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Games Entertainment

Harvey Smith, Ex-ION Storm Staffer, Profiled 14

Posted by Zonk from the the-people-behind-the-games dept.
obchrisj writes "Harvey Smith, formerly of ION Storm and now Creative Director at Midway Austin, gets his trials and tribulations profiled in FileFront's latest F! True Gamer Story. Here's a clip: "The hours were long, sometimes putting in as many as one hundred hours a week, and he stayed in QA for a year before moving into development. From there he has worked on a variety of games since 1993, including Deus Ex: Invisible War, Deus Ex, CyberMage, and System Shock. Over the years, he has seen a lot, and believes the emphasis in graphics may finally be slowing down. 'We might be moving beyond the graphical arms race soon, focusing more on player-driven experience,' he said.""
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Harvey Smith, Ex-ION Storm Staffer, Profiled More

Harvey Smith, Ex-ION Storm Staffer, Profiled

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  • Amazing. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by keyne9 ( 567528 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @11:06AM (#11244893)
    'We might be moving beyond the graphical arms race soon, focusing more on player-driven experience'


    I certainly goddamned hope so. When companies churn out exceptionally-graphicked games that play like crap, they're still crap. But if you have a good game, then it doesn't matter what the hell it looks like (within the realms of reason).

    It's the same reasoning in the movie industry, which has paralells to the gaming people. If you look at very, very pretty movies, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within for example, most people will tell you it's neat looking. Once you delve into the story, it's widely regarded as total junk. It failed as a storytelling device for most people.

    This is absolutely no different in video games. I sincerely hope that the industry finally realizes this.
    • I agree. The sooner we move past the graphics race and start working on better gameplay, the better.

      • Re:Amazing. (Score:2, Interesting)

        by keyne9 ( 567528 )
        Some companies have done this. Unfortunately, those are usually the "sleeper" games that few people will play, and the ones that do will rave about. Perfect example: Katamari Damacy. Very simple, very fun game. The graphics look like something a 1st-gen PS1 might have spit out, but it does in no way detract from the game.

        The downside is that people will pass it up because it isn't pixel shaded with 4.5d gfx running on the newest and greatest thingamahooie. :)
    • Yeah, I agree too. Gameplay > Graphics.

      Graphics engines don't really need to become any better than the UT2 / Doom 3 / Crytek /HL2 ones. With those powerful engines and top-quality artists, you can display pretty much whatever you want. I doubt things will get significantly more advanced after the 3rd Unreal engine which is being developed at the moment.

      • Re:Amazing. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Ford Prefect ( 8777 )
        Graphics engines don't really need to become any better than the UT2 / Doom 3 / Crytek /HL2 ones. With those powerful engines and top-quality artists, you can display pretty much whatever you want.

        From a graphics point of view, the Half-Life 2 engine is actually fairly basic beyond its (admittedly pretty) shaders. It doesn't appear able to do volume-specific fog (as could Quake 3), there's no LOD on non-model geometry, and lighting for model geometry itself is derived from a single point, whatever the siz

  • This man ruined DX: IW (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jonny_eh ( 765306 ) on Monday January 03, 2005 @11:10AM (#11244930)
    All of the poor design decisions for DX: IW were made by this guy. Go back to QA. Oh and if good graphics aren't important, why does DX: IW run like ass, have small levels, and a weak story + disappointing gameplay. I'm gonna go RTFA now.
    • I thought the name sounded familiar. Was he the guy in charge of DX:IW then? I guess staring at those walls, like he said he did, really didn't help much after all.
    • I suspect the small levels happened because they wanted to support the X-Box (with its limited memory capabilities), and I furthermore suspect that this was not something he had control over. But other than that, I agree that Deus Ex: Invisible War represents something of a missed opportunity.

      One thing I find in games of this type that as soon as "you can go anywhere and do anything", it also means that it no longer really matters where you go or what you do. In that sense I prefer a strong story-driven a

    • Re:This man ruined DX: IW (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This is not the least insightful. Harvey Smith was the lead designer of the original and phenomenal Deus Ex. He knows his stuff.

      Things went wrong in the development of Invisible War, as Smith and other developers has admitted, and blaming it on only one person is unfair. I'd say the main problems were the new engine they developed and Eidos, the publisher. Invisible War clearly wasn't given the resources or time it needed.
  • 'We might be moving beyond the graphical arms race soon, focusing more on player-driven experience'

    Rotsa Ruck, Dude. That may occur at some mythical company that doesn't compete for investor dollars, publisher access, store shelf space, or floor space in an arcade. The phrase "We focus on game play" translates in the minds of investors, publishers, and buyers as "Looks like ass. Small cult following. Thank you, drive through." Why? Most of the decision-makers in this group aren't gamers, or they wan

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