Grail of Gaming"? - i.e. a self-contained game environment which is totally interactive in every conceivable way.
A game in which the character you control can go anywhere within its borders and do anything.
A game wherein every building can be entered, in which every item inside every building can be touched, held, used at your character's descretion.
A game in which every virtual person moving within the gameworld is an individual with a unique personality, where every action your character performs has a real in-game consequence.
Many games have promised this kind of interactivity. Shenmue for instance claimed to be first title belonging to a new genre - namely: "F.R.E.E." [Free Reactive Eyes Entertainment], and even though it was one hell of an impressive game featuring detailed graphics, a huge gameworld and variable weather, it was only interactive up to a certain point, and ultimately the storyline was very linear.
Almost every adventure-style game these days features a certain amount of interactivity: cupboards can be used as hiding places, mundane items can be randomly picked up and used as weapons, but still no game can boast the kind of interactive gameplay which can truly be described as F.R.E.E.
Grand Theft Auto III took a further step into this direction with the game's character being able to steal any and every vehicle in the game and commit various types of [controversial] violence against all the people found in the gameworld, yet we still see buildings which cannot be entered and one-dimensional non-controllable characters.
So will the fully interactive gameworld ever materialize, or will graphical environments just keep on getting bigger and superficially more realistic and yet always have an obvious limit to their interactivity?
The only way I can see it happening some time soon is if the size of the gameworld is kept very small and the programmers concentrate on making everything within it fully interactive; but in many ways this would just be another kind of limitation.
I suspect that [like the real Arthurian *Holy Grail*] we will not properly drink from the Chalice of Ultimate Gaming Immersion for a very, very long time - but the day WILL come, and oh what a day it will be..... but will we be around to appreciate it?
A game in which the character you control can go anywhere within its borders and do anything.
A game wherein every building can be entered, in which every item inside every building can be touched, held, used at your character's descretion.
A game in which every virtual person moving within the gameworld is an individual with a unique personality, where every action your character performs has a real in-game consequence.
Many games have promised this kind of interactivity. Shenmue for instance claimed to be first title belonging to a new genre - namely: "F.R.E.E." [Free Reactive Eyes Entertainment], and even though it was one hell of an impressive game featuring detailed graphics, a huge gameworld and variable weather, it was only interactive up to a certain point, and ultimately the storyline was very linear.
Almost every adventure-style game these days features a certain amount of interactivity: cupboards can be used as hiding places, mundane items can be randomly picked up and used as weapons, but still no game can boast the kind of interactive gameplay which can truly be described as F.R.E.E.
Grand Theft Auto III took a further step into this direction with the game's character being able to steal any and every vehicle in the game and commit various types of [controversial] violence against all the people found in the gameworld, yet we still see buildings which cannot be entered and one-dimensional non-controllable characters.
So will the fully interactive gameworld ever materialize, or will graphical environments just keep on getting bigger and superficially more realistic and yet always have an obvious limit to their interactivity?
The only way I can see it happening some time soon is if the size of the gameworld is kept very small and the programmers concentrate on making everything within it fully interactive; but in many ways this would just be another kind of limitation.
I suspect that [like the real Arthurian *Holy Grail*] we will not properly drink from the Chalice of Ultimate Gaming Immersion for a very, very long time - but the day WILL come, and oh what a day it will be..... but will we be around to appreciate it?