Too Technological?

Only if you look back at the humble beginnings of videogaming do you appreciate how it has developed into what it is today. At the Atari release of Pong during 1972, nobody could have possibly predicted where the interactive entertainment industry would be taken in the impending years; huge open worlds and motion capture would have been a mere pipe dream for even the most daring developer. 39 years ago Pong was the pinnacle of videogaming, and whilst you may look back at it in distain whilst clutching your Dualshock 3 and copy of Deus Ex, it was incredibly accessible and amazingly fun to play without needing any fancy technologies to enhance the experience.

[drop2]Although the original PlayStation games that populate my hard drive have detracted from my rose tinted memories, there is still something exhilarating about taking a break from the complexity of today and diving back into the simplicity of yesterday when mandatory installs, virtual trophies, and downloadable content were purely things of the future.

Take Medieval, for example, a game that I only ventured back to after downloading it through PlayStation Plus. Whilst no PlayStation game is going to graphically challenge the titles gracing our consoles today, Sir Daniel Fortesque and his world of Gallowmere conveys a charm that has debatably disintegrated as development teams have become larger and more technologically advanced. Whilst it’s hard to shake off the feeling that you could be playing something like Uncharted or L.A Noire when you’re stabbing zombies with a single button press, it’s a fascinating experience that forces you to seriously think about where the industry is headed.

L.A. Noire was critically acclaimed upon its release and is a massive contender for Game of the Year, but was most commonly criticised for the rinse and repeat nature of its cases. Did Team Bondi become so wrapped up in motion capture and creating an open world that the element of fun took a back seat for part of the development process? Although their work resulted in a great game, there is no doubt that the next generation of consoles will harbour an even greater emphasis on technology. Advancement is generally positive, but the lines become blurred when it begins to be prioritised over the very reason why videogaming was conceived; for fun.

[drop] A developer that couldn’t be clearer about its intention to create a fun game is Volition, the team currently working on the upcoming Saints Row: The Third. With no regard to reality, the third iteration allows you to dress up as a pirate and then cruise around the city in a jet, all whilst you’re burning the population with a giant laser beam. Whether it’s simply a novelty or something that you’d continue to enjoy doing remains to be seen, but it’s truly refreshing to see a developer that publicises how fun their game is, rather than about their revamped game engine or frame rate.

Videogaming isn’t about graphical prowess, or how many polygons you can fit onto a screen at any one time, and neither is it about the different story paths you can take, or where you can go in a huge open world. If these features are built around the premise of enjoyment (as in Saints Row: The Third) then I’m all for them, but the day that they are implemented solely to impress rather than to entertain is the day that I fall a little bit out of love with videogaming.

27 Comments

  1. You’ve made a good point I hadn’t thought about before there.

    • Indeed..hd visuals have kinda got most developers going for real world type games. I mean looking at my ps3, out of the 36 titles there is only Modnation Racers that even slightly resembles games of old. In no way am I complaining, but obsessing over a game having individual blades of grass is us looking for progress. I love realism but I also like having one button to jump and a coin or two to collect. Great read, gonna play castlevania on my snes for that now :-)

  2. And yet which game is my number one ‘avoid’ for the year?
    Saints Row.

    Did love Medievil, but it’s unfair to say that all games back then were exclusively aimed for fun.
    Look at Final Fantasy VII, for example. It wasn’t built around fun (although there’s fun to be had in playing it), but was like LA Noire, an advancement in graphics and gaming technology.
    And it was (and is) a great game.

  3. Nice article, I was thinking about this when I played on some old arcade machines with friends yesterday. Although im all up for finely illustrated narratives and fully designed worlds, that’s what most developers seem o just focus on. Super Mario Land 3D, although ridiculously contrived, looks and feels fun.

  4. Thing is, from way back then to now, all games are “rinse and repeat”. Every single one of them, from the Pong’s and Tetris’s to Mass Effect’s and Uncharted’s, has you doing the same things and pressing the same buttons over and over again.

    The only things which have really changed are quality of the visual and audio presentation, and the way they dress it up and disguise it to make it feel different, and keep it fresh and fun. But ignore the stunning graphics, booming audio and the story elements they power, and we’re still pressing the same buttons in the same order, over and over again. :-)

    That said, I’m with colmshan1990 – “Saints Row: The Turd” isn’t on my list, either.

  5. The only problem I have with this article, and while I agree with it on the whole, you seem to be attacking developers for striving to achieve high levels of realism. Saints row you say is a game you’re looking forward to the most, yet it’s the least realistic. While that approach may work for that game, Gran Turismo, or Forza for instance, adding in laser guns, and the like would surely ruin those games? What more can Forza and Gran Turismo do, except for add more polygons etc? What works for one game, may not work for another. There are still plenty of fun games coming out nowadays. Just look at Joe Danger, in 10 – 15 years when the current 5-10 year olds have grown up, they will look back at games such as Joe Danger, and Little Big Planet, and say that they were the most fun. There are good and bad games coming out all the time, and it’s unfair to say that it’s representative of the whole industry. I agree that game play is the most important, but at the same time, games developers cant get away with shoddy graphics and poor animation. When you view a game trailer, you can’t get a sense of how the game truly plays, so all the developers can use is the visual capabilities of the game to sell it. I agree that when it boils down to it, game play is the most important, but when you’re watching a TV advert, or stood in the shop deciding what game to buy, the one with the best graphics, and that wow factor of how good something looks is going to sell to the masses. Also, don’t you think that the only reason games used to be so simple is because of technological restraints? You said it was nice to be able to play an older game, free from trophies etc… but are they only not there because the technology has only just arisen to allow it? I don’t really know.

  6. I agree. Developers like showing off their tech, but then the actual gameplay is mediocre. I haven’t played LA Naoire so won’t comment on that, but I have played The Force Unleashed. LucasArts wouldn’t shut up about their new tech for environment destruction and it all looked very exciting. But then the game was ‘meh’ at best and no one cared about the tech anymore.

    • You should try the force unleashed 2, I enjoyed it a lot more but it could of done at being a longer game

      • the 2nd one was fucking terrible

      • I got it recently when Steam did a discount on the Star Wars bundle. Started it a little bit but been playing God of War Vol 2, and just got Ico collection. I’ve heard it’s pretty poor, but a Star Wars nerd does need a fix every now and again so I’ll play it eventually.

  7. That’s the problem nowadays.

    In yesteryear all the deva had to worry about was making a fun and accessible game.

    Now developers have to juggle tech, appeal to the hardcore, appeal to the casual audience, have a good story and try to be fun all at the same time. Well, for big budget games, anyway. PSN games are going back to tue pure roots of gaming.

    I do love both AAA and Downloadable titles, but maybe fun is taking a bit of a backseat in the former.

  8. “Videogaming isn’t about graphical prowess, or how many polygons you can fit onto a screen at any one time”

    While I completely agree with you, “what videogaming is about” is actually what the clientèle of the moment wish it to be. From the POV of many developers, this is what matters, and much of the aforementioned clientèle want better graphics and nothing more than a slight upgrade form last years offerings.

    It’s the equivalent of Father Christmas being happy with a cookie you made yourself one year, then wanting one from the supermarket the following year, and then demanding one that’s diamond encrusted the next year: Taste doesn’t matter, it’s how good it looks to others while you’re eating it.

  9. Lovely article, fella. Something I feel close to my heart with every game. Don’t worry about anything else and concentrate on the entertainment value. From thrills, to scares, to laughs, to incredible action and infuriation puzzles (and more). Work out what the entertainment is to be for any given title and build the game around that. So often we see developers lose sight of that and a game can often feel derailed or badly directed.

    As we see hardware allowing for more and more incredible splendour hopefully we’ll also see designers and creative directors taking more of a lead as they try to differentiate from other titles so we don’t lose ourselves in a sea of mundaneness.

  10. fun, that’s why i’ve played through saints row 2 several times now, and GTA IV only once.

    the thing about the saints row series, is the sequels, have actually improved on the technical aspects as well as just the gameplay.
    saints row 2 is a much better looking game than SR1.
    and it plays better too.

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