Friday, November 30, 2007

3D created graphic whores



This post is going to raise a few eyebrows.

As 3D came into the videogame world and became a standard because "it made things look more realistic", 2D was shoved to the corner of childish things. By the time of the Nintendo 64 and the Sony Playstation the standard was 3D. It was the future Sega Saturn had pointed years before.

By that time 3D was cool because it was new. Bad 3D was chosen over good 2D because a lot of people thought it was cooler. Ok, it gave people the chance to do new things because they could move the camera and all that. It represented technological breakthroughs in the hardware and programming side of things.

3D games were hot and 2D were not, or so it seemed. There were exceptions, of course. The interesting part is that some games were proud to be 2D and some of them were only fun because they were planned that way. Money was speaking high and there were conversions. Lots of conversions. Some of them were rubbish but a few pearls were created. Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid. New genres of gaming came from that time. The classic DOOM spawned thousands of clones and a few were good.

Where was 2D? Mainly in puzzle games and RPGs and mostly on the PC. I love good 2D graphics and by that time the best games kicked in. Awesome RPGs like Diablo, Baldur's Gate and Fallout showed up. Worms came out of nowhere and gathered a cult success by sheer fun and humor.

With these new generations of consoles and graphic cards the emphasis is on the graphics instead of the concept of the game, good characters or stories. I know people who can't enjoy a game if it's not running at full speed and full resolution and that actually makes me sad. They spend hundreds on pc parts to have the games running like that. They only play games and don't use it for anything else.

Nowadays people are divided in various sectors but the people who really enjoy games for what they are couldn't care less if the game is in 2D or 3D as long as it is good.

1 comment:

Vlad said...

People that care for fun are a much wider audience than the hardcore photo realistic full speed ahead gamers.

I like great looking games, but I believe that the back to the basics is the way to go in terms of market.