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I’ve been noticing an amazing trend in games over the years. As technology advances, we are better able to create more and more realistic games. Graphically games are becoming more and more advanced with high resolution textures and models, great animation and extensive storyline. One would think that this would mean better games right? Wrong! In my opinion, games are starting to lose their “fun” qualities and take on more “entertaining” qualities. Essentially, game developers seem to be forgetting the most important thing about games: They’re games! I’m just tired of being tricked into buying interactive movies when I want to play a game. The biggest letdown I’ve had over the past few years was the Max Payne series, they where FAR too linear. The game played very straight forward as the story unfolded. Now, the game was great, the gameplay was fun… but the ridged structure of it just felt like I was being forced into things instead of making choices.

Personally, I think that many game development companies are too focused on how a game looks and not focused enough on how the game plays. As games become better and better looking, they seem to lend less to the realm of game play. Almost as if the player is forced to sit and watch the artists show off their work instead of playing a game.

I used to program games on my TI-83+ graphing calculator. These where ugly games, written in a very limited programming language. But I made them fun. Why? Because if they weren’t fun, no one would play them! I didn’t have the fancy graphics and options that modern games have because of the language limitations. However, that didn’t stop me from making very addictive versions of tic-tac-toe, slolum, FPS, maze, guessing, and memory games. I had a blast, and so did the students who I gave the games to. So much so, that the teachers tried to erase all the programs from every calculator in an effort to curb these distractions. Good thing we had them backed up on our computers… or they might have been lost forever. My point here is that even an ugly, option-low game can be very fun and addictive. Games don’t need to be pretty, they don’t need extensive storyline, THEY NEED TO BE FUN!

That being said, graphics and storyline are VERY important for the immersion of a game. Games like Halo 3, Bioshock, and Heavenly Sword are all examples of engaging graphics and storyline. They’re also extremely fun to play (I’ve only personally played Halo 3 and read very good reviews about the other two). Hopefully, as graphics becomes easier for us to utilize and making games pretty becomes super easy, we will be able to focus better on making games fun again. I’ve got good hopes for the game industry. Also… if I ever manage to break into the game industry, I can guarantee that my main focus will be on fun… unless I’m an artist. Nah, fun is king.

Let me just put it this way: People didn’t wait so long in line for Halo3 just so they can see how neat the graphics where. They waited that long so that they could buy the game and blow stuff up in cool new ways! End of story.

Rant to you later,
~Nathaniel