The future of games
It’s been E3 recently. If you are unaware of what E3 is, you should have less of a life and embrace the beauty of gadgetry and gaming. It’s a huge Electronic Entertainment Expo (three Es get it?) in LA that attracts the likes of Paris Hilton, Redman, the god-like Stan Lee, and the still Vulcan-like Leonard Nimoy. If you think you are cooler than them, you are wrong. I’m not actually going to write about E3 (unless I get an invite to next year’s event) but will look at what new gizmos they revealed. This is the Expo where they do that kind of thing. You know, the geek on stage and the screaming nerds bellowing applause at every utterance. Like when Apple bring something out and people in the audience seem to have a mass sycophantic orgasm. Watch a video of one and see the over-reaction. It’s a bit spooky.
I work in TV and right now it is all about 3D. The new transmission suites I have seen have surround sound – something like 15.1 (15 speakers) it’s like being in an amphitheatre – and they have 3D. With the specs. When people in suits come to have a look it’s like a Roy Orbison convention.
At E3 the future all seems to be about leaping around your living room like an eager pillock having a happy spasm. This is all thanks to motion sensor stuff. Like with the Wii. Which is crap in my opinion. Sure it can be fun, for a bit, if you aren’t really appreciative of what modern games can be like. Games are evolving to the point where it is like an interactive movie with genuine characterization and plot twists. They are really coming to the fore as an alternative entertainment to sitting on your arse watching TV shows. The problem with all this motion stuff is that the games are rarely any good for more than 15 minutes and are purely on the market to meet the desires of families. Virtual tennis, virtual bowling, virtual baseball. These are all things you can quite easily do for real and are more fun in real life. I saw a game where you are throwing a virtual frisbee for fuck’s sake. If these aren’t banal enough, you get get some utterly lame attachments. Like a virtual knife that doesn’t actually cut food while you virtually cook.
You rarely get to shoot a zombie in the head in real life, or drive a Ferrari through a crowded city at 150mph, or land on an alien planet, or whatever. This is what games should be! Escapist fun.
On the plus side, malcoordinated fools are having funny injuries thanks to the Wii:
This is a trend that is set to continue. Playstation are bringing out the Playstation move, which looks a bit like a dildo blowing a bubble.
The big buzz at the moment is the new Xbox Kinect. The name is presumably a mix of connect and kinetic. Wow… clever. It looks pretty cool and maps your entire body in the way you see in movie effects when they make an actor dress in a bodysuit covered in ping-pong balls in front of a blue/green screen. This could make for some pretty great fighting games but I still suspect they’ll be pretty shit. Most games will be running or pointing or something.
A few years ago I had the Playstation Eye. It was similar to the kinetic in that it mapped your body. You could pop virtual balloons and crap like that. Fun for a short while but then you want to sit back on the couch and kill hordes of enemies or creep terrified through a haunted space station, the way God intended.
This new technology, coupled with 3D, might be a bit more fun. I still remain doubtful however. It will obviously get better and better as the technology progresses but right now its in it’s gawky nerd teenage phase. Literally, when you see people in the unfashionable glasses flailing around with no semblance of coordination. When it becomes more advanced with groin attachments or improved 3D with no glasses, we’ll be rapidly approaching adulthood.
Then my friends, it will be holo-suites or a brain attachment that makes the experience indistinguishable from real life. That will be the future of games. This might turn gamers who don’t have much of a life into gamers with no real life at all. I suspect they won’t care.
