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On the way games changed over the past couple of decades

 
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Mario,

From Pac-Man to Metal Gear Solid. From the very first Zelda to Fallout 3. From Super Mario (no pun intended!) to Lara Croft.

Gaming has changed dramatically over the past couple of decades. We've seen Sonic, Mario and Link step back so Snake, Lara Croft, Drake and so many others take place. It took only a couple of hours to end Dr. Robotnik's evil plans. Now it takes a couple of days (weeks, maybe) to finally fight Zeus in God of War. What that means in my view is that the complexity of games have evolved just as hardware did. Still, I personally miss those games that were equally fun, where your avatar was a 2D sprite blittered on a plain surface/canvas. What about Tetris? Boy, that was *very* fun.

Gaming is evolving to kinda merge with movies (Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Fallout, Metal Gear Solid 4, etc), meaning they're morphing more into a interactive story-telling than a kill-the-evil-aliens-2-hour-entertaining-application. All in all, mobile devices recently became capable of supporting more robust, interesting games (Angry Birds, anyone?).

Enter Android.

On to the question (finally): what are your views on Android bringing back those kind of quick games, those you can play on the way to work or maybe on a plane while travelling? As a side question, do you think the console industry will react to that (say, porting Angry Birds to PS3)?

Thanks,
Luiz Valmont
 
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Luiz Eduardo Guida Valmont wrote:As a side question, do you think the console industry will react to that (say, porting Angry Birds to PS3)?



Was this a question (not being sarcastic)? As, Angry Birds has launched on the PS3.....granted it also probably got your information hacked if you gave a cc to buy it

Again, not trying to be sarcastic or 'smart' just curious
 
author
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I personally love the fact that old ideas are picked up again and reimplemented for a new generation. I have always been a PC gaming guy, so i love me some longwinded games (Baldurs Gate, System Shock anyone?). However, i also enjoyed the classic console games like Super Mario Brothers and for my own games i tend to go with that kind of spirit. There are a couple of reasons why these old classics work so well on mobile devices in my opinion:

- Mobile devices are ubiquitous, everyone has one these days. It's instantly available for a quick game.
- Emphasis on quick game! One will hardly play something like Baldurs Gate on a mobile device. Instead players tend to aim for short burst of gaming, say while waiting for the bus, or slacking off on the couch during a commercial break.
- Many games released on mobile devices are created by very small teams. They just don't have the necessary resources to create an AAA title with Crysis 2 like graphics. The retro-style is a lot easier to implement and thus drives down development time by a lot. Perfectly suited for one-man shows or very small teams.

I welcome this development, as game development starts to look like in the 80ies again when kids created best selling games in their basement.

Angry Birds on consoles or the PC wouldn't work in my opinion (well, it actually would, but not due to the game but due to the brand imo). We already have flash games Look up Castle Crashers to find out were Angry Bird came from.
 
Luiz Eduardo Guida Valmont
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Hahaha

It goes to show I had no idea it was launched on PS3.

Still, the question remains, only this time around assuming a different game (that's yet to be ported).

Thanks, Malcolm.
 
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Can't forget about the classic ol' games that we were brought up on, from the old Nintendo and Sega console machines, even the old dos games like Duke Nukem and who can forget.... da da da.... POLICE QUEST!

Even though the old games were classics, in that it brought a new world to everyone willing to jump onto a keyboard (and later a mouse too), the new games like Fable, Crysis, etc are bringing more sophisticated expectations. Now its not just about the graphics anymore, but also game-play, story-line and just the sheer satisfaction of blowing away another zombie in Left 4 Dead (1 and 2).

I have to agree with Luiz Valmont to which I cant negate however that games are moving towards movie type game playing because frankly...it is!
But thats the whole exciting part of it all... you are involved as the game takes you through an adventure.

Though I feel that games, movies and even education (Yes, even education!) will all be intertwined in a significance to which even a simple user may feel involved or obliged to be involved, I think its a course of action that will proceed beyond anyone's debate or opinion.

My question however is - where is the line drawn? Though games can teach or involve, and the duration to which the game must be prolonged is longer and longer with each new game or new update (version), where is the line drawn so that people may still be connected with the real world... games are getting extremely interesting, and complex and sophisticated, as well as demanding, that maybe there is this urge in most gamers (like myself) to..........keep playing.... classic example.... World of Warcraft, MU, etc.

What's everyone's thoughts on gaming demands and sophistication for the user? And where is the line drawn?
 
Mario Zechner
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I actually don't see that new games bring a lot of new mechanics to the table. They also don't offer longer playtimes on average (bar the exceptions like Civilization and similar sandbox games).

Immersion-wise they are of course incredible and reach a narrative excellence comparable to movies now, with Portal 2 being a good, recent example of this. However, does the line between games and reality actually blur? Rephrased: does it blur more than back in the old games?

Descent, Doom 2 or even Zelda drew me in in exactly the same way as say Crysis. I can't count how many hours i spent, disconnected from the real world, playing those games. For me personally there's not a lot of difference between old-gen and new-gen games in terms of immersion. I guess it was more about imagination back in the old days. And as a child i had plenty of that
 
Rancher
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Anyone thinking of a Z-machine for Android? ;-)
 
Greenhorn
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Have you heard of Kongregate Arcade? This is a great example of some quick games running on the Android platform. I think there is absolutely greate opportunity for that to happen but there's one thing that I still haven't found to be done well: game controls. Capturing input that is not annoying to the player is still something I haven't seen done well yet.

To answer your second question I think if a game is fun enough people won't care what it's origin platform is. Hopefully they're not too snobby to reject them outright. On the other hand I value diverse game experiences and hope that we don't see 50 Angry Birds clones for the good part of a year.
 
Rancher
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I love Kongregate.
 
With a little knowledge, a cast iron skillet is non-stick and lasts a lifetime.
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