Oh my, I’ve fallen behind on my blog entries. Well, okay, we’ll do it live!
Finally, we have arrived to the modern times with decent graphics and cool visual effects. I do not complain about the older games, no, but nevertheless I am glad that you can distinguish NPC from a table now. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo release their next gen (and not so next gen) consoles, and PC slowly becomes an inseparable part of an average household. Portable gaming that was born in the nineties mainly by Nintendo flourished with the appearance of several other handheld consoles and mobile platforms such as cell phones and tablet PCs closer to the end of the decade.
Technological advancement is really noticeable by comparing just some titles. For example, games that were released in 2000 – Deus Ex, The Sims, Diablo II, Shogun: Total War. All of them have successors (or, in the case of Diablo, going to have really soon) that are quite similar, if you compare the gameplay, but look drastically different because of the graphics. Come on, if you try to compare the looks of Deus Ex and Half-Life 2, you’ll notice how far the technology went in four years.
Finally, we have arrived to the modern times with decent graphics and cool visual effects. I do not complain about the older games, no, but nevertheless I am glad that you can distinguish NPC from a table now. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo release their next gen (and not so next gen) consoles, and PC slowly becomes an inseparable part of an average household. Portable gaming that was born in the nineties mainly by Nintendo flourished with the appearance of several other handheld consoles and mobile platforms such as cell phones and tablet PCs closer to the end of the decade.
Technological advancement is really noticeable by comparing just some titles. For example, games that were released in 2000 – Deus Ex, The Sims, Diablo II, Shogun: Total War. All of them have successors (or, in the case of Diablo, going to have really soon) that are quite similar, if you compare the gameplay, but look drastically different because of the graphics. Come on, if you try to compare the looks of Deus Ex and Half-Life 2, you’ll notice how far the technology went in four years.
In just ten years the computational power of entertainment systems multiplied several times. From 00 to 08 we could see double increase in performance every two years. And if the technological growth in the previous years was mainly due to the discoveries and improvements in other areas of technology, the phenomena of the last decade happened mainly due to the entertainment. A vicious circle – people want better graphics, so they spend more money on better tech, and because of that a newer technology is being created, only to be consumed again. This growth slowed down in the 08th, when the Economic Crisis hit us hard. Crysis, a major milestone in video game graphics still looks quite good despite being released four years ago. Hell, it even was released with the graphic settings that were not available for the majority of gamers, because DirectX 10 wasn’t yet common then.
But there is also another reason for the halt in development of the better looking games. It is called consoles. They are de-facto inferior to PCs when you compare the computational power of VGA even at the moment of release. Also, game developers try to release cross-platform games, since there are more console gamers and, well, they don’t work for free and want to earn money too. And since the last generation of consoles was released in 2005 and only slightly improved versions were released then, it is only natural that developers have to create less advanced games so that they can be launched. Yes, if the game is initially cross-platform, then two different versions are usually created. But more often the game is just being ported without any visual enhancements, especially if the title was originally developed for the consoles. That’s sad, but at least I don’t have to buy a new PC every two years.
From the gameplay point of view, a lot has changed since the previous decade. The genre borders faded. Almost every shooter or first-person-something now has the mini-map from strategies and objective list from RPGs. Hybrids like FPS+RPG (Mass Effect, Fallout series) became very popular. Platformers gained one additional dimension in Assassins Creed and Mirror’s Edge. RPG’s met the Internet and their love child is MMORPG’s. Every game that is more complex than a mobile phone casual no-brainer thing has the traits of two or more genres. How cool is that?
All in all we live in a very interesting time. Sometimes it seems like everything is already achieved, but then games like Portal and Braid prove us wrong. What will happen in the next decade? For one thing I know is that it is going to be interesting.
But there is also another reason for the halt in development of the better looking games. It is called consoles. They are de-facto inferior to PCs when you compare the computational power of VGA even at the moment of release. Also, game developers try to release cross-platform games, since there are more console gamers and, well, they don’t work for free and want to earn money too. And since the last generation of consoles was released in 2005 and only slightly improved versions were released then, it is only natural that developers have to create less advanced games so that they can be launched. Yes, if the game is initially cross-platform, then two different versions are usually created. But more often the game is just being ported without any visual enhancements, especially if the title was originally developed for the consoles. That’s sad, but at least I don’t have to buy a new PC every two years.
From the gameplay point of view, a lot has changed since the previous decade. The genre borders faded. Almost every shooter or first-person-something now has the mini-map from strategies and objective list from RPGs. Hybrids like FPS+RPG (Mass Effect, Fallout series) became very popular. Platformers gained one additional dimension in Assassins Creed and Mirror’s Edge. RPG’s met the Internet and their love child is MMORPG’s. Every game that is more complex than a mobile phone casual no-brainer thing has the traits of two or more genres. How cool is that?
All in all we live in a very interesting time. Sometimes it seems like everything is already achieved, but then games like Portal and Braid prove us wrong. What will happen in the next decade? For one thing I know is that it is going to be interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment