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Has 3D Killed Gaming?
By Tony Rugari, news editor
Category: Columns
This is a question that has been plaguing my subconscious for a while now as Im sure it has the minds of most of the gamers who, like me, had their introduction to video games in the so called golden era of gaming the mid to late eighties. This may not seem an issue to those born into the Nintendo 64/Playstation era but if that is you, you people still may find this an interesting read.
Personally, I had my introduction to gaming in the mid eighties, my first time being when my dad surprised my sister and myself by bringing home an Atari 2600, the Mecca of video game systems at the time (the NES still being a fledgling and building its own reputation). It was a way to play your favourite arcade games at home like Defender, Space Invaders and Frogger, in glorious colour too. It may not seem apparent now but this was an amazing revelation back when the only other alternatives was black and white Pong and similar limited applications. The memory of inserting a Spiderman cartridge into the system and actually seeing a red and blue stick figure sprite swinging on jagged black webs still sends tingles down my spine, believe it or not.
Back then, games were simple things, gamers didnt know what an analogue stick was, pressure sensitive buttons, force feedback, shoulder buttons or, heaven forbid, camera controls. No, we had one joystick and one button, this was our paddle and we loved it. Sure, we may have struggled with the controls until our faces were red, which were as responsive as your girlfriend would be after two bottles of vodka, but we never noticed. The graphics were crap (compared to todays graphics) but we didnt notice because games were f-u-n, FUN. Our imaginations made up for the hardware limitations because, if the gameplay was a blast, it sparked our minds off, dreaming up images to go with the heroics we were pulling off on screen. This leaves us with another question Has 3D gaming killed our imaginations?, but well leave that for another time.
Jump forward a year or two and we have the Nintendo Entertainment System, a domination of the industry by one company alone, which we will probably never see again. The power of the home console had increased significantly which allowed for much more detailed and prettier graphics, but they were still 2D and, more importantly, they were still fun. Games were remaining rather simple in design but the signs of the metamorphosis the industry was going to see in the future were evident in Nintendos version of a game controller, the gamepad with an extra gameplay button plus a start and select button. Good bye beloved paddle. Was this an indication that gamers were getting frustrated with the confines of one button or that these new 8-bit games were too restricted by the limitations of this design? Most likely the latter, that being that consumers of videogames were quite happy with their one button paddles. The gaming companies on the other hand, wanted a less restrictive and more expressive game controller to suit their more advanced 8-bit games. This is a trend that has continued ever since and similar thinking has crept its way into the graphical side of video games, instead this time it was the game developers asking for more powerful systems in order to make better graphics.
The 16-bit era of the Super Nintendo and Sega Megadrive was similar in the fact that the game controllers design was advanced slightly but, more importantly, it was this era that developers first dabbled in the, as yet restricted to arcades, world of 3D games. Nintendo, in 1993, made an internally developed game titled Star Fox which, with the help of a graphics chip called the FX, allowed gamers to play games in a 3D environment for the first time. Likewise, Sega in 1994 made a 3D game called Virtua Racing with a specially designed chip called the SVP (Sega Virtual Processor). These graphics chips were specifically designed as add-ons for their systems by both companies to expand gaming into 3D polygons, which the SNES and MD could not produce by themselves. Sure, these games were fun, but in my eyes they signalled the death knell of 2D games.
The Nintendo 64 and Sony Playstation age was all about 3D gaming, pure and simple. Yes, there were still some games made in 2D style, but because 3D was new, if it wasnt in that format gamers frankly didnt care. Dont get me wrong, Im not dissing 3D games entirely. If done right, they can be awesome, its just that developers nowadays tend to not put as much effort into gameplay as they do to the aesthetics. And Mario 64 proves this, it was the first 3D platformer and it is the pinnacle of 3D platformers, doesnt this statement seem strange? Surely with time and hindsight on their side developers can make a better 3D platformer? Wrong. As it stands, Mario 64 still has arguably the best 3D platforming action and is yet to be bested. Some iterations were admirable such as Banjo-Kazooie (1998, N64) and Beyond Good and Evil (2003, PS2, XBOX, GC, PC) but they can never purge gamers minds of Mario 64. The most interesting thing about the introduction of 3D games was that it forced a dramatic redesign of the controls. The D-pad control pad from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras was not useable to control 3D games. A new type of control was required and yet again it was Nintendo that answered the call with their N64 controller that introduced the analogue stick to consoles.
Why have 3D games gameplay not evolved past the gameplay of the classics such as Mario 64 and Doom? Well, thats easy, just like sex sells in advertising, graphics sell in the games industry, if it looks good itll sell. This mindset has proven correct and has worked well from the 32/64-bit era right up until the current generation, but things need to change. Whilst today the gaming industry is making more money than the movie industry, the user base is shrinking and this issue needs to be addressed. Things need to change.
Recently (December 2005, UBS Global Media presentation), Nintendo Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Reginald Files-Aime, conducted a speech on Nintendos Blue Ocean strategy of disrupting the marketplace. In his speech, Reggie showed the audience some alarming statistics about the current state of the gaming industry. One thing he touched on was the growth the home console industry had seen ever since the 8-bit era was merely due to population growth and duplicate ownership. Basically Reggie was saying that although the install base of consoles was climbing in concurrence with the population, the total penetration has barely changed. The industry isnt growing. Why wouldnt the industry be growing? Thats a good question and obviously I think it has something to do with the topic of this articlee
Nothing beats gameplay and nothing beats fun. I still remember how much enjoyment I derived from playing Atari 2600 with my dad, wed wack out Air, Sea Battle (he loved that game) and play for hours while yelling at the top of our lungs. I find it hard to imagine todays fathers sitting on the couch and playing GTA with their children, whilst Im sure this happens, it pales in comparison to the pure and simple fun of the 2D games. Those gaming sessions with my dad would also spawn into kicking a football in the backyard or down at the park, it encouraged a close relationship between us. I dont believe todays 3D games have the same positive impact, its more likely that a mother or father will sit their child in front of a console playing GTA to get a few hours of respite from parenting, rather than enjoying those games with their son or daughter. And it wasnt just my father and I who enjoyed our 2600, there was many a night where my sister and mother joined us too, an entire family gathered around a video games console, their faces decorated with grins from ear to ear. How often do you see this image today? If you see it often then consider yourself lucky because you are one of a very few.
2D gaming breeds simplicity in gameplay, simplicity in controls and ultimately breeds fun, whereas 3D games do not seem to harbour as much fun. One reason for this could be the control interface is limiting the fun factor. Peter Molyneux, a game designer from way back in the eighties and a luminary from such great developers as Bullfrog Productions and Lionhead Studios touched on this in 2004. In a presentation he conducted at the D.I.C.E. summit (a meeting of people working in interactive entertainment) that year he was asked where he thought the future was going with interfaces. His answer was intriguing to say the least. Molyneux stated: I reckon, and this is a real personal point of view, the greatest innovation in hardware wont come from the next graphics processor, or the next processor, or the next console, or even the next PC. Someone, somewhere will come up with an input device that enables us to do games that we havent even imagined before somewhere, someone is going to come up with a second-generation controller because, I would argue, the controllers we have now were designed to actually move around 2D worlds, and theyve been hybrided for 3D worlds, and theyre still not good enough. The number of times you have to go through and re-jig your game because of the controllers.
I believe Peter makes a very good point, todays controllers arent made for 3D but for 2D and have been adapted to suit, a quick-fix if you will. So maybe its not that the 3D games are bad and maybe its not that 3D has killed gaming, maybe 3D has just been impeded by the interface. How many of you have played a first-person shooter and your in game character was killed because you couldnt react in time? I know I have, pretty frustrating isnt it? An analogue stick control does not suit 3D games because it doesnt mimic real life. Polygons in 3D mimic real life so why shouldnt the control input? Three dimensional graphics and analogue sticks have improved some aspects of gaming such as sports titles and FPS but not greatly enough.
Here we are on the verge of the next generation in gaming consoles, one that promises amazing graphics, in high definition no less and unprecedented networking capabilities, but we also have this perplexing conundrum, how do we mimic real life? How can we make controlling a video game intuitive and effortless? Two of the hardware manufacturers making next generation consoles have chosen to rest on their laurels a bit and to ignore this question, while the third company, Nintendo, has, predictably, been the one to embrace this question and spend a staggering amount of r&d money to answer it. Whilst Sony and Microsoft battle it out to win over the consumer with improved graphics, Nintendo has responded as only Nintendo can do, with a new form of controller. Ever the innovators, they have seemingly invented a device that will solve the 3D gaming issues, a controller that allows for motion recognition in a 3D space. So, as we understand, you can twist the controller, move it forward, move it back, shake it, drop it, and your character on screen will respond in kind.
If this device works like Nintendo intend it could actually silence whiners like me pining for the golden age of gaming and it could actually invent a whole new era of classic games. Does this mean the problem is over with? Only time will tell, but it will be an interesting development to watch, seeing people adapt to this new form of control. I can see myself standing next to a Nintendo Wii display booth at my local games store and watching peoples reactions to playing with the controller, this would be fascinating. One important piece of fact to note is that every input innovation that Nintendo has implemented into gaming has been picked up by the rest of the industry including its rivals. The D-pad, multiple buttons, shoulder buttons, analogue sticks and rumble technology (not really input, but controller related), this bodes well for the Revmote, or should that be Wiimote now?
But then again, maybe Im stuck in a time warp. Maybe I will always compare todays games to those that I grew up with, games from those that I consider my wonder years. Have you ever noticed those elderly men and women, your grandparents for instance, that still walk around everyday in clothes with the style of forty years ago? Thats because people tend to go back to the times when they first discovered something, something that made an impact on them. Hence why so many gamers look at Mario 64 with such esteem and see everything else to be living under the cast of its immense shadow. Thus why I see Super Mario Bros. on my NES as my gaming nirvana. People will, more often than not, always come back to these developmental times in their lives and see them as their own personal golden age and everything from that period in their lives will always seem extra special to them. Hence the old clothes. Maybe I see those old 2D sprite based games in an undeserved shining light. Im sure todays gamers will look back on their own personal era as the golden age of gaming.
Then again, maybe I have become a jaded gamer. I remember when I was a young boy, games were rare for me and getting a new one was even rarer. Getting a new game was a cause for celebration, a thrill that I find hard to reproduce today with the inundation of new games. Playstation 2, Xbox, GameCube, GBA, DS, PSP, 360, PC and still more to come. Is the saturation of the market numbing me to the enjoyment video games can bring? I can honestly say, I dont enjoy games like I used to. Sometimes I complete an exceptionally hard level in a game and for a moment, a split-second I have a familiar feeling, I sense something long forgotten but before I can go in for a closer inspection it is gone. Just like when you smell or hear something familiar, a sensation you swear you have experienced before. This sense of deja-vu is what frightens me about modern games, why arent they able to excite that feeling in me more often? Im afraid I dont have an answer to that question.
Interestingly, this is such a perplexing issue, we homo-sapiens are a complex bunch, we all have individual thoughts and feelings and this will always breed differing views. So, just like in every aspect of life, I guess, there will always be arguments pointing out the pros and cons of this debate. Where do I stand on the issue now? Im not too sure anymore, I think Im more confused than when I started, how about you? My head hurts, Im going to lie down.