Slashdot Mirror
What is Next-Gen?
Rosethorn writes "IGN's Sci-Fi Brain has a weekly column covering relevant topics in video games as they relate to science fiction. This week TK-422 defines what it takes to create a 'next-generation' gaming experience. He examines some innovative games from the past, and looks at where innovation will come from in the future." From the article: "Contrary to popular belief, the ability to create more realistic and lifelike graphical environments doesn't always count as innovation. Next-generation graphics should not just rely on a console's or PC's ability to render better visuals. Next-generation graphics should permit players to become completely immersed in the universe that the developers have created for them."
Next gen is when I can afford it (~ $100 USD). :P
Duke Nukem Forever is next-gen. Always will...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
The ps2 was considered next-gen.
Next-gen is nothing but a fsckin buzzword.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
Next-generation graphics should permit players to become completely immersed in the universe that the developers have created for them.
So next-gen gaming is all about whether I have a good enough imagination to become immersed in a game?
Attention /. reader! You are being led astray! The true next generation is the Super Nintendo Entertainment System! It has games in which you will become immersed! Final Fantasy IV! Final Fantasy VI! Chrono Trigger! Abandon your XBOX 360s! The next generation of games technology isn't about technology at all!
Games have always been about story. Technological generations aren't about immersion, they're about the technology. The machine doesn't make me feel. It does math and pushes it to my TV. Video game designers and writers immerse me in the game, not the console itself.
e2 | LJ
Next-generation graphics should permit players to become completely immersed in the universe that the developers have created for them
Well, a well designed text MUD could qualify by this definition. Different things float different peoples' boats. In some ways, text adventures have an advantage... energy can be put into building a world, with the user supplying the graphics (imagination).
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
From TFA: "Gameplay innovation could range from the original Halo's ability to create a playable first shooter experience on a console controller."
It's been a while for me (and I'm basically a PC gamer)...but what about Goldeneye? iirc, that was a pretty "playable" experience for a lot of people. Maybe they mean the total package (and I still think Goldeneye was at least as good--Halo's main bonus here was online play, sort of), but when they elaborate down below:
"Innovation: Console friendly controls for FPS games."
Goldeneye was pretty sweet in this department...
Maybe I'm just a jaded PC gamer who thinks Halo is oversold.
2001: Halo is released (XBOX)
Innovation: Console friendly controls for FPS games.
Okay, I'm not trying to start a flamewar here, but I wasn't that impressed by Halo's controls. Now, Splinter Cell on the other hand, had innovation in the way the controller was used. But "Console friendly controls"? 007 Goldeneye for N64 was a console friendly first person shooter. It doesn't matter whether you judge it by number of units sold, or that Goldeneye became the game packaged with the N64... Clearly, it was a Console Friendly FPS.
Am I just missing something? Did somebody discover that Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-A-B-A-B-Sele ct-Start worked in Halo? Because otherwise, I'm really confused...
Graphics reached a "good enough" point. The next major breakthrough is likely to be real-time raytracing and/or real-time global illumination. Also, animation still sucks. Completely believable animation with real-time reactions to environmental changes and to player actions is still far off (it involves physics and AI too).
An example: A guard patrols an area. You are hidden behind a wall, waiting for the right moment to sneak past the guard to the room's other side. Then, you accidentally hit a bucket. The guard hears the sound, and runs to investigate it. No problem so far, this can be done with premodeled animation sequences (walking, standing, running...)
But then there is a rock on the ground. The guard hits it with his left foot. What happens? In real life, the guard would fall down. Now this is quite hard since the animation has to change in real-time. It involves physics (rock shape, amount of force, collision location...) and AI (since the animation has to change in a convincing manner, and this is achieved by letting an AI decide what to do next). This further leads to letting the guard stand up, checking himself if there are serious injuries etc. None of this is even remotely possible today.
So, you want next-gen with "next-gen" being purely technical? Look for advanced animation.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
something awful satirised the "next-gen" gaming attitude beautifully a few days ago, with this work of art:
After almost a combined man-hour of intense research with our Vice President's grandson, Steve, we have discovered the only two things modern gamers really care about: Motion blur and light bloom. And believe us, we have those two things in spades.
It's obvious. The next-gen is the ability to replicate not just visual reality but all senses.. including the sense that you ARE in a real world. I.E. Matrix.. everything reflects the real world down to if a body dies.. it goes back into the food chain.
That is a real world simulator. Heck.. we can't even simulate real world weather.
I guess we'll stick with trying to get a life!
(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here
Why, $60 games of course.
I'd agree. at this point, it's not the graphics, the droplets of water spattering on the ground. instead, it's the feel, the sound, the realistic physics of stubbed toes when my troll kicks the castle wall and his right foot moves a little bit less and jerks from pain.
Or the slower reaction as my character gets tired or wounded. the involuntary camera pitch from the head nod when my sleep meter is almost empty and I haven't moved while I wait in ambush.
The involuntary jerk when the cannonball hits next to me, or the tree almost hits me. The shudder of the ground on my camera view, and the slight tilt from the impact wave.
now, that's next gen.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Bigger worlds, better artificial intelligence, more expansive storylines, more things to do, and better ways to play - these are aspects that will expand the scope of games and bring them into this "next-generation."
I'd agree with the article that better multi-character story plots and reaction gradients from alterable characteristics/reactions would help. Characters being both good-natured and helpful, but willing to sell you out to save their little sister from the gallows or for a lot of the local currency, that would make it more next-gen. Having characters react based on your personal history - and sometimes forget or ignore things - yup.
Not sure about bigger worlds though. Richer, more complex, deeper worlds - sure.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Correct. Ironically, FEAR impressed me most with sequences like these, and NOT with its graphics (being a 3d-graphics-coding hobbyist apparently saturates). I found it quite impressive to be blown out of through the shattered window when a really big explosion incinerated the building I was walking in. Or the nuclear reactor meltdown, which causes a HUGE atomic explosion, everything gets really bright, and in the distant, the shockwave can be seen, nearing and smashing everything in its way..... really awesome, and does NOT need an expensive card. (Well, FEAR does, but such animations don't.)
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
Let's see...
Microsoft has to pull their console from the market early due to the ridiculously expensive to produce hardware leading them to have to rush a new console out the door that is weak and doesn't produce visuals any better than current gen games outside of the higher resolution.
And we get these sky is falling and people screaming about diminishing returns.
Guys, just wait for E3. Next gen begins there. Trust me, I've been seeing the early PS3 and Revolution stuff that will be demoed. We are going to look back at these silly articles in a few months like we do with bell bottom jeans and mood rings.
Next gen graphics and gameplay are right on schedule for this year. Don't worry.
When you spend more time writing out the gameplay mechanics and storyboarding a great plot with as many choices given to the gamer as possible, all while giving them a beautiful engine and ultra-realistic physics. An equally or more important part is making sure the controls are accessible. Almost every game out there that's worth playing has 15 buttons to memorize, a less than fun experience for people new to gaming. Nintendo is, of course, on the right path with an intuitive interface with the Revolution. The more intuitive and naturally fun, the better and much more profitable.
It wouldn't hurt for the graphics and physics engines to be made beforehand and sold to the company making the new game; the time has come when every game developer cannot afford to spend half its time writing out ultra-intricate physics and rendering engines for each game before making textures and models and THEN writing in the gameplay.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
"NextGen" sadly - whatever we might hope - doesn't mean anything other than a quantum step in graphics power.
The author identifies three categories:
1) Gameplay.
2) Scope.
3) Graphics.
I'll use a simple question: If you added the feature to a game from say the early 90s, would you suddenly call it NextGen?
Gameplay
So we're playing Doom on the SNES. The author claims a great control scheme is what makes it work. Would adding Halo's controls to SNES Doom make it NextGen? I'm guessing most people would laugh at the idea.
Scope
The author says NextGen games should be bigger. Anyone remember Ultima 7? That thing was freaking huge. Morrowind was also huge. Both are from previous generations. Both are bigger than anything seen on future consoles, even in previews, with the exception of Oblivion. Take a small Ultima type game. Give it a massive game world with lots of cool things to do, you don't get NextGen Ultima, you get Ultima 7.
Graphics
Take a fairly typical console racer. Give it 720p graphics and nothing much else. That gets called NextGen pretty quickly. Take a basic beat-em-up and add 720p graphics, again, NextGen.
We may want Next Gen to mean quantum increases across the board. We may feel a true "Next Gen" game should step up its game in every field not just shiny stuff. They're a whole bunch of nice ideals but the sad truth is, we're judged by our actions and our actions have us simply calling a quantum increase in graphics "NextGen" because it's the only thing that really needs the next generation of systems to be possible.
Better music, better gameplay, bigger worlds, longer playtimes, [basic] physics systems, improved AI, better control schemes... These are all great things but none of them require the next generation of system - most of them can be done on the system before last (PS1) or even earlier.
About the only thing that requires the next generation of systems are prettier visuals. It may feel empty, it may not suit our ideals, but, truth is, that's all NextGen really is.
The only reason people question the "NextGen"ishness of some 360 launch titles is because, as with any new system, many of the launch titles are so inefficient they really aren't that quantum step up from the old one.
I'm going to make a broad generalization here, so bear with me. There are basically two types of games:
1) Abstract, pattern, or board type games. Puzzle games, party games, and non-game-games.
2) Stylized simulations of various kinds. Simulated driving, sports, fighting/combat, and so forth. Even fantastical worlds have kind of implied rules that are being simulated.
For type #1, since there's no pseudo real world to simulate, designers are free to make up their own rules, and convincing physics or human-like AI aren't so important. Additionally, good graphics tend to be irrelevant to these types of games. As a result, there's almost no such thing as a "next-gen" puzzle game, because pretty much any puzzle game that gets made could have been done on previous-gen hardware. One exception might be TetriSphere.
However, for simulation type games, the drastic changes come from increases in the fidelity of the simulation. Since perfect simulation is impossible, we're stuck with a mixture of scripted/canned behaviors that cover a wide array of interactions along with actual simulation. So a primary driving force in making these games feel "next-gen" is migrating an entire category of functionality from scripts into simulation. Doing this requires more horsepower, thus next-gen hardware, and makes the game seem qualitatively different because player freedom has increased.
I think a basic development that has to happen soon is a move towards more realtime skeletal animation. I think it's practically criminal that new games being made today still have characters get hung up on the slightest corners of objects. Getting "stuck" on a crate is ridiculous, or a doorframe or a rock or anything. You need to appropriately account for momentum and have skeletal animation to realistically show the effect on the character, so you can stumble, bump, trip, twist etc. Deformable environments need to be common place, with decent collision/impact calculations (I've never played Red Faction, so I don't know how good of a job it did). Elements in the environment need to react properly to extreme heat or cold. You can come up with an almost endless laundry list of these things.
These types of things will give players more freedom and more convincingly immersive games. You could then make Sequel 127 and have it seem fresh and distinct, as the play experience will be unlike what came before. But then you'll need something else by the time you hit Sequel 130. But for right now, there are plenty of REALLY OBVIOUS things that need to be done, but don't seem to be chased very much. Of course, that's because these things are *hard* while improving graphics is easy...
... when the first time you boot up a game your jaw hits the floor at how much better the game is than the ones you currently play. As far as FPS games go (which have the most instant visceral effect) Doom did that to me, so did Quake 1, the next one to do that was Half-Life during the sequence where the portal opens into the alien world and everything goes to shit. Far-Cry was probably the next one that did that to me when you come out of the caves and see that massive view distance for the first time. I have a feeling that Oblivion will be the next one that has that effect on me.
Blessed are the 1337, for they shall pwn the earth.
This is Next Gen
A next gen console can run a prev gen console emulator.
You just got troll'd!
While it's true that most of the supposed 'innovative' gameplay entries listed are the games which are often credited with these innovations, most of them aren't the true innovators. Others did it first, and they've simply given it a bit of spit and polish, and been able to exploit newer technologies.
It's already been pointed out that Halo was hardly the first playable FPS on a console - while not quite as polished in control (mainly due to the controller design, IMO) as Halo, Perfect Dark and Goldeneye both did it earlier. If anything, Halo could be seen as polishing refining the ground that Goldeneye really innovated in.
Half Life was not the first FPS to integrate a decent story with the gameplay. Marathon did that nearly five years earlier, and System Shock beat them as well. Depending on whether you class it as a FPS, you could even argue that Pathways into Darkness did it even earlier.
Resident Evil didn't really tread any new ground that hadn't been gone over in Alone in the Dark (which was a better game, in my opinion).
Did Mario 64 really innovate that much? It's certainly a hallmark title with fantastic gameplay, but the point of this article was supposed to be *innovative* gameplay, not highly-polished gameplay that other games had done beforehand. Hell, Doom listed as being innovative because it was a FPS? What happened to Wolfenstein 3D? Doom is a great game, but again, it refines on the innovation provided by earlier games.
This is not to say that refining existing game ideas into new games is a bad thing or anything - far from it, it's how games have always developed. If you're going to start listing off the games that were truly innovative and created a lasting impression on whole generations of games to come, then you should be listing the ones that did it first, not the first ones to gain mainstream approval for it.
In terms of next-gen gameplay innovations, the truth of the matter is that games have always employed an evolutionary model. They started very simple, and as time went on some new ideas (mutations) came in, making new varieties of game. Some types of games died out, and others thrived. Complexity increased and increased. In games, as in genetics, as the complexity increases, the amount of impact that a single mutation (idea) can have on the overall product is reduced. What I'm attempting to say is that back at the dawn of gaming, new ideas could be pretty simple (for example, adding a high scores table) but a single, simple idea could make a huge impact on the game. A lot of us gamers have been gaming for a long time now, and we've watched the complexity increase. There's a sizeable number of people who decry the current state of games and the supposed lack of innovation, but I can't help wondering whether it's just that simple innovations aren't going to be as obvious any more. We point to the big changes that went on ten years ago (or more) and note all the huge innovations, and are expecting that the same huge jumps should still be happening at the same rate now. It's just not going to happen any more, unless the actual hardware undergoes a paradigm shift. What we're going to see, I think, is more combining and refining of existing ideas. There will still be great games, and there will still be awful games. There is no single special quality or qualities that somehow makes a game 'next-gen'.
Of course, the truth of the matter is that the games which will later be accepted as being 'next gen' will be whatever makes the publishers the most money.
There was talk of hitting limits on processor speed.
Wonder if the same thing can be applied to video games.
Yes, Super Mario Brothers was a big step up from pong, or anything atari 2600.
Sure, Super Mario 64 was a big step up from super mario bros.
But when I tried Tony Hawk for the xbox360, it just looked like a cleaner crisper display(it was on an HDTV) version of Tony Hawk for my PS2.
Yeah, so, um, were gonna play hundreds of dollars for slightly crisper, probably more detailed graphics, but no revolution in gameplay?
I actually hope for another video game crash. Let the cycle of life happen("gotham must die!"). I'm not seeing the leaps and bounds video game consols are making as much now compared to 2 years ago. C'mon let's see more dud consoles that will be collector items in 10 years!
That, and I could buy a bunch of PS2 titles for cheap. It seems any time I visit a video game store I discover yet ANOTHER tv show or movie ported to a video game. C'mon Bad Boys? Predator(a version where you are the predator and just kill people ala the 2nd movie).
Who's popular belief would that be, marketing drones'? Inventing wheel was innovative, inventing firemaking was innovative, etc. It seems that these days everything that's applauded as innovative, isn't.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
> 2001: Halo is released (XBOX)
...
> Innovation: Console friendly controls for FPS games.
As many said before, Goldeneye for N64
> 1998: Half Life (PC)
> Innovations: Seamless integration of Story and Gameplay in a FPS, Enemy A.I.
Maybe one of these:
- 1996: Marathon 2: Durandal
- 1995: Dark Forces
> 1996: Resident Evil (PSOne)
> Innovation: Established the Survival-Horror genre.
1992: Alone in the Dark (PC)
It may not have established the genre, but establishment for something that already exists doesn't mean innovation.
> 1996: Mario 64 (Nintendo 64)
> Innovation: Helped establish the 3-D platformer genre.
Helped? So what game was the real inovator?
> 1993: Doom (PC)
> Innovations: First Person Shooter; LAN based Multiplayer gaming; user created mods.
Afaik Doom wasn't created to be mod friendly. So it didn't inovate on that point. And what about Wolfenstein 3D released in 1992, wasn't that an FPS?
As to Red Faction - a good lot of enemy movements were scripted, yes, but the Geomod (destructable environments that you mentioned) kicked ass, you could roughly carve out a ramp/stairs out of a wall and get to odd ass places. Red Faction 2 however, was *very* sadly dissapointing - AI was improved yes, though 75% of it was still scripted, and worse yet than scripted AI was what it did to Geomod. In Red Faction 1, you could carve 20 feet into a cave wall - in Red Faction 2 (I only played the PS2 version of that one) you could only geomod very select parts of the world, namely 6 inch thick brick walls, limiting you to pretty much just making makeshift doors.
Yes, I remember reading that the sequel kinda screwed the pooch. I've always wanted to play the first one though. Just not much time for games these days :( It's just so damn annoying that rocket launchers will not harm a flimsy wooden door in the slightest, nooooo, you have to find the right key or passcard or whatever. Bleh.
Perhaps next gen won't be based on a great leap in graphics or in some of the other things that have been mentioned here, but rather on the games ability to change over time based on the users skill. To use a first person shooter game as an example, one ends up fighting the same monsters over and over again in exactly the same way each time you die in order to learn the game patterns until you ultimately reach the final goal. Now perhaps next gen games will see that you are doing better each time you re-live a certain portion of the game and automatically adjust the skill required to pass that level. This is addressed somewhat in the online games where you play against other people and therfore have an unlimited number of patterns, or to be exact, no patters only chaos to master in order to get better.
On the front of games such as racing games, little things bother me. As I love motorcycle games and ride a bike more than I drive a car, I have yet to find a game that mimics the actual head angle and intonation as that in real life. All the bike games I play whip you over at some obsure angle everytime you go into a corner when that does not happen in real life. As to car racing games, I think next gen will be more about realism in feeling. No game, even the fantastic robotic manipulated simulation games here in Japan come close to the real feeling of tar strips, four wheel slides or cornering although some do a decent job of acceleration ad braking. Vanishing point and resolution of distance objects are another drawback to being able to feel immersed in the game. Racing requires you look one or two corners ahead of where you are but in games this is impossible due to the limitation of the monitors or processing power of the graphics.
flinging poop since 1969
No, seriously!
years ago there was this device by DigiScent called iSmell that could connect to your computer. By combining a mixture of base scents from a palette, the device could synthesize a number of different scents that would be aerated out. The human olfactory system can recognize far more distinct smells than what iSmell could mix, but DigiScent promised thousands of possible scent combinations.
The product became vaporware sure, but such a technology could increase sensory immersion in video games. It would be fun if different scents could be aerated to match game settings like the smell of a jungle in Splinter Cell. Surely someone at DigiScent imagined synthesizing the smell of gunpowder.
How about games that require players to use different scents during gameplay. For example, in Nintendo's Harvest Moon gamers can buy flowers for some of the game's female characters. One of the games puzzles could be to pick flowers based on scents that would be most pleasing to the recipient. Maybe in a murder mystery game, a player could sniff the scent of perfume and deduct that Ms. Peacock killed Mr. Body in the obvervatory with the new Nintendo controller.
iSmell was discussed at Wired.com too.
Why is everyone trying so hard to re-define the obvious? I remember ColecoVision being advertised as 3rd generation because it was preceded by the 2nd generation (Intellivison, Arcadia etc.) and before that the 1st generation (Atari 2600, Odyssey 2). The first generation refers to the first wave of programmable systems, the ones before that mostly had their games built in. By the time of the NES and Master System, it was unclear what generation had been reached. Was Intellivision II still a 2nd gen system? What about the Atari 5200, and 7800? Since the late 80's the term next-gen has always referred to any console available or under development which is architecturally more advanced than what was previously available in that market. The question shouldn't be what is next-gen, but rather which systems at their launch technically were not. There aren't very many really to consider. The gameGear may have been old SMS technology, but it was certainly next-gen compared to the gameboy. The Atari 5200 and AmigaCD32 were both superior to their intended competitors from the previous gen though both used technology from more expensive computers which had been available for some time. The TurboGrafx/PCEngine is certainly more advanced than the NES, despite an 8-bit processor that was primitive compared to the Genesis/Megadrive which launched at about the same time. Despite this, the NEC system could still display more colours on screen and move larger sprites. The Jaguar, which was in most every way inferior to the 3D0 multiplayer of the same gen as it, was still tremendously more powerful than the SNES/Genesis generation which preceded it.