Like Dennis Miller, I occasionally rant and rave about things. Unlike Dennis Miller, no one pays me any money to do it. You can call this one. . . what hacks me off about 3-D graphics mania.
I completely fail to understand what it is that compels both gamers and software companies to obsess on the idea that games should have 3-D graphics. My main problem in comprehending this mentality is that 3-D graphics uniformly look pretty bad. I know someone out there who's reading this with his PIII-750 machine equipped with dual video cards, 3D-Max, Lightwave, and other graphical gobbledygook is choking on his coffee right about now. You can't deny the veracity of that statement, however.
Here's a good example (and I'm not picking on Sierra Studios--it's just a good example): the Gabriel Knight series. When GK1 came out, it had top-notch graphics for its day--meaning they aren't too impressive by modern standards. When GK2 came out, it proved wrong one axiom that most software critics held sacred--full motion video looks like crap. Most of GK2 used FMV technology, and the people looked real because they were real; Sierra used real actors and cameras to film them doing the things that took place in the game and speaking the dialogue exchanges. It didn't require a monster processor or terabytes of memory, and it ran very smoothly. The result was a compelling atmosphere that drew the player into the mystery. GK2 ranks as one of my all-time favorite adventure games. It was just that well done. Unfortunately, when Sierra got ready to make the sequel, they opted to use a third-person 3-D graphics engine. Why? I can only assume it's because people just tend to expect 3-D graphics these days. However, here as in action games like Half-Life, the people really don't look like people. I've played around with the GK3 demo, and the people just look like computer graphics. That's unfortunate, because it really detracts from the immersive atmosphere that games of this type should generate.
That brings me to my next point. By "games of this type," I mean adventure and role-playing games. These kinds of games are made to tell a story. I think the biggest dividing line between these two genres is that in the latter, your character is designed to grow and change according to your decisions, whereas in the typical adventure game there is little in the way of character development; what is present is usually scripted (as opposed to chosen). The objective of telling a good story doesn't require a cutting-edge graphics engine that lets you zoom in on the nasal hairs of a character. Nevertheless, it seems as though the software is being driven by the hardware in this case. As more sophisticated video cards with more onboard memory are developed, software designers seem to be pushed to make everything 3-D; it's more about frame rates than storyline.
I think these genres have had a positive impact on the evolution of action games over the past several years; Half-Life is a good example of this effect. Even games whose primary objectives revolve around killing other life forms are telling bigger, more complex, and more interesting stories. We've left the days of Doom 2 and Rise of the Triad far behind us. Unfortunately, that kind of cross-genre influence seems to be a double-edged sword. I'd hate to think that the Alone in the Dark series and the action games of today will ultimately determine the graphical quality of the adventures and RPGs of the future.
Rant ends. . . .