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The Maturation of Video Games
1up.com is running a piece examining how video games have matured since the early days. The article explores what the social context of gaming has been, from Hunt the Wumpus to 'Hot Coffee'. From the article: "The maturation of games might be viewed more accurately as a climb into a unified grace. By the time console gamers were wowed by Sonic The Hedgehog's 64-colour world, computer gamers were already familiar with zooming across galaxies, building cities and landing virtual planes. The 486 ran at 66 mHz and had the capability to create 3D texture maps. 16-bit consoles, which ran at 7 mHz, could not replicate a game as impressive-looking, innovative and as huge as Doom."
Maybe it's just me but...
The 486 ran at 66 mHz and had the capability to create 3D texture maps. 16-bit consoles, which ran at 7 mHz, could not replicate a game as impressive-looking, innovative and as huge as Doom."
Think that could be why they couldn't do it? Just an off guess...
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I can understand and appreciate what the author is trying to do here, but to be completely honest, I don't see that much development and maturity, or at least nothing noteworthy. Sure, the consoles of today are more mathematically powerful than they were, but it's not that big of a deal... Tekken loads up 3d models and texture maps which then get pushed down a pipe and into a drawable, playable characters. The NES wasn't exactly a tin can and string by comparison: Nekketsu Kakutou Densetsu did animation of fighting moves for up to four completely different characters at once by switching several different pages of ROM directly off the cart, into and out of the video address space.
The sad part about the article is that it doesn't quite realize how bad and stale the game industry is these days. Dominated by publishers that are so addicted to the big money that comes from a market of $50-a-pop games that they believe games are all about finding the right market and developing a genre game geared to it, preferably with a promotional movie tie-in.
If that's industry maturity, you can have it back.
Well, gee, yet another thread along the lines of "but gaming platform X is better than platform Y, because its hardware is better".
Hello? Aren't we missing something? Like, you know, the _games_? Because it seems to me like that's the only reason to own a gaming rig in the first place: to play the games.
Until you can tell me that you're playing directly with the shader pipelines, instead of with a game that uses those... sorry, I'll concentrate on what games I can play on it, instead of the bogus "mine has more MHz than yours" willy-waving.
Want to know why I bought a console, "my PC has more MHz" willy-waving be damned? Well, for the games. Games such as:
- Gran Turismo, which was a better racing game than any racing game that ran on a PC
- Fighting games, which pretty much _disappeared_ on the PC after Mortal Kombat
- Jade Empire and Fable alone were worth the price of an XBox, and more
- Japanese RPGs, including not just Square ones, but also some very original ones like Valkyrie Profile and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. Those two alone would make the price of a Playstation worth every cent I've paid for it
- Lightgun games. Yeah, the PC has keyboard and mouse. Wake me up when I can plug a lighgun in and play a House Of The Dead or Time Crisis game the way it was meant to be played.
Etc.
In a nutshell, it's all about the games. If a platform has games I want to play, I'll go buy that platform and play those games. It's that simple.
I don't care which has the higher MHz or bogus benchmark scores. I don't play 3DMark, I play _games_.
I have a top end Athlon 64 4000+, 2 GB RAM, a 7800 GTX, and a WD Raptor in my current PC, but trust me, looking at 3DMark still gets old after one 10 minute run. I'll play a game instead to keep myself entertained.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Going along with what you are saying, it's not a fair statement to say that because video games contain realistic 'mature' content that video games have matured. Is a 14 year old 'mature' because he plays Grand Theft Auto? No. A 14 year old that chooses to play a game like Ico instead of Grand Theft Auto is more 'mature', because he is choosing entertainment with more engrossing gameplay and story over senseless violence and sex.
There's a mix up between what is 'mature' here. There's mature content, the blood, guts, boobs, and sex; then there is a mature theme, things that you just don't understand or can't fully appreciate until you have some experience (not xp) under your belt. I would consider Myst to be a 'Mature' game. Something that requires a bit more of a refined taste to appreciate.
While there are a few 'mature content containing' games that could be considered mature games, it's all too obvious that there's way more mature content than there is mature games. The article seems to strive more to point out what has always been in that envelope everytime it's been pushed, and not so much show how games have 'grown up'.
People throw around the word "mature" in console gaming more than they do "hardcore gamer" now. I dont think people understand what either mean.
Just because GTA has explicit sex scenes, graphic violence, and copious swearing doesnt make it at all "mature". Hell, most of the crap out there is just plain juvenile. For some reason, people equate GTA and other games of the same nature to equal mature, while games such as Mario are kiddy.
I think the real "mature gamer" is the one that doesnt give a shit about the "image" of the game theyre playing, so long as they have fun, be they a 13-year old or a 50-year old.