Week Four - Fun And Games

Okay so I last left you with the N64, Playstation, and Saga Saturn. This was the fifth generation of games and was all about 3D games. Mario 64 will always be know as the first true original 3D platform game, and it was truly an amazing game full of life and colour, and yeah if people of this generation (makes me sound old) played it now would say it’s full of faults and impurities, but the fact is this game defined an era, and was truly an amazing game. So the N64 ran strong throughout its life, but it was coming apparent that the Playsation was rolling through the market.

Mario 64, brings back good memories!

All around 2000 the sixth generation of games started to come to life, starting with the Saga Saturn, which lasted two years before production stopped, but by then we had the Gamecube and the Playstions 2 out. Now we all know how this went, and being a Nintendo fan isn’t the easiest thing for me to write, but the PS2 did, well let’s just say it happy few years. Now obviously I had a Gamecube and I think it was amazing, tons of great games, loads of fun with mates and despite what anyone says had damn good single player games, so I stuck with Nintendo throughout it.

And then we get the current generation, which is a little more interesting, but difficult subject as well. We have the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and the much talked about Wii. Now the other generations tend to have a sort of defining factor about them, side scrollers, 3D games, but Wii kind of changed that a bit.

Seventh Genoration war!

Microsoft and Sony have gone for pure power this time round, making games look more and more real and trying to get games as accurate to life as possible. Now this is all great, and some of the games look breathtaking, but if games are heading for pure realism then part of the fun in games will be lost. At the end of the day games have always been there to bring entertainment to the table, and I’ve always said playing games lets you do things you cant do in real life, like flying a space ship across the galaxy or racing go-karts down the motorway, and even more out of this world things like jumping around planets dressed as a plumber saving the princess, so I think game designers need to be careful not to make games so real there’s no imagination involved. Now don’t get me wrong realistic graphics are good and make games like Project Gotham Racing an Halo play a lot more better, but give me a game like Mario Galaxy which has a such an amazing artistic style and I’ll be more than happy for years to come. So the Wii for me has kept the true entertainment and fun value of games. (I actually remember Sony said in a press conference, ‘yes unlike the PS3 the Wii is fun’, don’t think he quiet meant to put it like that but he made a good point). I suppose it all comes down to personal opinion sometimes as both the Wii and Xbox 360 are doing really well, and you can have a great time on both really, but where are games going from here.