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| Re: PS4 Announcement *OT* | |
| Posted By: Gravemind <kuukan_no_kage@yahoo.com> | Date: 2/21/13 8:08 p.m. |
In Response To: Re: PS4 Announcement *OT* (uberfoop) : Not necessarily. He's simply pointing out that it doesn't really make sense : to accuse a console of being "just a power upgrade" over what : came before. In terms of whether you think the post claims that we have or : haven't made much progress over the last few decades, well, it's actually : possible to read it both ways. If Gravemind agrees that the PS4's jump is : kind of pathetic, then yes, he's arguing that progress has overall been : slow. On the flip side, if Gravemind is impressed with the PS4's leap, : then his post is actually a claim that big strides in the experience can : occur from what looks like incrimental improvements, and thus casting : something as "just an improvement in power" is the real : belittling. Oh, it's definitely the latter. I've watched gameplay vids for Watch Dogs and the new Killzone, and they look absolutely astounding. What little was shown off yesterday has already got me wanting a PS4 (though I have unfortunately yet to get a PS3 of my own, plus I want a Wii U). The advances in graphics and gameplay over the last 35 years have been amazing. Every system has been a "better graphics box," but the increase in graphical and computing power each generation has been amazing. The NES was a major jump from the likes of the 2600 and Intellivision. Not only were the graphics far superior, the kind of games they were able to develop were amazing. Many genres were either born on or were able to come into their own on the NES. Platformers really took off, giving us amazing titles like Mario, Metroid, and Mega Man. The JRPG began to flourish with titles like Dragon Quest. There were amazing adventure games like Zelda that were only possible on a third-gen console like the NES. Over its life cycle, developers were able to squeeze a lot more out of the NES; while Super Mario Bros. was a big leap from Pitfall and Astrosmash, later NES titles had graphics that were just that much more amazing than SMB's were. Then the 16-bit era came about and blew all that out of the water. Game worlds became bigger and more complex as well as being a lot prettier. Sonic's speed was only possible due to the power of the Genesis/Mega Drive. Super Metroid gave us on the most massive and complex games ever seen at the time. Link to the Past was Legend of Zelda on steroids. JRPGs really hit their stride here, as they were able to have bigger worlds, more characters, and deeper narratives; while NES classics required padding in the form of level grinding to keep it from being too short, the SNES's first major JRPG, Final Fantasy IV, didn't require level grinding, but still managed to give us a 40+ hour adventure due simply to its sheer scope. The SNES's Mode 7 ability was able to pull off quasi-3D effects to great effect, which made excellent racing titles like F-Zero and Mario Kart possible. Then the advent of true 3D graphics changed everything yet again. New genres and game experiences were able to proliferate, and old genres were reinvented. The fifth generation gave us titles like Super Mario 64, Tomb Raider, Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VII and Gran Turismo. It also gave us the first successful console FPSs in the form of GoldenEye 007, Turok, and Perfect Dark. The sixth generation came into fruition as the 20th century yielded to the 21st, and evolved things even further. We saw Halo do things no previous console FPS did, giving us believable AI and massive outdoors environments as well as a deeper narrative. We saw open world games like Grand Theft Auto III emerge, giving players a massive free-roaming game world with incredible amounts of choice in what one can do and where one could go. While the current (seventh generation) hasn't seen any truly new genres that have had lasting impacts, it did see the first successful attempts at using motion control, which had been a failure until the Wii came out. It wasn't a truly new way to play, as there have been several attempts at motion controls since the late 80s, but this was the first time anybody was able to do it right. In each case, when the next generation has allowed for many things that simply were not possible in the previous generation. Nevertheless, the history of gaming has been one of gradual stepwise evolution, not a serious of revolutions. The way we play games has not changed fundamentally. Most genres have existed since the 80s and some since the 70s, and even the more recent genres mentioned above have older antecedents. Perfect Dark, Halo, and Gears of War all ultimately evolved from side-scrolling run-and-gun shmups like Contra. Open-world games existed years before Grand Theft Auto did. God of War descended from old school beat-'em-ups like Double Dragon, River City Ransom, and Final Fight. And as I've mentioned before, motion controls have existed in some form for a quarter of a century: the Power Glove and U-Force existed nearly 20 years before the Wii Remote, Kinect, and PS Move did. Even online gaming, which has existed for at least 20 years, is just an evolution of the multiplayer experience, which has existed since the Golden Age of Arcade Games. Instead of standing next to a stranger at an arcade machine or playing two-player games on the same TV with our friends at home, we play with or against each other over a network. Finally, every gamepad today is descended from the original NES controller. This isn't a knock against the industry. It's simply a description of how things are. Things have improved drastically. I've been a gamer for nearly 30 years, and the progress from old 8-bit games to the high-definition worlds of today has been amazing to watch. The gameplay experiences we have today as well as the accompanying visuals and audio have evolved remarkably. But ultimately they're just that: evolutionary. Writ large, each new generation of consoles have been "better graphics boxes," but that's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. A long time ago, the Hebrew people once wrote "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time." It's a very apropos statement. As a professor by the name of Steve Dutch argued, humans are "inveterate tinkerers," but for the most part we're not terribly creative. Things that are truly revolutionary are few and far between.
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| Replies: |
| PS4 Announcement *OT* | Urban Reflex | 2/20/13 7:32 p.m. |
| Re: PS4 Announcement *OT* | serpx | 2/20/13 7:45 p.m. |
| Re: PS4 Announcement *OT* | Def Guru 7777 | 2/20/13 8:51 p.m. |
| Re: PS4 Announcement *OT* | Hoovaloov | 2/20/13 9:34 p.m. |
| Re: PS4 Announcement *OT* | thebruce0 | 2/21/13 9:05 a.m. |
| Re: PS4 Announcement *OT* | Gravemind | 2/20/13 10:11 p.m. |
| Re: PS4 Announcement *OT* | General Vagueness | 2/21/13 3:20 p.m. |
| Re: PS4 Announcement *OT* | uberfoop | 2/21/13 3:46 p.m. |
| Re: PS4 Announcement *OT* | Gravemind | 2/21/13 8:08 p.m. |
| Re: PS4 Announcement *OT* | General Vagueness | 2/22/13 11:36 a.m. |
| Re: PS4 Announcement *OT* | Gravemind | 2/22/13 2:59 p.m. |
| This begs the question... | snakegriffin | 2/20/13 10:11 p.m. |
| New Xbox reveal to happen in April BTW *NM* | Bry | 2/22/13 3:10 p.m. |
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