GradiusV got 9/10. So did Psyvariar2. So did MarioVDonkeyKong.
My theory is this:
These are essentially simple games based on old-school genres. It's much easier to make a compulsive near-perfect GBA platformer or traditional shooter (Psyvariar2 was basically a one man effort) than it is to make a 3rd person 3D action game of the same calibre. Ninja Gaiden, even with a decent sized development team, didn't quite make the grade. Why not? A great game, but one of the things that prevents it reaching the 9/10 status, camera placement, can't even go wrong in a traditional shooter or platformer, unless the developer tries REALLY hard. Full Spectrum Warrior's game engine and nifty graphics probably took all the development effort and time, leaving little left for interesting game locations. A GBA version in 2D would have been much easier to do the "physics and graphics" for, leaving more time to create interesting levels - but clearly pointless, since the aim was to make a "realistic" simulator. Conversely, imagine how Viewtiful Joe (9/10) would have turned out if it had not been restricted to 2D: much like a whole raft of other 3rd person action games like Bloodrayne - interesting enough, but nothing to lift it above the others.
In 2D the foes are restricted to attacking from a direction you can see - from left/right or above/below. If you were attacked from someone running out of the screen and thus hidden by the player's character/sprite, you would instantly feel this is unfair, but in 3D this exact situation occurs. You can only see directly ahead of you, so when enemies move in from behind, the camera has to pan up and away to let you see all the action - but since the camera is further away, you can no longer accurately aim your guns or punches. PN03 (8/10) got around these problems by restricting most of the action to dead ahead and the use of a targetting system, thus turning the game into almost a 2D shooter, with the camera angled up and behind slightly, instead of directly above. However, the use of lock-on would have killed the game if it had not been compensated for by the style in which you are required to play the game. Instead of just running around mindlessly shooting at stuff in each room, you had to learn patterns and adjust your play style for each and every room according to which combination of enemies are present. But the lock-on and pattern learning, these very same ideas that lifted the game above the norm, were seen by many gamers as being too simplistic to be enjoyable. And if that didn't get them, the simplistic colours of the environments did. The lack of supposed "realism" puts many people off.
The constant striving for games to become more "realistic" is only going to cause more problems in the next generation of consoles as development cycles increase for limited extra gain. Looking at titles in development for the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP handhelds, there is a fair bit of 3D in the works and this is scary - 1st person shooter on a handheld? No thanks. Look at which games work on them - mostly simple graphics with awesome gameplay.
Other genres work better in 3D though. Most driving games are improved by the switch from 2D to 3D, but more importantly, they are not always improved by an increase in realism. Sega Rally is in no way realistic, but if it had been, the car would have snapped an axle by the 3rd corner and the handling model would have been tedium siliconified.
There are lots of ways to make videogames better, but 3D and realism aren't necessarily the first ports of call.
So what is causing this emphasis on 3D and realism? The march of technology. After 3D appeared on the N64 and PS1, the advancement in technology that the PS2 generation brought with it brought also created as many problems as it soved. Time spent on graphics and physics and realism so that punters don't reel in horror meant either less time on game design or more money. The more realistic a game tries to be, the more it seems to fall short, rather then revelling in a fantasy world where impossible physics bring in more opportunities to game design. Developers are finally getting to grips with the PS2, xbox and Gamecube - just look at RE4, Shadow of the Colossus and Forza. But the next generation is here already, so instead of being able to put time into new game ideas, game studios will have to spend time getting to grips with the new technology and making sure that their games don't look laughable given the power of the technology. Each advancement in technology is actually an intial step back. Eventually the new tech will bring benefits but in some ways it will actually hold back game design.
My theory is this:
These are essentially simple games based on old-school genres. It's much easier to make a compulsive near-perfect GBA platformer or traditional shooter (Psyvariar2 was basically a one man effort) than it is to make a 3rd person 3D action game of the same calibre. Ninja Gaiden, even with a decent sized development team, didn't quite make the grade. Why not? A great game, but one of the things that prevents it reaching the 9/10 status, camera placement, can't even go wrong in a traditional shooter or platformer, unless the developer tries REALLY hard. Full Spectrum Warrior's game engine and nifty graphics probably took all the development effort and time, leaving little left for interesting game locations. A GBA version in 2D would have been much easier to do the "physics and graphics" for, leaving more time to create interesting levels - but clearly pointless, since the aim was to make a "realistic" simulator. Conversely, imagine how Viewtiful Joe (9/10) would have turned out if it had not been restricted to 2D: much like a whole raft of other 3rd person action games like Bloodrayne - interesting enough, but nothing to lift it above the others.
In 2D the foes are restricted to attacking from a direction you can see - from left/right or above/below. If you were attacked from someone running out of the screen and thus hidden by the player's character/sprite, you would instantly feel this is unfair, but in 3D this exact situation occurs. You can only see directly ahead of you, so when enemies move in from behind, the camera has to pan up and away to let you see all the action - but since the camera is further away, you can no longer accurately aim your guns or punches. PN03 (8/10) got around these problems by restricting most of the action to dead ahead and the use of a targetting system, thus turning the game into almost a 2D shooter, with the camera angled up and behind slightly, instead of directly above. However, the use of lock-on would have killed the game if it had not been compensated for by the style in which you are required to play the game. Instead of just running around mindlessly shooting at stuff in each room, you had to learn patterns and adjust your play style for each and every room according to which combination of enemies are present. But the lock-on and pattern learning, these very same ideas that lifted the game above the norm, were seen by many gamers as being too simplistic to be enjoyable. And if that didn't get them, the simplistic colours of the environments did. The lack of supposed "realism" puts many people off.
The constant striving for games to become more "realistic" is only going to cause more problems in the next generation of consoles as development cycles increase for limited extra gain. Looking at titles in development for the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP handhelds, there is a fair bit of 3D in the works and this is scary - 1st person shooter on a handheld? No thanks. Look at which games work on them - mostly simple graphics with awesome gameplay.
Other genres work better in 3D though. Most driving games are improved by the switch from 2D to 3D, but more importantly, they are not always improved by an increase in realism. Sega Rally is in no way realistic, but if it had been, the car would have snapped an axle by the 3rd corner and the handling model would have been tedium siliconified.
There are lots of ways to make videogames better, but 3D and realism aren't necessarily the first ports of call.
So what is causing this emphasis on 3D and realism? The march of technology. After 3D appeared on the N64 and PS1, the advancement in technology that the PS2 generation brought with it brought also created as many problems as it soved. Time spent on graphics and physics and realism so that punters don't reel in horror meant either less time on game design or more money. The more realistic a game tries to be, the more it seems to fall short, rather then revelling in a fantasy world where impossible physics bring in more opportunities to game design. Developers are finally getting to grips with the PS2, xbox and Gamecube - just look at RE4, Shadow of the Colossus and Forza. But the next generation is here already, so instead of being able to put time into new game ideas, game studios will have to spend time getting to grips with the new technology and making sure that their games don't look laughable given the power of the technology. Each advancement in technology is actually an intial step back. Eventually the new tech will bring benefits but in some ways it will actually hold back game design.
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