¤ ¤ Gotta Use Some Imagination ¤ ¤

[Jeffy Arensmeyer]

 

Did you ever see the face of Ming in your Flash Gordon game? Do you remember the pomp and circumstance once you completed a race on Pole Position? Did your knight wear armor in Adventure?

 

For as much fun that Atari 2600 (and other classic) games provided (and still provide), they also require a lot of imagination, when you really get right down to it. Even though arcade games of the time were limited compared to today's standards, the home versions of these same games were even more limited. And new home games that had no arcade predecessors required even more imagination since whatever that wasn't there just wasn't there.

 

Today's modern games offer all of the visual and audible stimuli, and we as gamers only need to provide the skill required to play/defeat the games.

 

Unfortunately, too many of today's games (Grand Theft Auto, Perfect Dark, State of Emergency, Halo, Medal of Honor, Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, etc.) foucus on the gamer's application of violence/aggression/terror/macabre instead of the genuine generation of imagination.

 

Don't get me wrong. I play these games and really like them. But I, as many of you, have weathered the guntlet of games and consoles through the years. It's still good old fashioned game play and comparison to classic titles that keeps me going. But what about the kids and young gamers of today? They don't have the experiences and history to draw from. All they know is that if you "tap the buttons just right", you can rip Liu Kang's spine out. Here are my points, in the form of questions, that I'm getting to...

 

[+Cafeman]

Nice formatting, Jeff.

 

I think of Jeff everytime I rescue his gorilla and woodpecker and babybird nests in Koffi. Ooops, am I changing subject?

 

Okay, I got about 4 hours of sleep for the past 3 days straight and I'm already on my 3rd cup of Office Coffee . So look out, I'm a locomotive right now and will not be responsible for and damage I cause in your threads.

 

Getting back to the subject though -- there is enough room for both the games that require imagination (and end up being more memorable to us old-schoolers) AND the newer games that go to great lengths to SHOW to previously omitted details. I get a visceral thrill when I see detail in games today, yet I still appreciate using my imagination in Adventure.

[Inky]

 

Did you ever see the face of Ming in your Flash Gordon game? Do you remember the pomp and circumstance once you completed a race on Pole Position?  Did your knight wear armor in Adventure?

 

For as much fun that Atari 2600 (and other classic) games provided (and still provide), they also require a lot of imagination, when you really get right down to it.  Even though arcade games of the time were limited compared to today's standards, the home versions of these same games were even more limited.  And new home games that had no arcade predecessors required even more imagination since whatever that wasn't there just wasn't there.

 

Today's modern games offer all of the visual and audible stimuli, and we as gamers only need to provide the skill required to play/defeat the games.

 

Unfortunately, too many of today's games (Grand Theft Auto, Perfect Dark, State of Emergency, Halo, Medal of Honor, Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, etc.) foucus on the gamer's application of violence/aggression/terror/macabre instead of the genuine generation of imagination.

 

Don't get me wrong.  I play these games and really like them.  But I, as many of you, have weathered the guntlet of games and consoles through the years.  It's still good old fashioned game play and comparison to classic titles that keeps me going.  But what about the kids and young gamers of today? They don't have the experiences and history to draw from.  All they know is that if you "tap the buttons just right", you can rip Liu Kang's spine out.  Here are my points, in the form of questions, that I'm getting to...

 

 

As ar as I'm concerned the development cycle should begin with stripped-down graphics. The bare minimum needed to playtest. Then tweak the gfx, and then and ONLY then make the graphic improvements.

 

Also, too many easter eggs in games today.. Err.. Cheat codes. I understand the necessity for the testing, but they should really be omitted in the duplication cycle.

[Trey]

i loved adventure. it was (is?) the greatest. what the game lacked in graphics, my brain filled in with imagination. didn't you jump the first time the dragon hit your square?

[Chris++]

The sparse graphics in Adventure, and its minimal sounds, do more to make the player focus on the scenario at hand than all the realistic animation and soundtracks on modern boxes put together. There's just no substitute for what the brain can do.

 

Further, there's a palpable eerie feeling in the Adventure kingdom. I don't know if I'm retaining this from my boyhood, but it feels creepy -- the silence is ominous.

 

Games are like songs that way. If a tune doesn't sound catchy and/or moving with just a lone acoustic guitar and a voice, then it shouldn't be made into a glossier or more complex arrangement. Likewise, if a game isn't fun to play with the "stripped-down graphics" mentioned above, it shouldn't be available with tons of cosmetics and realism added.

 

 

CF

[Mindfield]

Despite being a fan of realism in games -- more for the novelty factor than anything -- i don't think all this eye and ear candy actually adds any substance to the game. Beyond the million-dollar-fluff, you still have the gameplay, and gameplay mechanics, aside from becoming ever more complex, really haven't changed much. There's a very simple litmus test you can apply: Take a classic arcade game from the day and play it for a while. Then, take a modern remake of the same game and play it for a while. If you strip away all the fanfare and got right down to the basics of the gameplay, which one was more fun to play?

 

Bet you picked the original.

 

And there's really no mystery about it. At the end of the day, you can't do anything with a texture. There's not a lot more suspense value provided by 3D dynamic, realtime light sourcing when compared to a simple, static, two-dimensional dark room -- it's not the light that jumps out and tries to grab you. And your joystick isn't any more responsive, nor does it behave any differently, when you're looking down from above instead of through the eyes of the player. In short, it's not really that much different, and if the play mechanics of the remake don't match those of the original -- and they usually don't -- then you're probably not going to enjoy it as much if what you were raised on was the original.

 

Despite its fancy dress, it's all about the play, and if the play isn't there, it's all just fancy window dressing. Just look at the current Quake Adventure project going on. Sure, it's been beefed up with 3D graphics and some cool additions, but he's also trying to be as faithful to the original as such a conversion will allow, because it's the play that was fun. God knows Adventure had as much in common with realism as a Picasso or Dali. But you jump when Rhindle snaps at your cubic hide all the same, even though he looks like a big red duck with a hole in his belly, and you don't curse the air any different a shade of blue when that damn bat makes off with the grail. And it wouldn't make any difference if it was all taking place in real 3D with texture and bump mapping and hardware transform-and-lighting, really, except as a novelty and in part to draw you a little closer into its world (a function simply of being 3D more than any of the other hardware fanciness.)

 

I liken it to reading a book versus watching the movie version. The book is often far more fascinating because your imagination creates what isn't there, whereas the movie lays it all out for you, and it may be different from what you had imagined in the book -- and probably is. That's probably why modern remakes never seem to do their parents justice; back then your imagination took over where the hardware left off. Nowadays with hardware capable of filling it all in for you, it just doesn't seem to fit right with what we had all imagined back in the day.

[Big Player]

Yes, imagination is one reason I like the older games. Like Mindfield, I much prefer reading the book to seeing the movie. The movie in my head is always better.

 

One thing that intrigues me about the Tron film remake. 20 years ago, the file took you into the world behind the games, those crude graphics. When you played a video game, a program's life was at stake. I have no idea what they will do with the new version, since modern games seem to leave nothing to the imagination.