AKA The argument for bigger, better, faster machines…

Since the dawn of this generation of consoles, developers and publishers have been harking the current era as if we’ve reached some kind of zenith in the potential of videogames. Worse, this notion has been swallowed whole by much of the gaming public who are only too happy to echo the sentiment when they see how shiny the boxing gloves are in Fight Night Round 4, or that the explosions look quite nice in Ghost Recon.

Have you done this bit yet? Modern gamespeak.

Many will contest that games look so good now – and they do look good – that there is so little room left for any improvement, even a new generation of consoles is pointless. We say poppycock.

Videogames have, of course, come a long way, there’s no denying that, but to say they have gone the full distance will appear – in our lifetimes – comparable to saying that Charlie Chaplin films are the peak of cinematic special effects.

Here’s our rundown of why, evolutionarily speaking, we still haven’t contemplated leaving the oceans.

The End. In a mishmash of things you did.

Exhibit A: For Every Action
Outside of sports and driving – although you could argue that the latter is increasingly more so – games are narrative-driven to a greater and greater degree. As such the very way we talk about games has changed. A decade and a half ago a conversation would begin along the lines of ‘What’s your highest score?’ or ‘What level are you up to?’. These days we mark our progress not in levels or numbers but in key points in a story as in ‘Have you got to the bit where you fight Matriarch Benezia?’

Ultimately, though, we’re all playing the same story and despite many games hurling at the player the means to either shoot the other main characters, or piss them off to the point where you never see them again, a line will be drawn under the conversation, or said NPC be magically immune to bullets. The reason of course, is consequence.

Is the consequence of killing or alienating the main characters that a story no longer exists? Currently the googolplex of potential outcomes cannot be simulated on current technology and so games trick us into believing that we are truly free. Fallout 3 does this particularly well, but still denies us the chance to kill Dad or certain other story-crucial NPCs. The game also has a fair stab at showing consequence in its ending, but only through Scotch-taping together a few images and pre-recorded pieces of dialogue. Despite its shortcomings, it’s still gaming’s best attempt at dealing with consequence, but falls light years short of the mark when compared with what could be achieved on vastly more powerful technology.

Exhibit B: Chinwag
Pop along here and have a wee chat to ALICEBOT. She can nearly hold a conversation, in fact you’d be surprised at how naturally she responds to you. ALICEBOT is technology-limited, but still represents a potentially giant step forward in NPC interaction.

NPCs, especially in RPGs generally have a few lines to speak before repeating the last one every time you speak to them from then on. If you could talk infinitely to an NPC who had his or her own opinions from his or her point of view about their world, their place in it, their relationships, their politics and about you, you might want to hang around and have a proper chat. The technology is developing in that direction, but we are a long, long way off.

… continued