friggest
Rookie
Ill state first here that this might have been discussed before and elsewhere but with the loss of the 12 million gamers, I thought another look would be in order.
As I was lying in bed, waiting to fall asleep as usual, a thought came to me about the fundamental problem of video games. That problem is technology. When we look at other forms of media like books or movies, technology has helped them, but not defined them. Books and movies can stand the test of time. The bible was written over 2000 years ago and people read that book daily. Shakespeare, Chaucer, Poe, and others are considered relevant and are still read even though the books were written decades and centuries ago. When we look at movies and the short time they have been around you can go back to the 1940's and start watching great movies until you get to present time. While technology has allowed much more realistic, believable movies; old movies without SFX can still be great and fun to wtach today.
This is where the problem of video games becomes evident, classics become no longer fun as technology makes leaps and bounds allowing for a better gaming experience. With recent discussions here on GR about Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, and etc., the companies basically have to reinvent the wheel with each new technological advance. Imagine Shakespeare having to rewrite his plays every few years, we can see the stories start to get stale. I see a kind of parallel to video games and weapons. Everyone used to use swords and catapults to fight and these were improved upon until a great leap forward. That switched to single shot rifles & cannons, followed by machine guns & missiles. Yet all these weapons are made for the same thing, killing people and blowing stuff up, yet no one uses catapults and swords any more. Shooters from the 90's were good but can’t compare todays CoD & BF.
That said technology is also video games greatest ally. We can see titles and series reinvented such as GTA and WoW. Leaps in technology allow things never before done creating a fantastic gaming experience. Driving around in GTA 4 and rampaging on the helpless pixels before me brought hours of entertainment. Let’s not get started on WoW and CS:S. I doubt that Michael Bay would have been as good as a director before the perfection of CGI.
So it all comes down to, are we just waiting for the next leap in video games? We went from 2D to 3D. While many great games are still in the pipe and are still going to be great, they are just improvements over an old design. We should stop comparing classics to todays because who is going to compare a sword to a rifle.
As I was lying in bed, waiting to fall asleep as usual, a thought came to me about the fundamental problem of video games. That problem is technology. When we look at other forms of media like books or movies, technology has helped them, but not defined them. Books and movies can stand the test of time. The bible was written over 2000 years ago and people read that book daily. Shakespeare, Chaucer, Poe, and others are considered relevant and are still read even though the books were written decades and centuries ago. When we look at movies and the short time they have been around you can go back to the 1940's and start watching great movies until you get to present time. While technology has allowed much more realistic, believable movies; old movies without SFX can still be great and fun to wtach today.
This is where the problem of video games becomes evident, classics become no longer fun as technology makes leaps and bounds allowing for a better gaming experience. With recent discussions here on GR about Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, and etc., the companies basically have to reinvent the wheel with each new technological advance. Imagine Shakespeare having to rewrite his plays every few years, we can see the stories start to get stale. I see a kind of parallel to video games and weapons. Everyone used to use swords and catapults to fight and these were improved upon until a great leap forward. That switched to single shot rifles & cannons, followed by machine guns & missiles. Yet all these weapons are made for the same thing, killing people and blowing stuff up, yet no one uses catapults and swords any more. Shooters from the 90's were good but can’t compare todays CoD & BF.
That said technology is also video games greatest ally. We can see titles and series reinvented such as GTA and WoW. Leaps in technology allow things never before done creating a fantastic gaming experience. Driving around in GTA 4 and rampaging on the helpless pixels before me brought hours of entertainment. Let’s not get started on WoW and CS:S. I doubt that Michael Bay would have been as good as a director before the perfection of CGI.
So it all comes down to, are we just waiting for the next leap in video games? We went from 2D to 3D. While many great games are still in the pipe and are still going to be great, they are just improvements over an old design. We should stop comparing classics to todays because who is going to compare a sword to a rifle.
