Games 2000
Alex Kriss
Copyright Jan 2, 2000
Page 1
Well, well, well. The big 2000. That's a lot of zeros. Seeing as you'd
have to have been living under a rock for the past year to avoid the
"Millenium Predictions," ranging from the future of curing diseases to
the future of pasturizing milk...yup, we've heard 'em all. But there
might be one that you've missed, or want to hear more of: What about
games? Well, herein lies a game developer's views of the past and
future of games.
One
thing that I hope the gaming industry starts to branch away from is the
timeless cliches that infect nearly all genres. Be it the brave prince
out to slay the evil dragon or the twisted aliens invading earth...it's
enough. Time to start hiring more creative people. Time to realize that
a professional game cannot be done (or at least done well) with just
programmers, artists, and musicians. I hope that the 21st century
brings the "design team" into gamemaking.
The other day I was in
the movie store and passed through the "Classics" section. Next to
Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn I saw something I didn't
expect...Aladdin. You know, the Disney movie. Of course you know about
it...chances are you saw it. Chances are that around 250 million people
saw that movie, and millions of them saw it twice or more. Think about
it. How many people are out there that you've met who haven't seen
Pinocchio, or Bambi...not many. And those who haven't are considered
weird. Why haven't they seen it? Everyone else has. Now where am I
going with this? Well, calm down, I'm just getting there:
Why not games?
I
believe that something that games are going to show us in this
millenium is that they can appeal to mass audiences. Nowadays us
developers are quite impressed by a company who had a game that sold
one million copies--those are the big guys like Blizzard or id
Software. But what if one day games sold hundreds of millions of
copies? Why not? Perhaps the constant integration of computers,
consoles, and TV will make games more appealing to the masses...we
already have WebTV, it just hasn't really caught on yet. Just give it a
little while, and you'll be able to browse the web, watch you're
favorite show, and play Half-Life in one sitting with just a remote
control and a gamepad.
But before that happens, we should at
least embrace the slow in-coming of DVD's. Besides all those fancy
features that are thrown at you about why it's better, here's a simpler
reason: It holds more stuff. Period. Riven's jam-packed 5-CD-ROM
extravaganza was easily placed onto a single DVD. The PlayStation2 will
be using DVD's, and one of the first games--Oddworld Inhabitant's
Munch's Oddysee--will be one of the largest and most graphically
stunning games ever...all on one DVD.
What does it all mean? It
means that games are going to look better (obviously) but even more
importantly be longer. LucasArt's Curse of Monkey Island was put on 2
CD-ROMs and was openly advertised as around 40 hours of gameplay...the
"norm" for GAs at the moment. But what if, in the 21st century, you can
have a game with 100 hours of gameplay, longer and better cutscenes,
better and more sound, multiple gameplay options and every 3D
Accelerated card in existance supported on a single disc! Gaming would
change forever!
Ah, yes, 3D Accelerators. Bringing us crisper,
faster 3D graphics to all of our games...and in my opinion they are
also the Devil's Advocate. If you ask me something will have to be done
so that someone with a state-of-the-art Pentium III but no Voodoo Video
card can still play an FPS without totally missing out on all the cool
graphical stuff. It's just not fair. Here I am saying that soon mass
populations will be enjoying games and something like Quake 3 Arena
comes out and leaves everyone without an accelerator in the dust.
Hopefully this problem will soon be fixed.
Well, this concludes
my ramblings for the time being. Games have come a long way since
interactive entertainment was talking with your buddy, waiting for that
kid playing Space Invaders to run out of quarters. Hopefully they will
continue to grow and surpass what we can't even imagine here at the
modest beginnings of a new millenium. Happy Year 2000, everyone!