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A Look At How Far PC Gaming Has Come
Bit-tech is running a feature examining the progress PC games have made over the past couple decades. The article highlights aspects of modern games we often take for granted or nitpick, and compares them to earlier games in which such features were implemented poorly or not at all. Quoting:
"Doom's legacy is still being felt today in fact and it's a fair bet that you can take any shooter off a shelf, from America’s Army to Zeno Clash, examine it, and list a dozen things that those games owe to Doom. Things like the wobble of the guns and the on-screen feedback that tells you which direction you are being shot from — these were things that id Software invented. On the other hand, from a story perspective, Doom was absolutely rubbish. You start in a room, no idea what’s going on and you are surrounded by demons. You have to read the manual and supporting media to get a grip on it all — something modern games would get heavily slated for doing. Yet the idea that plot was optional caught on and the same flaw was replicated in other games of the era, such as Quake and (to a lesser extent) Duke Nukem 3D. There were years and years where the lessons of early story-driven games were forgotten and all anyone really cared about was having as many sprites or polygons as possible."
This guy goes all the way back to Doom. It's almost as if he was, you know, in his mid-twenties!
A lesser extent Duke Nukem? That game was writing gold. I shed a tear as the main protagonist (Duke) said it was time to "Kick ass and chew bubblegum.... But I'm all out of gum". It felt like it was a commentary on the human condition; "It is time to do 2 things, but I can only resonably do one of them right now"
Without Duke Nukems thick layer of metaphors and social commentary, Kojima would never have been inspired to make Metal Gear Solid.
> You start in a room, no idea what's going on [...] You have to read the manual and supporting media to get a grip on it all
looks like my own life
born in room
no idea what's going on
need to read holy book (manual) to get a grip on it all
ans life seems laking sense if I don't follow the book
at least a game is WYSIWYG
which is not the case with life
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
Chess's legacy is still being felt today in fact and it's a fair bet that you can take any board game off a shelf, from Cluedo to Monopoly, examine it, and list a dozen things that those games owe to Chess. Things like the wobble of the pieces on the flimsy base board and the cheap plastic moulding in the box that doesn't quite hold the pieces right -- these were things that Chess invented. On the other hand, from a story perspective, Chess was absolutely rubbish. You start at your end of the board, no idea what's going on and you are surrounded by pawns. You have to read the manual and maybe the Wikipedia page to get a grip on it all -- something modern board games would get heavily slated for doing. Yet the idea that plot was optional caught on and the same flaw was replicated in other games of the era, such as Chequers and (to a lesser extent) Backgammon. There were years and years where the lessons of early story-driven games were forgotten and all anyone really cared about was having as many kinds of pieces capable of making as many totally arbitrary different kinds of moves as possible.
You're right about Doom3, except for being the first, the first with true black-on-black rendering was Gears of War. Nothing like Black guys with black guns wearing black clothes shooting black aliens in a black city that's so covered by black smoke that all you can see is pure pitch black to set the "atmosphere" going.
Hey, what you do mean no story?
No story to speak of. You just broke the rules! Ssh.
Didn't you ever see the movie?
Sometimes all the story you need is "The President has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?"
Then you just walk to the right and kick some ass.
I personally like the story behind Tetris. The social commentary about how you may turn yourself to fit into a group, but you can never change your true shape. And just when you find a good, solid group to fit in with, it disappears, leaving you turning in the wind again, trying to fit in somewhere else.
It's like a metaphor for being a teenager.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
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