99%
06-03-2005, 07:29 AM
20 things gamers want from the seventh generation of game consoles
source - http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/manifesto.html
1. Give us A.I. that will actually outsmart us now and then.
Look at the little guy. The one on the left. The one who's just a head.
http://johndiesattheend.com/doom3head.jpg
I mean, let's face it: strategy is all that guy's got going for him. He has no limbs and he's already on fire.
http://johndiesattheend.com/lostsoul.jpg
And yet, did anyone stop being impressed by Doom III long enough to notice he and the other bad guys were flailing at us with the same straight-line Ulysses S. Grant calvary charge that failed them twelve years ago in Doom 1? Even Far Cry had bad guys that went into spinning seizures when they got confused.
We get so overjoyed every time an enemy actually shoots from cover in a game that we forgive the fact that real, advanced A.I. is as much an unfulfilled promise as the flying car. Where are the FPS bad guys who can adapt their strategy on the fly? Enemies who themselves have six different guns and switch up according to what the situation calls for? Bad guys who work in teams, who strategize, who create diversions to distract you? Where's the enemy Solid Snake who sneaks up on you with the silence of a ninja's church fart?
http://johndiesattheend.com/ts3.jpg
"Do NOT duck inside those doors, men! Honorable warriors need no cover!"
Chances of that happening...
Almost zero. One, there's more and more focus on multiplayer for this sort of game. This takes some of the pressure off programmers because in multiplayer, other humans supply their own A.I. Even the ones who are complete morons.
Two, as developers have lamented (http://crystaltips.typepad.com/wonderland/2005/03/burn_the_house_.html), the guts of the new consoles are geared to make the gaming equivalent of dumb blondes. It has to do with the fact that both the XBox 360 and the PS3's Cell CPU use "in-order" processing, which, to greatly simplify, means they've intentionally crippled the ability to make clever A.I. and dynamic, unpredictable, wide-open games in favor of beautiful water reflections and explosion debris that flies through the air prettily.
That means the next generation of games will likely play just like this generation. Only shiny.
Article continues after this ad...
(http://media.fastclick.net/w/click.here?sid=6678&m=6&c=1)http://media.fastclick.net/w/get.media?sid=6678&m=6&tp=8&d=s&c=1
2. Give us a genre of game we've never seen before. Something that's not an FPS or an RPG or Madden NFL or...
Why isn't a there a spy game where we actually get to be a real spy rather than a hallway-roving kill machine? You know, where we actually have to talk to contacts and extract information and tap phones and piece together clues, a game full of exotic locales and deception and backstabbing and subplots? A game where a gun is used as often as a real spy would use it (that is, almost never)?
Where's the game where we're a castaway on a deserted island and the object of the game is to find food and clean water and build a shelter, a game where we can play for one month or six months, because whether or not we get rescued is randomized? Where every time we restart we get a different island with different wildlife and vegetation and water sources?
Where's the game where we play a salty Southern lawyer who has to piece together evidence to exonerate a black man falsely accused of murder, breaking down witnesses and spotting inconsistencies in testimony?
http://johndiesattheend.com/matlock.jpg
Half of the gamers are now over age 18, and almost a quarter are over age 50. Where are the games for the old-timers? Where's the game where we get to play as Dr. House and diagnose mysterious illnesses while crushing the patient's spirit with cruel insults? Where's the game where we're a pre-op transsexual where the object of the game is to gather enough money to complete the operation?
Considering how broad the gaming market is now, there is a remarkably narrow range of games out there. Could this be what the news wires (http://www.forbes.com/business/newswire/2004/03/26/rtr1313656.html) were talking about last year when they spoke of a "crisis of creativity" in gaming?
Chances of that happening...
See item #1. If the new consoles are built with a graphics-first mentality, how easy is it going to be to make games that stretch the boundaries of game logic and player freedom? And if so, can we at least have our damned adventure games back?
But there's another, less-obvious side of that muffin: if a machine is so "advanced" it can draw a photo-realistic city in the background of every level, that only means that developers now must to hire somebody to render that photorealistic city instead of pasting on a bit of flat, blurred wallpaper. That means game development costs are skyrocketing and that leads to the big-budget Hollywood blockbuster syndrome. Bigger investments means developers must "play it safe" for fear of losing their ass. And that means fewer and fewer oddball "niche" games like those mentioned above and more quickie knock-offs based on movies.
3. Don't bullshit me about your graphics
How, in 2005, can there still be gamers taken in by EXCLUSIVE SCREENSHOTS of games that are obviously taken from cutscenes and have NO connection with what the actual game will look like? I blame the developers formerly known as Square for this. They're the ones who ran their entire ad campaign for Final Fantasy VIII with shots like this:
http://johndiesattheend.com/ff8screen.jpg
...for a game that looked like this:
http://johndiesattheend.com/ff8game.jpg
Now, that was a great game and the actual game looked fine for its time. But stop treating us like morons. Wait a second... news coming in now, yes, we have an EXCLUSIVE SCREENSHOT OF PERFECT DARK FOR THE XBOX 360.
http://johndiesattheend.com/perfectdark.jpg
Drool!
Wow! This must be one of those new second-person shooters we've been hearing about where you spend the whole game looking at the hero's fucking eye. Because surely from now on they'll demonstrate the awesomeness of their game only with shots from the game, right?
Chances of that happening...
...are directly proportional to whether or not you'll stop falling for it.
4. Nipples?
Speaking of adult games, where are they? Politicians bemoan the bloodthirsty horror of video games, but really the standards are almost Victorian when compared to R-rated Hollywood fare such as Sin City and Kill Bill and Cinemax's Voyeur Safari IV: Dildo Island. You get a little harsh language and some comic-booky sprays of gore, but that's about it. There is an "AO" (Adults Only) ESRB rating for games, but when is the last time you saw it?
We're not for speeding the moral degradation of the modern world, but imagine a Hollywood where only PG-13 movies could get made. Say goodbye to everything from Shindler's List to The Matrix.
Chances of that happening...
We've got one hyphenated word for you: Wal-Mart. The largest game seller in the world simply won't stock games with the "AO" rating. Period. So those games won't sell and developers won't make them. So until they invent new and varied and Wal-Martless ways to sell the games, we're stuck with the AO games found only in our fantasies.
http://johndiesattheend.com/hlnude.jpg
5. And on the opposite side of the nipple coin...
Developers will be shocked one day when they notice that the world is full of women. It's true! More than half of your potential customer base are penisless. They have money. They like doing fun things. And yet, how do you think they feel when they play a game where the heroine looks like this:
http://johndiesattheend.com/redninja.jpg
Yeah, that's what she wears into battle. Thong-length kimono, no bra for those flopping DDD breasts.
http://johndiesattheend.com/redninja2.jpg
And this is years after analysts told developers that women would happily play games if they didn't feel so objectified by them, and several decades past the point where they should have even needed to be told that. Have you guys ever met a woman? Then why don't you try making just a few games that don't play off of a 14 year-old male's idea of womanhood on the apparent hope that he'll play the game one-handed?
Chances of that happening...
Sadly, the proven money-making designers in the industry are the same ones that have given us Dead Or Alive Beach Volleyball and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (where the main character rampages though a city populated with violent men and sex-crazed street whores). As it turns out, they’re all men. The female demographic is seen as something that can be “targeted” by adding features to existing games, such as in-game clothes shopping, in-game makeup application and in-game cute animal pets. Game creators aren’t just casually missing the point, they’re showing a unified front of stupidity.
There is hope however. Like all industry, it is inevitable that females will eventually forge their place in the world of game design. The female designers will burst on the scene soon enough, heaving their giant bosoms of talent and creativity and brandishing their black thongs of diversity.
source - http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/manifesto.html
1. Give us A.I. that will actually outsmart us now and then.
Look at the little guy. The one on the left. The one who's just a head.
http://johndiesattheend.com/doom3head.jpg
I mean, let's face it: strategy is all that guy's got going for him. He has no limbs and he's already on fire.
http://johndiesattheend.com/lostsoul.jpg
And yet, did anyone stop being impressed by Doom III long enough to notice he and the other bad guys were flailing at us with the same straight-line Ulysses S. Grant calvary charge that failed them twelve years ago in Doom 1? Even Far Cry had bad guys that went into spinning seizures when they got confused.
We get so overjoyed every time an enemy actually shoots from cover in a game that we forgive the fact that real, advanced A.I. is as much an unfulfilled promise as the flying car. Where are the FPS bad guys who can adapt their strategy on the fly? Enemies who themselves have six different guns and switch up according to what the situation calls for? Bad guys who work in teams, who strategize, who create diversions to distract you? Where's the enemy Solid Snake who sneaks up on you with the silence of a ninja's church fart?
http://johndiesattheend.com/ts3.jpg
"Do NOT duck inside those doors, men! Honorable warriors need no cover!"
Chances of that happening...
Almost zero. One, there's more and more focus on multiplayer for this sort of game. This takes some of the pressure off programmers because in multiplayer, other humans supply their own A.I. Even the ones who are complete morons.
Two, as developers have lamented (http://crystaltips.typepad.com/wonderland/2005/03/burn_the_house_.html), the guts of the new consoles are geared to make the gaming equivalent of dumb blondes. It has to do with the fact that both the XBox 360 and the PS3's Cell CPU use "in-order" processing, which, to greatly simplify, means they've intentionally crippled the ability to make clever A.I. and dynamic, unpredictable, wide-open games in favor of beautiful water reflections and explosion debris that flies through the air prettily.
That means the next generation of games will likely play just like this generation. Only shiny.
Article continues after this ad...
(http://media.fastclick.net/w/click.here?sid=6678&m=6&c=1)http://media.fastclick.net/w/get.media?sid=6678&m=6&tp=8&d=s&c=1
2. Give us a genre of game we've never seen before. Something that's not an FPS or an RPG or Madden NFL or...
Why isn't a there a spy game where we actually get to be a real spy rather than a hallway-roving kill machine? You know, where we actually have to talk to contacts and extract information and tap phones and piece together clues, a game full of exotic locales and deception and backstabbing and subplots? A game where a gun is used as often as a real spy would use it (that is, almost never)?
Where's the game where we're a castaway on a deserted island and the object of the game is to find food and clean water and build a shelter, a game where we can play for one month or six months, because whether or not we get rescued is randomized? Where every time we restart we get a different island with different wildlife and vegetation and water sources?
Where's the game where we play a salty Southern lawyer who has to piece together evidence to exonerate a black man falsely accused of murder, breaking down witnesses and spotting inconsistencies in testimony?
http://johndiesattheend.com/matlock.jpg
Half of the gamers are now over age 18, and almost a quarter are over age 50. Where are the games for the old-timers? Where's the game where we get to play as Dr. House and diagnose mysterious illnesses while crushing the patient's spirit with cruel insults? Where's the game where we're a pre-op transsexual where the object of the game is to gather enough money to complete the operation?
Considering how broad the gaming market is now, there is a remarkably narrow range of games out there. Could this be what the news wires (http://www.forbes.com/business/newswire/2004/03/26/rtr1313656.html) were talking about last year when they spoke of a "crisis of creativity" in gaming?
Chances of that happening...
See item #1. If the new consoles are built with a graphics-first mentality, how easy is it going to be to make games that stretch the boundaries of game logic and player freedom? And if so, can we at least have our damned adventure games back?
But there's another, less-obvious side of that muffin: if a machine is so "advanced" it can draw a photo-realistic city in the background of every level, that only means that developers now must to hire somebody to render that photorealistic city instead of pasting on a bit of flat, blurred wallpaper. That means game development costs are skyrocketing and that leads to the big-budget Hollywood blockbuster syndrome. Bigger investments means developers must "play it safe" for fear of losing their ass. And that means fewer and fewer oddball "niche" games like those mentioned above and more quickie knock-offs based on movies.
3. Don't bullshit me about your graphics
How, in 2005, can there still be gamers taken in by EXCLUSIVE SCREENSHOTS of games that are obviously taken from cutscenes and have NO connection with what the actual game will look like? I blame the developers formerly known as Square for this. They're the ones who ran their entire ad campaign for Final Fantasy VIII with shots like this:
http://johndiesattheend.com/ff8screen.jpg
...for a game that looked like this:
http://johndiesattheend.com/ff8game.jpg
Now, that was a great game and the actual game looked fine for its time. But stop treating us like morons. Wait a second... news coming in now, yes, we have an EXCLUSIVE SCREENSHOT OF PERFECT DARK FOR THE XBOX 360.
http://johndiesattheend.com/perfectdark.jpg
Drool!
Wow! This must be one of those new second-person shooters we've been hearing about where you spend the whole game looking at the hero's fucking eye. Because surely from now on they'll demonstrate the awesomeness of their game only with shots from the game, right?
Chances of that happening...
...are directly proportional to whether or not you'll stop falling for it.
4. Nipples?
Speaking of adult games, where are they? Politicians bemoan the bloodthirsty horror of video games, but really the standards are almost Victorian when compared to R-rated Hollywood fare such as Sin City and Kill Bill and Cinemax's Voyeur Safari IV: Dildo Island. You get a little harsh language and some comic-booky sprays of gore, but that's about it. There is an "AO" (Adults Only) ESRB rating for games, but when is the last time you saw it?
We're not for speeding the moral degradation of the modern world, but imagine a Hollywood where only PG-13 movies could get made. Say goodbye to everything from Shindler's List to The Matrix.
Chances of that happening...
We've got one hyphenated word for you: Wal-Mart. The largest game seller in the world simply won't stock games with the "AO" rating. Period. So those games won't sell and developers won't make them. So until they invent new and varied and Wal-Martless ways to sell the games, we're stuck with the AO games found only in our fantasies.
http://johndiesattheend.com/hlnude.jpg
5. And on the opposite side of the nipple coin...
Developers will be shocked one day when they notice that the world is full of women. It's true! More than half of your potential customer base are penisless. They have money. They like doing fun things. And yet, how do you think they feel when they play a game where the heroine looks like this:
http://johndiesattheend.com/redninja.jpg
Yeah, that's what she wears into battle. Thong-length kimono, no bra for those flopping DDD breasts.
http://johndiesattheend.com/redninja2.jpg
And this is years after analysts told developers that women would happily play games if they didn't feel so objectified by them, and several decades past the point where they should have even needed to be told that. Have you guys ever met a woman? Then why don't you try making just a few games that don't play off of a 14 year-old male's idea of womanhood on the apparent hope that he'll play the game one-handed?
Chances of that happening...
Sadly, the proven money-making designers in the industry are the same ones that have given us Dead Or Alive Beach Volleyball and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (where the main character rampages though a city populated with violent men and sex-crazed street whores). As it turns out, they’re all men. The female demographic is seen as something that can be “targeted” by adding features to existing games, such as in-game clothes shopping, in-game makeup application and in-game cute animal pets. Game creators aren’t just casually missing the point, they’re showing a unified front of stupidity.
There is hope however. Like all industry, it is inevitable that females will eventually forge their place in the world of game design. The female designers will burst on the scene soon enough, heaving their giant bosoms of talent and creativity and brandishing their black thongs of diversity.