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E3’s been put to bed and tucked in tight, and we’ve given you a pretty good taste of what we saw while we were there. Here’s the thing, though: we only previewed games. Handy, sure, but isn’t there, like, an entire industry surrounding this stuff? So consider this your preview of everything else. Trends, technologies, when we’ll finally catch a glimpse of Half-Life 3 (answer: the day after Duke Nukem Forever comes out), and more!
1. Modern Warfare – I never thought I’d say this, but I sort of miss World War II. Actually, no I don’t, but after realizing that, by now, the number of fictional Middle Eastern countries invented to house fictional videogame terrorist groups probably outnumbers the actual Middle East, I’ve definitely started feeling some fatigue from constantly playing as the boys in fatigues. That, however, didn’t stop E3 from proudly displaying Call of Duty: Black Ops, Spec Ops: The Line, Medal of Honor, and plenty of others cut from the same cloth as Infinity Ward’s opus.
The Forecast: Modern Warfare’s influence has already spread to the most disparate corners of the gaming universe and will continue to do so. Some games won’t even try to dress up their influences (Medal of Honor, I’m looking at you. Oh, wait, is that you Modern Warfare 2? Sorry. Easy Mistake). Others, meanwhile, might try putting a personal spin on the proceedings – like Spec Ops with its choice-based storyline. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Every multiplayer game under the sun – war-based or not – is taking cues from Modern Warfare’s addictive level-up system. Don’t believe me? Try the latest Transformers game. Yeah.
2. Motion Control Is Everywhere – If we think of the console war as an automotive arms race, Sony and Microsoft built faster, louder hotrods while Nintendo went ahead and slapped together a hovercraft. Long story short, Nintendo won by a few hundred-thousand miles, and now Sony and Microsoft have decided to enter the hovercraft business themselves. The result: it’s all either console-maker could talk about during E3. Kinect. Move. Kinect. Move. Kinect. Move.
The Forecast: This will not end well. Sony and Microsoft have decided to fall in line behind Nintendo instead of forging their own paths into a brave, new motion-controlled world. And when we say “behind,” we mean it. Sony and Microsoft’s E3 game line-ups greatly resembled Nintendo’s way back when it first entered the “casual” market. No meat, no depth, no substance. Just glorified tech demos. You’ve got your sports compilations, your Nintendogs rip-off (Kinectimals), your Mario Kart clones, and a bunch of other embarrassing-to-play, painful-to-watch fare that’s clearly designed to appeal to “wider audiences.” Except that, here’s the thing: why buy a Wii when you already have one – especially when said Wii Too costs about double the price for no discernibly better games?
3. E3: Now in 3D! – The 3D craze was alive and well at E3, appearing in everything from bleeding-edge behemoths like Crysis 2 to Nintendo’s itsy-bitsy marvel, the 3DS.
The Forecast: 3D is neat and all, but it raises a whole host of issues. For one, if your head starts throbbing like you’re experiencing 30 simultaneous brain freezes after watching a two hour 3D movie, imagine what an eight hour gaming session will feel like. Also, there’s the matter of cost versus effect. And I’m not just talking about how much you’ll have to spend to nab a ticket for the 3D bandwagon, either. Rather, I’m referring to how much 3D taxes hardware, and how the resources used to make your games pop off the screen could instead be going into better graphics, physics, AI, etc – you know, things that have a chance of changing the way we play games, and not just making us “ooo” and “aww” every once in a while. 3D’s here to stay, no doubt, but at the end of the day, it’s a gimmick. Problem is, this gimmick could actually stunt gaming’s growth.
4. Hardware Stagnation – This one comes as a byproduct of motion control and 3D. See, Microsoft and Sony hope to extend their already creaky consoles’ life cycles past the ten year mark by sprucing them up with Kinect, Move, and 3D. However, seeing as most PC games these days are developed with the Xbox 360 and PS3 in mind, games will take advantage of our beefy rigs’ graphical muscle less and less.
The Forecast: Pretty much what I just said. Even though PC hardware will likely improve by Olympic-caliber leaps and bounds, don’t expect games to play or look (at least, as far as realism goes) differently in any significant way. There is some hope, though. Like I said in a previous installment of this column, odds are, exotic new art styles will give us a healthy helping of eye candy to feast on during the famine. And if Rayman: Origins and Kirby’s Epic Yarn are any indication, I doubt anyone’s tank will be left on empty.
Comments are closed on this article
SYNK109
July 07, 2010 at 11:03am
Personally I think that motion controls suck in most cases. I am perfectly fine with my keyboard and mouse and normal controls. I've never tried 3D gaming but I'm not in much of a hurry to do so. I guess the gaming world is leaving me behind.
UndeniablyPC
July 07, 2010 at 7:04am
You know, I really don't understand why the PC has been left out in the cold as a viable gaming platform. I mean its understandable for these companies like Microsoft to think that if they build their own hardware and make large profits off of console licensing that they will be sitting pretty. But I fail to see how this has really helped anything grow in regards to gaming. I mean both Microsoft and Sony were pretty much giving away their consoles in the beginning, and now they are constantly trying to find new ways to revamp their aging consoles, to make them more attractive without adding any additional value. In my honest opinion if Microsoft would have spent 5% of what it spent on designing and creating their Xbox market on designing PC games, the gaming industry would be much farther than it is today. The only PC game designers I can really give credit to is Valve with their creation of Steam and its store. But, as even I believe Valve has said (correct me if I am wrong, cause I often am) that it is going to focus more of its efforts on the console market. Also, lets be mindful of people like John Carmack (who helped jump start PC gaming) who said that he was giving up his pursuit of designing PC games for the console. With everyone jumping ship from the PC gaming platform in favor of the console, and much of the new PC games being ports from consoles, I believe that the PC gaming innovations of tomorrow are indeed gloomy.
pcmaximus
July 07, 2010 at 2:05am
game developers,
i'm a pc gamer...
pc gamers like games that make full use of the keyboard and mouse, that have incredible depth and detail, which allow minute control over the game world.
console gamers, on the other hand, like games with wild sights and sounds, fast action, and gamepad button mashing.
why can't you as game developers realize that and keep the two platforms separate? make computer games for computers and console games for consoles.
example: supreme commander 1 and 2 on xbox360 ???? what about guitar hero 3 on pc ???? why ?!?!?!
im-white
July 06, 2010 at 11:22pm
hate to break the news but IW COD4:MW multiplayer leveling system was largely influenced by Dice's Battlefield 2 released in 2005. It stole many of the key concepts from that title and used them with a great sucess on the console market/PC market.
mesiah
July 06, 2010 at 11:13pm
My fear is that current console tech hangs on for another 3 to 5 years. The gaming PC market stagnates because there is no reason to buy bigger and better equipment the doesn't get used. Then, the next generation of consoles comes around and suddenly people with 8 year old computer systems that had no problem playing current generation games are left out in the cold when their systems can't handle the new games. As a result they can buy a new computer for a couple thousand dollars, or they can buy a new console for $500. Alot of those people are going to choose the console. When that happens you will no longer see headlines like "Is PC gaming dead?" Instead you will see "PC gaming is dead" When noone buys the PC titles because their 8 year old system couldn't handle it, game designers will quickly abandon the PC platform as a lost cause. Those who bought new powerful systems will be stuck playing farmville 12 on them, and the likes of sony and microsoft will be to blame.
I may be exaggerating, or being overly dramatic, but you can't say that you don't see things heading in this direction.
BuLLg0d
July 06, 2010 at 3:21pm
Yeah, a great article no doubt. I am no enemy of the console but as you mentioned, it has definitely stagnated the PC gaming market. If it wont fit on a 360 or a PS3 then it won't be made. Hell, even Crysis 2 is a console port now.
As for Half Life 3, at least Valve does not toss HL down our throats every year like these warfare games. I have to admit, I was excited at first at the speedy releases from the Call Of Duty Franchise but it appears more is less. The more they give, the less I care.I gave up at COD:WAW. The obvious lack of server-side support just verified to me that even the great Call Of Duty franchise was heading down the console route. Not that I am complaining. I suppose I understand, developers follow the money and the younger crowd are, for the most part, on a console.
With the earlier article of the keyboard and mouse accessory for the PS3, I started to wonder about the future of gaming rigs. I just had Cyberpower build me a quad-core rig with a 5870 GPU. It is kick ass no doubt but is totally overkill for the games out today, DX 11 or not. Tesselation has been on the 360 for some time now.
If I were to shell out the dough to buy a version of Adobe Photoshop or some other program that actually took advantage of every thread then yeah, I got a great computer, right now though, it's overkill. It just makes me worry about the future of gaming, PC gaming specifically.
I think to myself often, if I merely want a kickass gaming rig, mainly for FPS gaming, and if I can now buy an add-on that allows me keyboard and mouse options for my old school wasd left hand, whats the point of shelling out 2 grand or more?
Gaming is dumbing down more and more every day. If you can play it on a mobile phone, or a console, or with the family, or with motion controls then your set. If you want something that is going to crank up your gpu to it's maximum or take advantage of multithreading, where do you look?
/me is off the soapbox
