OT: The Future of Computer Strategy Games

Atrocities · #1 September 6th, 2007, 08:30 AM

I discovered today one thing that is going to seriously hamper the PC gaming industry. Bio-shock. Have you seen the system requirements for this game? Trust me if your not sporting the latest 500.00 video card with a top of the line system your not going to be able to play this game.

As games become more heavily focused on higher end technology most folks are going to be priced right out of contention. I would have to invest 1500 into a new system just to play some of the new games coming out. In a year or two I would have to dump another 400 to 800 dollars into upgrades just to keep semi current. I think that is what is going to really hurt the market as the attrition rate to more affordable console systems increases.

Suicide Junkie · #2 September 6th, 2007, 09:12 AM

As games become more heavily focussed on higher end technology...
they tend to lose focus on what actually makes games fun.

I think outfits like Shrapnel, where the game seems to take precedence over excessive fluff should do well.

BudgetMessiah · #3 September 6th, 2007, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Suicide Junkie said:
As games become more heavily focussed on higher end technology...
they tend to lose focus on what actually makes games fun.

I think outfits like Shrapnel, where the game seems to take precedence over excessive fluff should do well.

I assure you, that isn't the case with BioShock. It's actually quite a bit of fun, and also worth noting a friend of mine has reported that it's quite playable on a 3 ghz P3 with a Radeon 1950 (which would be about as expensive as an Xbox 360, and can outperform it graphically).

Fyron · #4 September 6th, 2007, 06:17 PM

Bioshock appears to just be the latest mass-market fluff game, kind of like Oblivion...

Suicide Junkie · #5 September 6th, 2007, 06:35 PM

Compare with say, Star Control on a 4-8Mhz PC4i, or SE3/4 on 40-75 Mhz 486es. Starcraft on 400Mhz Pentiums.
3Ghz...nothing yet...

Three orders of CPU magnitude, with no obvious trend in Fun Factor (IMO)...
My conclusion is that Fun is in the hearts of the programmers, and hardware just adds fluff.

narf poit chez BOOM · #6 September 6th, 2007, 09:32 PM

To quote, 'You don't stop playing games when you grow old, you grow old when you stop playing games'.

Fuzzy Wuzzy Wazza Bear,
Fuzzy Wuzzy Hadno Hair.
Fuzzy Wuzzy Wasn't Very Fuzzy,
Wuzzy?

BudgetMessiah · #7 September 6th, 2007, 09:34 PM

But isn't that the case with all media? There are very clever websites with amateur web design whose conent is brilliant, and commercial websites with excellent design and graphics but very banal material. Hollywood puts out big budget FX movies where the story or subject matter isn't as intriguing to many people as some low budget indie flicks. Smaller newspapers have better, more attentive local coverage than big ones.

On the other hand, from time to time you have projects that marry the two. The LotR trilogy in movies is probably a good example of this, where you had state of the art CGI and blockbuster movie production values, but it remained faithful to the story and were just great to watch. The only complaints I've heard about these movies are from people who reject sword-and-sorcery stories because they don't like the genre.

Despite our apparent differences in video game tastes, I think we can all agree that Master of Orion or its sequel(s), MOO2:BAA (and MoM), were great games that offered up many (probably countless) hours of fun and replayability. They also had high production values for their given eras. I don't know how many of you played Fallout, but that game stands out as one of the greatest RPGs of all time, and it was a quality game in all respects from a major publisher. Star Control 2, which has been mentioned as a good game by many here (and I'll definitely agree with) had great music, great presentation, great graphics (for its time) and probably the best storyline I've ever seen in a computer game. Starcraft (and all of Blizzard's games) while they may not be your preferred fare, offer up excellent production values, albeit traditionally aimed at lower-end specs for their time to be available to as many people as possible. They make up for low system requirements with great artwork, voice acting, presentation, and game/interface design. They're a mainstream company that makes very fun games.

I don't think games necessarily lose their quality when you add good graphics or major studio-level production values. It's just that there's so much crap out there in general, finding the few games that offer both great presentation and great content can be difficult. The overabundance of mediocre games with multi-million dollar development pricetags can make it seem like only crap games get the flash, but that's not always the case.

Off the top of my head for semi-recent offerings: Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes (and its younger cousin Dawn of War), anything Valve's released (or soon will release) on the Source engine, and Will Wright's upcoming Spore (provided it does what they claim it will do).

Suicide Junkie · #8 September 6th, 2007, 10:30 PM

The overabundance of mediocre games with multi-million dollar development pricetags can make it seem like only crap games get the flash, but that's not always the case.

The really big pricetag games come from big faceless corporations... but unfortunately Flash & Fluff is more quantifiable for beancounters than Fun.

Atrocities · #9 September 7th, 2007, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Fyron said:
Bioshock appears to just be the latest mass-market fluff game, kind of like Oblivion...

Actually its not. Any one remember system shock II? This game is a lot like that made by the same guys who made System Shock II. The game bucks the trend of low brow story lines in favor of a more in depth story with environmental appeal much like a good horror movie.

Far Cry was the last great fun to play, good FPS in my opinion and I hope Crisis will be just as fun. Its story kicked the crap out of HL2 and its open ended maps made the scripted corridor feel of HL2 feel very old and claustrophobic.

Fyron · #10 September 6th, 2007, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Atrocities said:
I would have to invest 1500 into a new system just to play some of the new games coming out. In a year or two I would have to dump another 400 to 800 dollars into upgrades just to keep semi current.

That has always been the case, though. There have always been a few titles pushing the bleeding edge... Of course, in modern times games tend to be a lot better with running on lower-spec PCs than they used to be in the past. Much work has gone into making very scalable rendering engines. Sure you can't play Bioschock on a PC from 1995, but it doesn't require $2000 of PC to play it. The only reason to spend so much money on hardware is if you just have to run games with every setting turned up to the max. Very few, if any, games ever actually require such expensive PCs to play. Its just bad business on the part of the developers to restrict their target market so much...

Consoles have almost always been a pseudo "low cost alternative." They always start out near the cutting edge of PC technology (though generally a bit behind the curve), then fall quickly behind. The modern industry is hardly any different than it was 10, 15 years ago. Hopefully the Wii will shake things up and bring the game industry out of the graphics-fetish slump it has been stuck in for a while...