Extra Punctuation: Time for Gaming's Physical
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
It still surprises me the tropes game developers fall into. I'm loving Deus Ex: Human Revolution's open ended game play....but, wet electrified floors? We already have circuit breakers today that make it impossible that this would happen.
There's an iPhone game called "Siege Hero" that has elements of NOT destroying. It's an angry birds game but you shoot cannonballs instead, and soldiers instead of pigs. You also don't have to judge trajectory, you're shooting from a first-person perspective and just tap where you want them to hit. However there are civilians you are supposed to avoid killing so need to think about what NOT to destroy.
I'd love to see a "real" action adventure game. Like Far Cry I guess but less gung-ho and more oh-shit-what-am-I-going-to-do scenario. An 'everyman' who doesn't know how to use a gun but can MacGyver stuff together. I liked that in Alone in the Dark. Making petrol trails, and making molotovs. It comes and goes but I like games that let you trick enemies with noises a-la Metal Gear Solid wall knock. Being able to use ropes and planks to make paths anywhere. Nightmare to design and probably to slow and boring for mainstream though. You wouldn't get arm blades for a start...unless you made some with lawn mower blades and super-glue.
There's an iPhone game called "Siege Hero" that has elements of NOT destroying. It's an angry birds game but you shoot cannonballs instead, and soldiers instead of pigs. You also don't have to judge trajectory, you're shooting from a first-person perspective and just tap where you want them to hit. However there are civilians you are supposed to avoid killing so need to think about what NOT to destroy.
I'd love to see a "real" action adventure game. Like Far Cry I guess but less gung-ho and more oh-shit-what-am-I-going-to-do scenario. An 'everyman' who doesn't know how to use a gun but can MacGyver stuff together. I liked that in Alone in the Dark. Making petrol trails, and making molotovs. It comes and goes but I like games that let you trick enemies with noises a-la Metal Gear Solid wall knock. Being able to use ropes and planks to make paths anywhere. Nightmare to design and probably to slow and boring for mainstream though. You wouldn't get arm blades for a start...unless you made some with lawn mower blades and super-glue.
LOL Ezio accidentally drops bomb
blows up half of a tower, other half collapses
everyone looks at him
oh wait but at this point in the series he can lay waste to an army in about 5 minutes...
well, Altair's (lesser) level of badassery might not appreciate destructible buildings too much
blows up half of a tower, other half collapses
everyone looks at him
oh wait but at this point in the series he can lay waste to an army in about 5 minutes...
well, Altair's (lesser) level of badassery might not appreciate destructible buildings too much
a person who knows what makes up a good game may nto be able to create a good gmae but he surely would make thme stay away from making extremely bad ones. also msot of the unfeasable/unrealistic doesnt exist anymore with todays technology, and the only reason why its not there is because its much easier to sell generic shooter than an actually innovating game.Tin Man said:
Here is the thing - the game industry is focused too much on consoles in order for advances like this and others (procedural sandboxes and artificial intelligence come to mind) to come to the forefront.
Consoles are just limited in their ability to deliver more processing power, move data around faster and store data and these limitations don't appear to be going away anytime soon if the ever increasing console lifecycle is a benchmark.
Instead, the industry focuses on production values like story, acting, visuals, because these are things that can reasonably be improved within the limitations of the device.
This is why you hear game studio heads or publishers saying outrageously stupid things like "We don't really need better consoles" and claiming to have reached the pinnacle of what they need to deliver - the benchmark they are using is one purely around production values.
As an older gamer and a computer scientist, I find it really frustrating to see how the game industry is (d)evolving. When the PC was the primary vehicle for home gaming, the games themselves improved much more evenly across many different areas, not just graphics and production. Increases in things like storage size, or processing speed, or more available ram, meant that in the competition between game developers, there were always new areas to explore for improvement. That just doesn't exist any more.
For me, I sit back here at 2011 and wonder why we don't have procedurally generated sandbox games like GTA or Saints Row, or RDR, where the environment is different every time. Or games where each actor in your sandbox has it's own AI thread that simulates a real life person, with jobs, meeting people, getting married, having kids, going insane and shooting up a mcdonalds, whatever.
This stuff is all entirely possible. It's not like the knowledge of how to do this is beyond us. It's not even that it's incredibly time consuming to do (just look at what the guy who develops Dwarf Fortress has been able to do with that game). It's just that the focus is not there because the primary delivery platforms (consoles) were built at a time around the assumption that the only thing that really mattered was production values.
I know it may sound like "I hate consoles" here, but that's not really it. I'm all in favor of people being able to game cheaply. I just hate the fact that the development philosophy for the entire games industry is so intrinsicly bound to a stagnent piece of hardware. I honestly feel like it's been killing innovation in the industry as a whole (When was the last time a new "genre" for gaming was invented? What was the last major gameplay element to be added to a genre like the FPS - chest high walls??)
Ultimately if things continue like this, the only thing that will seperate the vast majority of commercial games will be the size of their marketing budget and when that happens then gaming will be just as shithouse as movies and television are.
It's so bloody depressing to think about....
Consoles are just limited in their ability to deliver more processing power, move data around faster and store data and these limitations don't appear to be going away anytime soon if the ever increasing console lifecycle is a benchmark.
Instead, the industry focuses on production values like story, acting, visuals, because these are things that can reasonably be improved within the limitations of the device.
This is why you hear game studio heads or publishers saying outrageously stupid things like "We don't really need better consoles" and claiming to have reached the pinnacle of what they need to deliver - the benchmark they are using is one purely around production values.
As an older gamer and a computer scientist, I find it really frustrating to see how the game industry is (d)evolving. When the PC was the primary vehicle for home gaming, the games themselves improved much more evenly across many different areas, not just graphics and production. Increases in things like storage size, or processing speed, or more available ram, meant that in the competition between game developers, there were always new areas to explore for improvement. That just doesn't exist any more.
For me, I sit back here at 2011 and wonder why we don't have procedurally generated sandbox games like GTA or Saints Row, or RDR, where the environment is different every time. Or games where each actor in your sandbox has it's own AI thread that simulates a real life person, with jobs, meeting people, getting married, having kids, going insane and shooting up a mcdonalds, whatever.
This stuff is all entirely possible. It's not like the knowledge of how to do this is beyond us. It's not even that it's incredibly time consuming to do (just look at what the guy who develops Dwarf Fortress has been able to do with that game). It's just that the focus is not there because the primary delivery platforms (consoles) were built at a time around the assumption that the only thing that really mattered was production values.
I know it may sound like "I hate consoles" here, but that's not really it. I'm all in favor of people being able to game cheaply. I just hate the fact that the development philosophy for the entire games industry is so intrinsicly bound to a stagnent piece of hardware. I honestly feel like it's been killing innovation in the industry as a whole (When was the last time a new "genre" for gaming was invented? What was the last major gameplay element to be added to a genre like the FPS - chest high walls??)
Ultimately if things continue like this, the only thing that will seperate the vast majority of commercial games will be the size of their marketing budget and when that happens then gaming will be just as shithouse as movies and television are.
It's so bloody depressing to think about....
A WWII themed turn-based strategy game called Silent Storm kind of did what you're talking about, way back in 2003.
Floors, ceilings and walls were destructible, allowing you to open up a path directly through a house or even under it. The catch was that you could end up blowing the floor out of a building you needed to get through, for example.
That was a really good game.
Floors, ceilings and walls were destructible, allowing you to open up a path directly through a house or even under it. The catch was that you could end up blowing the floor out of a building you needed to get through, for example.
That was a really good game.
I agree with your point. There is a part of me hoping the modding community continues to grow to the extent that it somewhat has a similar influence as the multiplayer feature in games.Jake Martinez said:
Why?
Because its not only proof that those with limited resources mold whatever they can get and make an inspiring addition to the series (suggesting those corporates feel they can follow this example) but I also hope it will push the trend of creative use of gaming mechanics via threatening to lose sales if they fail to either become creative or allow the public to do it for them. That and its beneficial for the companies and public. Being replay value for us, idea generation and popularity (possibly boost in sales) for them.
It doesn't seem to incorporate much in the way of physics, but Introversion Software's upcoming game Subversion is based around procedurally generated, detailed cities (down to the level of motion-sensing doors being made up of motion-sensors, doors, mechanical motors and wiring). It seems to be shaping up into a sort of corporate espionage game, where you form a team with various specialties and equipment and attempt to accomplish objectives via whatever methods you can succeed by.
Seems like something Yahtzee might like
Seems like something Yahtzee might like