Week 4 - A history of computer games, part 3, 2000 - the future...

I've read the information on platforms of the future and I have to say that the future of games looks bright except for a couple of problems.

One thing that really caught my attention was the sharp rise in the cost of games development, I guess that with an increase in Game Quaility, comes an increase in Game Deevlopment Cost, but a rise as sharp as that has pushed the prices of games up as well, for example, a version of pac-man was released in 1982 by Atari, and cost $100,000 to develop and sold for $30 a piece. However when Halo 2 was released in 2004, it cost over $40 million to develop and though it's a record sales game, costs $50 a piece.

See where my worry lies?

The way things are going, it's going to cost people a rediculous amount of money to buy consoles and games, for example, the PS2, when released is going to cost £450 at least, a lot of the gaming population cannot afford it right off the mat, and will have to wait for the price to drop considerably.

However I am rather glad of the drop in sequals of games, since very few games sequals are as good as the original, for example, Final Fantasy X2 was one of the biggest mistakes ever made, and yet Final Fantasy X was quite a good game.

The idea of games that span over many platforms, is a really good idea, I feel. Because it is not always possible to own all the consoles, and if you like the look of a game, you are more likey to buy it if it's on a platform you like, for example, I like the look of some of the XBox games however because I do not own an XBox, I cannot buy these games, and it is pointless to buy a console to only play one or two games on it.

Looking at the HDR video webpage I have to agree that graphics shown in that format are about a zillion times better as my best friend back home has a HDR tv and things shown on it are amazing. And I also agree with Shin'ichi Okamoto, who is quoted on the webpage, http://news.com.com/2100-1040-866288.html, as saying "Moore's Law is too slow for us, we can't wait 20 years to achieve a 1,000-fold increase in PlayStation performance." If they did, gamers would get impatient and go to rival games companies for new games.

Games of the future should be original, and it is no good sacrificing game play for graphics, which is what has happened in quite a few games recently, in the furture I'd like to see more fanatasy/action games with decent storylines, and less of the lets see how many people we can run over/kill for no reason games. And what the hell is going on with a game I saw relaesed recently where you have to bully your way to the top at a school? That's not good games, that's people coming up with crap and trying to sell it.

It's a long way off in the future but I would love Virtual Reality games, that you could play 3D or like you see in Sci-Fi films and shows, with you plugged in so you hear, smell, taste ect the game you're playing that would be awesome.

However until VR is reality I vote for more fantasy and action and puzzle games with storylines to be played on any format and I really would like games I like for the Wii's really weird controllers!!! :)

And ouch I've just got my phone bill... £85.53 ow ow ow ow ow, note to self, do not use phone as much.... owey!!!!!!

So this is Joey signing off and thinking ouch!

The Fellowship...

It was rather odd at lunch time today, as some of my friends decided that we were a Fellowship and started giving each other nicknames from the books, 'The Lord of the Rings.'

However, at first we thought we only had seven people, so it was voted that Merry and Pippin would be dropped, but working it out there's actually eight of us, so Merry stayed.

There's me, Dave, Nicki, James, Alex, David, Joel and Caz.

Aragron, Frodo, Legolas, Gandalf the Grey (He says Gandlaf the white is boring), Borameer, and the list goes on, though if I remember rightly, David decided that since James went to his flat for dinner, not to the SU with us that he was Legolas.

See the random things uni students come up with?

Lol, so to add to my ever growing list of nicknames, which consists of Joey, Kari, Mai, Kairi, Yamita, Yami and Pikabitch (yes I will explain that one), I am also apparently Aragorn.

That's fun.

(To explain Pikabitch, when I play Smash Bros I always play as Pikachu, and one of my flatmates was playing too, about two weeks ago and when she managed to kill me, she yelled "Got you Pikabitch!" and it kinda stuck.)

Miss Leicestershire

This year I would like to win the above contest.

After competing in the Miss England regionals in my area for a couple of years, this year I have to enter Miss Leicestershire and hope I do well.

However this year I will have two bites of the apple, for I have been entered into the Miss Photographic round which, if I win, will give me auto entry into the Miss England finals next June, which I would love to have the chance to compete in, so if my picture goes up on the Miss England site I will soon be trying to raise publisity so people can vote for me by text, because I would love to make it to the finals just once.

The entry into Miss Photographic means that on the 17th of November, I am going into London for a photo shoot provided by one of the sponsers of Miss England, Fairlight Studios, and while I am looking forward to it I am also very nervous, because looking at what they want me to bring, I'm wondering if...

1. I have everything I need.

and...

2. If I can afford what I don't have.

I hope pay day comes soon.

FGPIP

Fat Gay Pink Italian Plumbers

Yes I am talking about the Luigis that vicously attacked me and my friends when I had everyone around playing Super Samsh Bros Melee.

I, and everyone else bar two people can beat three CPU opponantes at level 9, and yet two pink, yes pink, Luigis at level 9 beat us multiple times.

o.0

Fat Gay Pink Italian Plumbers wasn't the worst thing they were being called by the end of the night.

But please don't ever ever ever mention Luigi to me ever again.

Week 3 - A history of Games, part 2 - from 1980 - 1990

Time goes by so slowly, for those who wait, no time to hesitate. - Hung Up, Madonna

So here I am, sat in my room, thinking what to write, I feel that I should begin by answering the question posed by Mr P in his comment, a wiccan is a person who follows the religion, rules and restrictions of witchcraft, in all essance a Wiccan is a Witch by another name.

Right then, work time, that picture btw is a picture of the case of the Dizzy game for the Master System, or Mega Drive... can't remember which now.

And thank you to my flatmate, Sarah, who found Sanctuary, the Kingdom Hearts 2 intro song.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! Sorry...

Right, will focus and not be distracted by the little bunny rabbit boucning up and down in my line of vision.

I hate plot bunnies.

Especally plot bunnies that have nothing to do with the thing you're trying to write at the moment.

Kingdom Hearts plot bunnies are taking over the world!

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Right games from 1980 - 1990...

The start of the 80s games companies sprang up, but not all of them were legit and some companys were formed that cheated developers. Some early 80's games were copies of arcade games, but later on in the century other 'genre defining games' www.wikipedia.com has this to say about the games described as such...

"Defender (1980) established the scrolling shooter and was the first to have events taking place outside the player's view, displayed by a radar view showing a map of the whole playfield. Battlezone (1980) used wireframe vector graphics to create the first true three-dimensional game world. 3D Monster Maze (1981) was the first 3D game for a home computer (meanwhile a 3D game for the PET computer was discovered, dating back to 1977), while Dungeons of Daggorath (1982) added various weapons and monsters, sophisticated sound effects, and a "heartbeat" health monitor. Pole Position (1982) used sprite-based, pseudo-3D graphics when it pioneered the "rear-view racer format" where the player's view is behind and above the vehicle, looking forward along the road with the horizon in sight. The style would remain in wide use even after true 3D graphics became standard for racing games. Pac-Man (1980) was the first game to achieve widespread popularity in mainstream culture and the first game character to be popular in his own right. Dragon's Lair (1983) was the first laserdisc game, and introduced full-motion video to video games."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_and_video_games#The_1980s)

What it says is true as the rear view racer format is used pretty much all the time in racing games, Pac-man has recently been reinvented for the Nintendo DS and remains popular to this day, Dungeons of Daggorath sounds a lot like a fore-runner for quite a few modern fantasy based rpgs nowadays.

1985 showed the development of 16 bit consoles, improving the quailty of games, but thier dominance was short lived as more and more developements occured over the course of the 1980s. Interactive games started to be played at the start of the 1980s but until 1987 they only used text.

Nintendo's Game and Watch console appeared in this age, something that reappeared in Super Smash Bros Melee recently as a playable Character and a battle level.

In 1987 Final Fantasy was born as an attempt to save Squaresoft from bankruptcy and has survived the course of time to be one of the most popular games series ever made and the most successful RPG franchise ever. Though the graphics are impossiblly

In the same year Metal Gear Solid came out, and was ported to the NES just two years later (1988). The birth of this game proved to be the the birth of the stealth based game genre, which nowadays includes things like Hitman and Splinter Cell.

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So that's what I understand about the 1980s - 1990s for games development, it was a time of great development for the industry and it has kept being improved since then.

Joey