Something hit me the other say while loading up Oblivion while downloading some Crysis videos and viewing a few old Gears of War screenshots. These graphics are awesome. These look like real people trees, guns, swords, clouds etc. I began to think what these graphics will look like in a few years when the current gen consoles are ready to hand over to their newer younger counterparts. When you look at the difference between early PS2 graphics and late PS2 graphics the difference is incredible, and with things like Perfect Dark Zero in the 360 launch the thought of what the 360 and PS3 will be churning out near the end of their life not to mention what high end PCs will be capable of by then makes my head hurt.

But graphics can only get so realistic, in the far future when we have truly real graphics, where the only different between a game screenshot and a photograph is the HUD what else is left to do? All games will look more or less the same, regardless of engine or system the graphics will just be real. Developers will no longer to include their incredible graphics in presentations because that'll be the norm, we'll expect photo realism from new games. Once you're at the top, and I mean the top, the highest possible point from which there can be no possible advancement where else is there to go?

For me, Nintendo seem to be catching on to this. The Wii doesn't just push graphics further and further towards this hyper realistic pinnacle that won't allow any further progression. The Wii goes for what will be needed in the future, innovation and a new experience. In this respect maybe the graphics apocalypse will be a good thing, forcing game developers to do something new rather than just another future Unreal Engine FPS, innovation will win over other games; looks will no longer be a factor. Other winners of the day will need to try new things to push ahead, future equivalents of games such as Okami or Team Fortress 2 will be able to push ahead simply by offering something original to look at that doesn't look like what you see out of your window.

I'm probably thinking about this too much, but in a time where games such as Oblivion can boast to have "the most realistic forests ever!", how long is it before Fifa or Madden 20 claim to have "the best looking skin pores" or Generic Unreal Engine 9 FPS has photo realistic smoking gun barrels. I'm not saying we should start developing 8 bit games again and just start the games industry again from scratch but this is something that should be considered, Graphics can only go so far.

So... Sony's marketing team is run by crack heads and/or total lunatics, how the hell did the idea get into their heads to SACRIFICE A GOAT at the God of War 2 launch and have guests EAT OFFAL FROM ITS STOMACH, what better way to show the already disapproving world that games aren't the outrageously violent spectacle people like Jack Thompson make them out to be.

 

Blog... 

I told myself I'd start blogging and damn it I'm going to. I don't actually have anything to say here... but it makes me feel better to actually be doing something semi creative.

 

Oh and the film talked about in the last post was Sunshine. 

 

Rawk. 

Blog is go.

 

Just got back from seeing it and I'm still trying to figure out what the hell just happened. I'm not saying it was a bad film but... screw it, actually it was a bad film. Somewhere between the mutant space Russians and the hour long scenes of people walking around doing things that were probably quite heroic with stirring music in the background there were some good ideas, somewhere...

 

Oh and now I seem to be blogging, let's see if this goes on longer than the five minute posts I've already made, and there should be some videos coming too but I'm in one of those situations where I have some good ideas but just can't be arsed to do them.

I don't know how to put videos in here but there's one on in my videos page, I might be making a few more for other games.

To mark the official... eigth of August I'm starting a blog, this is also probably the end of the blog as I'm not very good at keeping up with things.


So... what the hell do people talk about in these things...