The Future of PC Gaming

Warrior-GS writes "GameSpy has two new articles up talking about the Future of PC Gaming. The first talks about the The Future of PC Game Engines, talking to Tim Sweeney, Chris Taylor, Stuart Moulder and others about everything from physics to lighting to AI. The second is an interview with Peter Molyneux about his areas of expertise and what lies ahead. The series will continue next month with a look at the Future of User Created Games and an interview with Warren Spector on PC Gaming's future."

Comments

Games of the past

[Evil Adrian]

Does anyone else miss 2D scrollers like Super Mario 3 or overhead adventure games like Gauntlet? I have grown so weary of 3D shooters, I wish somebody could offer a decent 2D game that engaged my brain.

Re:Games of the past

[Junks Jerzey]

Does anyone else miss 2D scrollers like Super Mario 3

Not really. Yes, at one time those games were great. Even when Sonic the Hedgehog came out in 1991--an awesome game--the genre was already getting stale and moldy. Then the thousand such games released in the next five years completely put the 2D scroller to bed.

There's nothing wrong with 2D scrolling games, except that everyone was just following the path chosen by Miyamoto. If you're tired of the current crop of PC games because they're derivative, the last thing you want to do is wistfully remember the most derivative game era of all time.

Re:Games of the past

[Pxtl]

I agree - in retrospect, the genre was never really explored. If you look very, very hard you can find a handful of real gems in 2d, but most were just Mario clones (good god, how many games involved jumping on the baddies?).

For the last word in Mario - look up Jump'n'bump. Cute little bunnies stomp each other's heads and explode into bloodnguts.

For 2d games - Liero (worms 1 on 1) and its clones - the original is still the best. NiL is its abandoned (and unfaithful) Linux online version. I hope someone will pick this back up.

Abuse (and the open-source version, FrAbs) is the best thing out there for online 2d action - imagine a hyperfast Quake as a side-scroller. There is deathmatch, and FrAbs promises CTF soon.

Metal Warriors - The rarest, most awesome title for the SNES - 1-on-1 deathmatch splitscreen sidescroller with really, really innovative robots.

For the PC - Z - An RTS with a fresh approach to the genre - its paced more like an arcade game then an RTS. Scorched Earth - come on, this was just cool.

There were a lot of really good platformers and side-scroll games right up until Super Mario came out. New innovations didn't arrive until the genre was dying, and then it was too late - 3d took its place.

Re:Games of the past

[Pxtl]

I have actually been really really freaking disappointed with the lineup for my gameboy advanced. There's really very little besides Pokemon clones and sidescrollers. I was hoping people would take better advantage of what is really a handheld LAN (finally you can conceal the screen from other players) to make some innovations. I want Spy VS Spy, and Metal Marines, and Metal Warriors, and Z, and StarCraft, and old flight sims and suchlike. The only games that even hold my interest on the GBA are the racing games and the FPS games. Even the puzzle games are kinda weak compared to some of the PC titles I've tried.

Mmmmm...new game engine

[fobbman]

What are the game producers going to do when they finally get to the point where the games look like real life, but still have the entertainment value of the movie "Glitter" or "It's Pat"?

An exquisitely rendered turd is still a turd.

One problem about self-improving game AI

[sielwolf]

One big problem is that we want opponents to learn "online" but how many of us are willing to deal with the long learning curves of a lot of AI? Most people want to 1. sit down at a game 2. be challenged 3. maybe see the opponent due something new.

But to do something new would probably require a lot of trial and failure... and a lot of moments where users will think "damn, this thing has gotten stupider!"

So then you can enforce a baseline behavior... which is more static, more predictable and basically where AI is now (lots of scripting, etc).

I guess the best solution would be for developers to come up with a dozen or so strategies and a system for switching/blending between them. Heck, maybe even have the developers run improvements and then upload them to all the users.

Of course "meat" opponents online do that already: they're called gaming forums. The ability of a person to come up with a great strategy and then propogate it to everyone else online may be the most difficult thing to implement in any game AI.

Advanced graphics != good graphics

[weird mehgny]

It has become common belief that the better tech, the better graphics. It's simply not true. There's much more than a technological aspect of graphics in games, there's also something called aesthetics.

SNES era games come to mind. Games like Zelda 3 and Super Metroid had wonderful graphics - they are in low resolution and in few colors when compared to today's games, but the design work is excellent.

I have no doubts that DOOM 3, for example, will have a great combination of technology and design. My point is just that graphics aren't bad just because they're old!

waiting for that killer app

[DenOfEarth]

The great things is, that there are those people out there that understand that some people play games for the same reasons some people play soccer; the gameplay is basically the same, but every encounter is different, and even greater (for me ;) are those people that understand that some of us will want to play a game for the same reason that we want to read a book or watch a movie (Halo, anyone).

So, considering this, those guys who are building better and better engines are actually going to be helping out both of the above types of game developer, and surely more as well.

I am waiting for the day in the not-so-distant future, where someone releases a game with a story and characters compelling enough (decent engine too) that it causes the larger audience of people to realize that games aren't just for kids. The next thing after that is Sex in games. Wait, that's here already, but wait until it gets even more real.

Doom/Quake bad examples of retail products

[AHumbleOpinion]

The Doom and Quake series of games are not good examples of retail products. Selling boxes at retail is only part, it may even be the smaller part, of the income. Licensing the engines found in these games is the other part of the income. These games are partly "advertisements" for the engine. That is how they can get away with such high system requirements. The requirements won't seem so steep by the time the products based on a licensed Doom III engine appear.

Good ol' Days Syndrome

[Torgo's Pizza]

I'm already seeing a bunch of messages talking about the games they used to play in the past and how great they were. There seems to be an equal amount of posts complaining about what their vision of the future should be.

Funny thing is that I've seen these same articles and the same reactions for over twenty years know. Ever since Bill Kunkel et al started the first video game magazine, there always has been articles with a prognostication about the future of gaming and how crappy the games of today are.

It seems that the future articles state that: the games will be bigger, faster, have more features and be more realistic and interactive. The complaints seem to be the games of today lack innovation, have no plot or substance and have poor quality. The best articles have a up-and-coming game designer revealing the latest and greatest and a wily veteran designer with a "return to the basics" mantra.

Do yourself a favor. Next time you see an article with the "Future of Gaming!" title, just read the above paragraph which will sum it all up neatly for you and you've saved ten minutes of your life that you can now apply to playing Vice City.

Re:Warren Spector

[CaffeineAddict2001]

Maybe next time I will leave a disclaimer about how I in no way condone spousal abuse in any way.

After all, we can't have people just telling jokes all willy nilly, somebody might find them funny and beat their wife!

Re:Dedicated AI

[smallstepforman]

With dedicated video cards and dedicated sound cards, it looks as if we already have a dedicated AI card - its called the motherboard. Asus and Abit make excellent AI cards :-)