As I was hurtling along the Nurburgring in Forza 5 I was once again hit with the brilliance of all games. I have to admit I was going through a non gaming patch. Probably because of building a small one. The release of the Xbox One had also had me a little non-plussed until the path that allowed me to add extra storage. Knowing I can now play games and get to them easily again has sparked me back into life. (it was only a mini non gaming patch). Having been a gamer for nearly 40 years it’s not going to go away just like that is it ?
I used the Uplaod studio on the Xbox One to put 5 videos together in one comic book framed montage. This is only really as a mental and social bookmark to the thoughts that were occurring as I drove along the road
Forza 5 offers a very intense and very solid driving experience, the quality of the simulation and physics models that allow you to hurtle around in so many different, beautifully rendered cars on accurate modelled tracks is, if you like car games just brilliant.
Watchdogs, another free roaming world, but here I was just messing around on a motor bike. I had gained the ability to make bridges raise and lower via the pretend hacking. So, again another physics engine and a wide variety of vehicles and experiences, this time in free roaming meant I could just go jump the bridge, just for kicks.
Max and the curse of the brotherhood, once again physics is involved by in 2/2.5d, a completely different style of game. yet with a freedom to solve puzzles, here drawing a swinging rope with a magic marker then jumping on it as time slows down for you.
FIFA 14 in world cup mode. Controlling players, kicking a ball around and scoring a goal with all the celebrations and animations that go with it.
Peggle 2, a variation on good old fashioned bagatelle and pinball. All very cartoony, the ball drops and bounces around, its never totally predictable and you have to deal with gravity.
I know some people still think all games are the same, but clearly they are not. The 5 all use a degree of physical simulation, but not the same sort of simulation. They have wildy differing control mechanisms, but each has a feel to it. Some use depth into the screen, the illusions of speed is things coming at out. Others user side on cameras with things going past or up and down.
We have weather systems in the first two games that change, the lighting and the mood changes depending on the time of day that is being simulated.
There are cartoon graphics, there are high end full renderings of real things, there is escapism and there is story telling and narrative.
Each of the games is part of a genre, so there are similarities with other games, but that does not make them “samey”. All our other entertainment and art fits into categories, has similarities.
The compute power, the design skills, the technical ability, the project management, the funding, marketing, selling, testing, fixing and many more skills used to create these experiences are then built upon by our own interaction with them. Our own moments of excitement, or humour, stress and achievement.
Games…. they just are fantastic aren’t they?
Leave a Reply