I agree with Fantasy Edge in that I also feel that games have lost some of their charm with the advent of 3D. I have never felt the same sense of involvement I had with my old nes and sms games with the newer ones, but i wouldn''t blame it on polygons and technology. I believe the problem can be divided on two reasons: 1.- Game companies, desperately seeking ways to make lots of money the easy way, simply mimick and publish games that have proven to be big sellers. So, they flood the market with unoriginal and uninspired games, and 2.- Newer graphics tend to be more realistic, so the big heads and comical bodies we were used to see on old games are being replaced with anatomically perfect bodies of men, women and animals. So, there is no personality on 3d games? Oh, but there is! I really liked Metal Gear Solid and I think all the characters are very well developed. The difference, I think, is the same as on cartoons and movies. You don''t feel the same way about a hand drawn character like Garfield than with an actor or actress. But is anyone better? It''s a matter of taste. I like BOTH movies and cartoons. But why do I feel the old games were better? Maybe it''s just nostalgia. We tend to feel more attached to things which we grew up than newer ones that we barely know. It''s the same feeling our parents feel when they listen to 70s or 80s music and modern rap and hip hop "old times were better".

I think old times were not better, only better for us. So we must find something good in all this. 3d is here to stay and that''s no point to argue about. We must learn to love the new medium and make the best of it. 3d has a lot of advantages and we haven''t yet used all of its potential.

So, leave the past in the past and look to the future. It might be brigther than it seems.

Screw the panty shots and the animated jizz.

The thing to be learned from japanese computer games is that the game is a medium for the development of characters.

To be sure, the characters exist in the context of the game world and the story being presented, but the real treasure in the equation is the character set.

If a game goes over well, then the publisher has been granted a license to print money in the form of collector cards, wall scrolls, figurines, model kits, key chains, plush dolls, tshirts, soundtracks, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

You''ll see a lot of licensed merchandise associated with the most successful games. They don''t feature the world. They don''t feature the story. They feature the characters.

These character goods will net a company more than the profits from the sales of the game. You can only sell one copy of a game to any given fan, but that fan can buy an almost unlimited amount of character goods.

And that doesn''t even touch on the subject of leveraging popular characters into promoting unrelated game types - puzzle games, cart racing games, etc.

$0.02

Yes, games are becoming too 3d nowadays. What''s worse is the fact that most of these 3d games don''t even provide good gameplay. Remember PONG? Hardly any graphics but that game was hella fun when it first came out. Sports games are fun and they don''t really need that much eye candy.

I think it depends greatly on the type of game. Take adventure games for instance, where there is a certain charm and comedy to the way the characters look and behaive. Games like Sam&Max, Monkey Island, Simon the Sorcerer, Broken sword and so on and so forth. 2D art can contribute a whole lot to the "feeling" of a game.

Sometimes I get the feeling that game developers forget the most important thing when they create a game in 3D. A good story.
They just throw in a bunch of aliens, some guns, a thin story and that''s it. I used to be a big fan of the early 3D games, from wolfenstein, doom, dark forces and so on, but now.. they all the FRIGGIN'' SAME! One shooter that does have a pretty good story comes to mind, Halflife. I thought this was pretty cool when it came out. You we''re put in different situatíons where you had to solve "puzzles", not just your basic "kill the guard and get the key"-solutions. You had a purpouse in the game.

Another 3D game, an adventure game that I think is pretty good, is from the guys at Lucasarts, Grim Fandango. Here you have a story with a lot of humour, you sit there LAUGHING "just what the hell are they gonna think of next??". The game had a lot of oldie 2D adv. humouristics in it and a funny story. The engine was pretty good and the designs were odd and really interesting too look at. This is a perfect combination..

Then you take a game like Gabriel Knight 3 in comparison.. and there you sit WONDERING "just what the hell were they thinking??"
Here you have a game, with a massive story, with a mystery that excists in real life and is so complicated that people have spent their entire lives tryin'' to figure it out. Then, they spent way to much time with the game engine, so that when the game was released, the engine was totally outdated and old. This produces a strange type of game:
A 3d adventure game with a deep, good and puzzling adventure game story, but all this gets screwed because of a donkey-ass-old game engine with the manouverability of a crippled pair of old elephant balls. Thanks to this, you must really be a Jensen fan to see the story behind the graphics to like the game. I''m a Jensen fan, but I think the game sucked the big ones anyway.
Would it be better if they would have skipped the 3d-part?
Well never know..

Wonder how the new Monkey Island game will be?

Then there are new games based on "old" technology, that still rocks: Diablo II. You just can''t pull yourself away from the computer.

What does this add up to?

Well, game developers got to have a thought-through story first, that is good, intriguing, where you feel you just wanna explore explore and advance further into the storyline to see just what lies beyond.
Then they have to ask themselves if the game should be 2D or 3D based? Advantages? Disadvantages? There are numerous of these.
Is it possible to create this game engine, or will we end up like those gabriel-guys? Just what will fit best into the story? Fine art that can be played on any computer? Low quality 3D that can be played on any computer? Or high quality 3D that requires the latest type of computer to run smoothly?

It is the combination of these that makes a good game. If you have a really good story, maybe you don''t need the most beautiful 3D ever seen. Or if you have a crappy story, well either re-write it or go on and make som good graphics to a game that sucks anyway.

Well, I''m gonna stop now before I wander off too far...Bye guys!