The Gamer's Quarter

[SuperWes]

1up has a "news story" running right now about how Tony Hawk on the 360 looks and sounds pretty much identical to the current generation console versions. What do you guys think of Microsoft allowing something like this? As much as we get pissed at Sony for their strict anti-games-that-don't-make-my-system-look-impressive policies (ie No 2-D), should Microsoft be letting companies release hi-def versions of current generation stuff on their new system at this point in the game? Sure, allowing this may bump up the number of launch games, but is this worth it if it might make the system look less impressive to potential buyers?

I have a feeling that Tony Hawk isn't the only game that's going to do this. Neversoft's other game Gun is more than likely also getting the pointless next-gen treatment, as well as Eidos' Tomb Raider Legends (if it comes out on time at all) and Ubi-Soft's King Kongmay be as well. To add insult to injury, Xbox 360 games are expected to cost $10 more than Xbox games. Taking Microsoft's image out of the picture, can Activision and Ubi-Soft really justify charging $10 more for the next-gen version of a game that doesn't offer any features that are exclusive to the next-gen systems?

What do you guys think?

-Wes
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[ee_emm_ecks]

Can they "legitimately" charge more for the smallest leap ever in graphical quality, either? What difference does it make if these games look like they were on the Dreamcast or PS2 as opposed to the "Next Generation".

[Mister Toups]

I think everyone already knows what I think about this. It's more less what I said was going to happen, and again the only really good looking games will come from developers how have good artists and smart programmers, irrespective of what platform the game is released on. I think that Shadow of the Collosus will be hands down the best looking game this year (even at like 20 fps), despite being released on the weakest possible hardware.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[SuperWes]

It's unfair to say that the 360 isn't powerful enough to do games that are legitamitly imperessive. Have you seen the video of NBA 2K6 on 360? It looks almost indistinguishable from a television broadcast (until you look at the people in the stands). What about the Project Gotham 3 in-car footage. Or the recent images of Kameo.



I mean, this stuff looks undeniably better than what we've got out there right now. And the added processing power should allow developers to put more stuff on the screen at once, process more complicated AI routines, and throw layers of effects on top of stuff that would be fairly straightforward on modern consoles. Unfiortunately, a lot of companies aren't going to be doing these things with their multiplatform games because they need to meet a specified launch date.

Toups inadvertently brings up a good pro-360 point with the 20 frames per second Shadow of Colossus. Doesn't it suck that the development team had to sacrafice their vision in order to make the game that fits their parent company's specs? It's undoubtedly going to be an impressive looking game, but not without a cost. If Shadow of Colossus was on either the Xbox 1 or 360 the frame rate wouldn't have taken a hit and the game would be just as smooth as the designers envisioned it, and maybe even have a few grass and sand effects that help create a more realistic feeling world.

I see everyone's argument about needless technology, but using this same argument we could say that there was no reason for the SNES when the NES would have told Mother 2's storyline just as well. There are benefits to advanced technolgy, even when a game isn't technologically driven, but these benefits only happen when developers take advantage of it.

-Wes
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[Mister Toups]

I'm not saying that the 360 isn't powerful enough. I'm saying that now more than ever it's less a matter of console power and more a matter of how good your programmers/artists are.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[dessgeega]

i'm pretty sure it's just a scheme to bleed gamers for money, though.

i'm really quite sure.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

In my mind the only way the next generation will redeem itself and convince me that it's worthwhile is by giving me games with persistent, consistent worlds that adhere to their own internal logic and put up a convincing illusion of life within the world. In short, I'll be convinced once developers start making games that can only be made for the next gen systems and not on current gen ones.

Shadow of the Colossus is a good example, for many reasons. Toups brings up the importance of smart art assets and programmers in an age of digital prowess. I'd also like to add that even if Shadow could run better on the 360 I'd rather be playing it on PS2 because that's what I own right now and it's entirely possible to get the same experience either way. And the Colossus demo does have grass and sand effects, Wes. Grass sways in the virtual wind, sand is kicked up by your horse, etc.

For the next gen I'd also better not be bumping into invisible walls, staring at load screens, getting hung on level geometry, watching my avatar run in place whenever presented with an obstacle that blocks progress(ie: just about every game ever where the character runs in one spot while up against a wall), or any other fourth wall breaking activity that plagues modern games.

[dhex]

aren't load screens basically a given at this point?

some of the screens i've seen look nice, but they don't seem that much different than a higher-end graphics card setup on a pc.

which is probably the point, i guess.
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[SuperWes]

[ApM]

I miss Disneyland.

Wes, you're off your nut. You're telling me that development costs will somehow go down for next-gen consoles because of the increased power? Do I really have to link to Greg Costikyan? Look at those graphs! We just plain do not have the tools to deal efficiently with all of this processing power, and this is doubly true in the games industry.

[Lackey]

I also would have thought that a lot of the things you say about the next generation would have been true of this generation.

I suppose a lot of our current third person action games and first person shooters, the ones without the cleverest artists and programmers, were better than the previous crop? Maybe! It still hasn't resulted in the best experiences, overall.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[SuperWes]

I'm not talking about development costs, I'm talking about power. Take the concept of Shadow of Colossus and put that concept on a newer system instead of an old one and it should be easier to get that concept across. Is that not true? What am I missing here? Take the concept of the First Person shooter and try to do that on the NES. Is it not easier to create a First Person Shooter on the Xbox than it is on the NES? Seems like it should be to me.

-Wes
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[player 2]

You know, every system with enough money thrown at it will get a few good games.

Good games are just bound to happen.

Strangely enough.

The similarity problems aren't that they're causing the good games not to exist, but that they're wasteful of precious resources we already have. I.E. They make old systems obsolete when, in reality, those old systems are quite capable as well. What's the point of bumping a game up to a new console when the old consoles are good enough to suffice? Here is an excerpt that I find mostly amusing and maybe a bit relevant:

[Mister Toups]

[Mr. Mechanical]

[dhex]

has anyone actually met an "average gamer?"
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[Mr. Mechanical]

I meet them all the time.

Good people, mostly.

[SuperWes]

[Mr. Mechanical]

That new Spartan: Total Warrior game has battlefields with like a hundred enemies at once.

Just sayin'.

(Kameo looks pretty cool too)

[dhex]

that whole shimmery bloom thing is kinda annoying.
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[ApM]

[Mister Toups]

That screenshot looks kind of stupid, actually. There's no variation at all between the individual character models so it looks like a really bad photoshop copy and paste job.

I look at Kameo and it looks good but then I remember how Star Fox Adventures looked compared to how it played.

I have no reason to change my expectations as Conker's Bad Fur Day was really terrible too.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[simplicio]

That Kameo art design is pretty awful, isn't it? I'd take "low-res" Beyond Good & Evil art over that any time. Actually, that "sweat is the new bloom" statement might be right on; with art departments going nuts on sweat and "realistic cloth" and individual eyebrow hairs while the basics (like realistic movement and environmental interaction) are still missing, these games are going to be totally overdone graphically (Think Deus Ex: IW) and all the messier for it.

[wourme]

This discussion reminds me of how, when I was younger, I'd worry that video games would become more and more graphically realistic until they simply looked real, which would be a terrible thing. I still feel that way, but I'm no longer worried about it. Developers will always find ways to use fun art styles that either take advantage of or ignore the more advanced technology.

--

I never understand why anyone cares about a new platform until it's been out for a few years and has more than a handful of games worth playing. Assuming that even happens--some systems never do amass enough good unique titles to get my attention, such as XBOX. Entering the game late also has big advantages if you're on a budget.

The only system I ever wanted before its release was Super Nintendo, because Nintendo Power had this poster showing screenshots from all kinds of upcoming games that you could just tell would be amazing (and they were). Of course, it still took me 3-4 years to get a SNES.

[Swimmy]

[dessgeega]

i mean. it's just.

why should i care?

nintendo's revolution is attempting to give me a new video gaming experience, with games previous models of game machines just weren't capable of, and an experience i can share with my mother without a wall of fifteen buttons getting in the way.

the playstation 3 or xbox 360 proposes to give me the same 3D action game i might have played a thousand times already, except now with a hundred more enemies on the screen.

why should i care, really? why should i get excited about playing the same games with a steeper admission fee?

are we really going to have any experiences with the ps3 or xbox 360 that the original systems weren't capable of giving us? they have the same controllers as their predecessors, even (albeit stupidly re-shaped). do sony and microsoft really have anything to offer me other than bigger numbers?
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[nICO]

Wes isn't saying anything that radical. I'm not too excited about the PS3 or 360, but I certainly agree it increases possibilities and that something with the graphic quality and number of AI routines simply could not be done on a current system, regardless of how good Kameo actually turns out. It seems pretty obvious to me that good games will come out of this new potential, and even if most end up suffocating under the new weight (assuming they get made at all), there'll be a handful that will be some of the most amazing things we've played. Just like every console generation, really.

Elder Scrolls 4 is the only interesting game for the next generation as far as I'm concerned, and there's no way it could have been done on current hardware. Sure, it's just an update of ES3, as Deesgaea might lament, but ES3 is possibly the best incomplete experiment we have. Current hardware simply couldn't handle what ES3 tried to do in terms of immersiveness. Xbox 360 looks like it might be able to finish what ES3 started. There's also bound to be more games like it. That's all that Wes is saying, I think.
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Brauner: Damn you, humans... You selfishly start wars and despoil the earth. Perhaps justice wasn't on my side but I will never admit that it was on yours.

[player 2]

Guh. Wes is just being contrarian.

The real issue is "what kind of new things can the 360 and the PS3 do for us that the old systems can't? And, fuck, why should I care about those things?"

You've highlighted one: we can have a new level of immersion. We can have real, living worlds. The robustness of these worlds lead to new forms of exploration. Of completely fictional places with fictional rules. Places that don't exist. Existing with gamephysics that were madeup by some nerd that spends too much time modelling things. They can push more numbers and figure out more routines!

UGH.

The way I see it is that games need to stop masturbating over themselves. I don't care if you can make your old games bigger and better. I really don't give a fuck. All I play now is Street Fighter III which is really just the natural evolution of Street Fighter II which was released 15 years ago. I don't know what that means, exactly, but I do know it means that we have yet to exploit the power we have right now.
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Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[disneyland]

[Mister Toups]

[ApM]

Disneyland! You came back, just for me!

[player 2]

Is Disneyland a joke account?
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Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[dessgeega]

basically.
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[SuperWes]

Disneyland's post is a good example of why we DON'T need new systems. The whole PC Gamer scene of "my system can push more polygons than yours" isn't in any way the most important thing that next generation games will offer. Seriously, if all you play games for is visual fidelity you should probably watch DVDs instead because they are leaps and bounds ahead from a visual standpoint. Really games can never hope to catch up.

It's not about just looking better, being in higher resolution, and doing crazy dick-slapping shit-mapping. It's about using the power in the new consoles to present us with things that simply aren't possible on current consoles. Think we're at the point where anything is possible? Look at Fable. It was an ambitious game that was held back by technological limitations (and a few design limitations, but that's beside the point). Peter Molyneux promised us vast go-anywhere landscapes with trees that could be cut down and replanted and we ended up with linear go-one-way hallways and trees that look pretty but don't do much else. Peter's reasoning was that the game ran at about 20% when it had to do all of the tree caculations on top of the game calculations so it was dropped. In the next generation these trees may become a reality.

And dess, you've got to realize that innovation in interface is just one possible innovation. I refuse to believe that First Person Shooters, 3rd Person Action Games, Sports Games, Driving Games, Strategy Games, and Music Games are all that's out there. With power comes more possibility and with possibility comes the ability to make games that we may have never thought would be games. Look at Katamari Damacy. That design would not have been done justice on the PS1. In some ways, innovating through interface is the cheap way out. They can do the same old thing in a brand new way and call it innovative.

If the hype is to be believed, Metal Gear Solid 4 will put you in the middle of a battlefield where Snake will try to complete an objective of his own that has nothing to do with either side of the conflict. Because he's Neutral, Snake will have the ability to switch back and forth between the two opposing sides and even create sub-allilances within the two sides. And all of this will happen naturally (hopefully) instead of through some scripted story. You will create the threads of the story yourself through any of your actions that are seen by the enemies. This sounds really cool, and it's something that will only be possible with more power.

Maybe I'm optimistic, but I do feel like we'll see great things in the next generation that weren't possible in this one. Unlike Wourme, I tend to buy systems at their launch and (other than the PSP) I have yet to be disappointed.

-Wes
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[dessgeega]

[ee_emm_ecks]

[aderack]

This is indeed the High Def era.

Disneyland, are you one of the Remix Generation?

Right on, man. Right on.
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[Mister Toups]

katamari could've been done on the PS1 probably just as well as it is now.

or the N64 for that matter.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[SuperWes]

[disneyland]

"Is Disneyland a joke account?"

"basically."



Oh you guys, always with the love.


I'm happy to have stirred the ire again. My sentiments are not part of a joke. They are a much-needed dose of perspective. What Law of Gaming states that a player cannot be a fan of games as both an interactive and artistic medium? Correct, no such law exists, and again I have to ask whether you guys have faith in your favorite active game designers. Obviously we want alluring and intelligent experiences that leave lasting memories, and what better way to explore a cutting edge concept than to marry it with cutting edge presentation? And more importantly, how could you possibly consider it a bad thing when the game designer can express a more refined version of his vision? Every generation will have mundane sequel reproduction and cookie cutter concept biting (that's Industry), and every generation will have a small selection of Katamarian exploration. I'm all for the explorers having an improved vessel to chase their vision.

I mean, the graphics and sound artists that Miyamoto surrounds himself with on a high end project...honestly now, don't you think they're ready for some new horsepower to play with? Of course. And obviously, in this case, that doesn't inherently damn the game to banal fluff and unfulfilled grandeur.

[Shapermc]

[dark steve]

[SuperWes]

Disneyland, what you need to realize is that people aren't saying that they don't like having better graphics. I mean, if something can look better it's hard to turn that down. What people are saying is that the same old shit with a nicer coat of paint doesn't make that shit any more appealing. My argument is that better paint is going to make new shit possible (like how I kept up that analogy?) like we've never seen before, and the reason I bring it up at all is that there's been so much focus on better graphics and new effects that people are starting to forget that the stuff that actually matters is going to get enhanced alongside those things. Emotion. Experience. Immersion. Etc.

When you talk about how people are really looking forward to 'sup mapping and megawhozit antialiasing you're totally missing the point. People don't really care about what effects are used and what's done, they only care about the finished product. It's all about the product not the process. Someone using pimp mapping to improve the visual fidelity of their terrible art assets doesn't really make a game any more appealing than someone who isn't throwing any effects on top of their really well designed art.

-Wes
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[disneyland]

I hear Sony Europe is farming out all of their pimp mapping assets to a Russian graphics sweatshop. Sad state of affairs.

[Tablesaw]

[Shapermc]

[Mister Toups]

[aderack]

http://www.insertcredit.com/wiki/doku.php?id=pimp_mapping
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[ApM]

I love you, Disneyland. Don't ever leave.

See, the problem is not one of technology, it is one of culture. If there wasn't this tendency of expanding to fill your container, a new console would have basically no downsides, in terms of the kinds of games that are created. However, because of the current culture of the games industry, to really be next-gen, you need high dynamic range realtime sweatmapping or whatever. Small development shops with the potential to develop really interesting things can't afford high-definition map-fapping*, and out they drop. You lose a lot of potentially awesome smaller stuff, just because the culture is dictating that everything has to be bigger than everything else.

Nintendo has found a brilliant way to attempt to change this culture, while simultaneously pandering to it -- change the technology used to interact with games, and move the technology fetish over to that end of things. We shall see how that works out.

And incidentally -- you probably could've pulled off Katamari Damacy with Doom-era tech. But once we hit Quake, and mixing sprites and polygons was no longer cool, we had to wait 8 years for the technology to catch up to the point where we could have that many truly 3D objects on the screen at once.

* If we're not careful, I'm going to end up starting a thread to make up technical terms for graphical effects that don't exist.
** Toups, you fuck, you beat me to linking Snakes on a Plane.

[SuperWes]