The funny thing about games…
This is just kind of a rant that’s been brewing in my head for a while. With E3 coming around and being over, a whole slew of gun toting, explosion filled games are going to be hitting the market, which means a whole new group of frat boys that are pandered to. But remember when video games were socially looked down upon? I mean, sure, they’re not exactly the height of cool right now, but you see them everywhere, and everyone’s playing them. I remember, as a kid, being kind of a nerdy outcast because I’d rather sit at home with my horrible horrible copy of Dick Tracy on the NES than playing whiffle ball outside with the bigger kids. What did I need to do that for? I was Dick Freaking Tracy - a plastic ball and bat were no match.
Pictured Above: Debatable
As with most things nerds love - video games, computers, Battlestar Galactica - things went mainstream and served to a new generation of people, adding brighter colors, “charming” characters, and bigger explosions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about bigger explosions, but games are a billion dollar industry now. They’re the next Hollywood, so it’s a little weird to see what used to be this thing that was so down key and almost hush hush become a global phenomenon.
But when you take away all the award shows, the glitz, the glamor, the Mountain Dew fuel, you can see who still runs the show. Not the movie studios, though you might think that with all the horrible tie in games, not the major corporations, though they’re the ones profiting.
Who runs the show?
Nerds.
Know how I can tell?
Physics.
WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, in no other medium is physics held with such high regard. And the only reason this even came to mind is because I was playing through Half-Life 2 and realized that some guy thought the gravity gun was the greatest weapon one could use in a game. The ability to lift things and prop them up to create levers was considered amazing gameplay. And, in reality, it is. It’s innovative, intuitive, and enjoyable because it mimics the real world as well as it does. Here are some examples:
I love that no number of space marines can match the awe-inspiring mysticism of watermelons rolling, or boxes shattering realistically. Physics - gotta love it.
PS - also, on the same token, the other way you can tell nerds run things is by noticing that only in one of the world’s best selling games is a scientist with a crowbar considered a hero. Just saying…
Our Savior, Through Research
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JohnB June 6th
HELL YEAH! Couldn’t agree more. There may be a nicer, friendlier face on the front of many games, but we’re still runnin’ things back here.
ShawnS June 7th
Word! I’ve played so many games for physics simulations alone. Stupid puzzle crap like Switchball and Professor Heinz Wolff’s Gravity, just to see stuff flop around.
This does remind me of something someone said (I forget who exactly, Will Wright? Molyneux? Hrmm) about how games can only progress so fast when every time you make a new one you have to invent a new camera, physics, and gravity engines as well as all the other systems that make up a modern game. Havok, SpeedTree, and other middleware programs help but there’s still lots of time spent on coding the simplest parts of what make our games playable. And that’s less time that can be spent making the gameplay good.
Anyways, not going to go off on that, just made me think of it with this post.
Eliot von Braun June 9th
You’ve got a point there. When devs go out of their way to make one huge innovative system, they tend to neglect some of the basics. Crysis might be a gorgeous game, but it also doesn’t run well on most systems and, breaking it down, it’s not all that mindblowing in terms of play. The Force Unleashed was supposed to be revolutionary in terms of realism (as real as a Star Wars game can get, I suppose), but it was lackluster overall. HL2’s physics system is a testament to “give the player the tools to have fun.” So much so, you can see how much love goes into Garry’s Mod and the machinima that comes out of it.
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