NVIDIA To Showcase PhysX Content

Early next week, NVIDIA will release the GeForce Experience Pack to demonstrate the 'PhysX' engine it bought from AGEIA earlier this year. The pack is free, and it will contain a stand-alone action game, maps for Unreal Tournament 3, and various demos. Gamasutra notes that the UT3 maps are "designed to 'fundamentally change' the game's mechanics."

Comments

Does the physics feed back into the gameplay?

[Animats]

Most of what Ageia has done so far involves particle systems for fire, explosions, and water. It's all part of the rendering; none of the Ageia-driven objects feed back into the game play. Have they gone beyond that?

Re:visuals VS. gameplay

[SanityInAnarchy]

Yes, they're used as a substitution.

Poorly, yes, but they do also affect gameplay directly, when used properly.

For a really trivial example, try adjusting the crosshairs on your favorite FPS. Most gamers I know like to use a little dot, dead-center in the screen, to show exactly where the bullet is going to go (assuming the gun is accurate). But just try turning it off for a moment -- are you even playing the same game? The difficulty just went up a hell of a lot.

Try that all around -- toggle HUD displays and see what happens.

For a more relevant example, take lighting. People like to say that HDR adds nothing to gameplay -- and to some extent, they're right. But say someone has a sunset to their back -- how are you going to aim at all into that lense flare? Whereas they can see you just fine -- in fact, you're all lit up by the setting sun -- better duck down quick and find some shadow. And maybe sneak up behind them, and reverse that situation.

For an extreme example, the visuals and controls can be designed as a gameplay gimmick -- take the final level of Beyond Good & Evil. (SPOILER: Having your character be as messed up in the head as if she'd been drugged has a profound impact on gameplay, and this was, in fact, the single hardest moment in the game for me.)

And finally, let's take the best game I've played in a long time -- Portal. It's about gameplay, right? Everyone will tell you, it's a whole new paradigm of gameplay about portals.

Well, what if those portals were just blue and orange circles. What if you couldn't see through them. Would the gameplay be at all the same? (Play through with the developer commentary if you need it spelled out for you.) What if it wasn't for the visual cue of white-ish walls to show you where you can legally place a portal?

And would it be the same game without GlaDOS? Or the theme song?

Yes, I realize GlaDOS wasn't that impressive visually -- I'm talking about her voice. My point is that everything about the game has the potential to change the way it's played. And you will never know how little or how much until you actually get people to play it. Honestly, did anyone at Id imagine rocket jumping, before someone else discovered it?

And yes, it does suck when visuals are used as a substitution for gameplay. With few exceptions, the visuals do not make up for the gameplay.

(I'll make an exception for Final Fantasy, which are worth watching, even if they're more like a season of anime with a crappy RPG minigame squeezed in.)

But that is not a reason to immediately dismiss any eye candy as completely useless, without giving it a moment's thought.