Top Technologies of Next-Gen Gaming 77
SlappingOysters writes "Gameplayer is running an article that examines the key technology developments of the next-generation of gaming. They go into plenty of detail as to why they believe each piece of technology is helping to take gaming on the PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii to more spectacular heights. They also have a related story which takes a look at the best game engines of next-generation games."
Wait.... (Score:3, Insightful)
...are we talking about the next generation, or this generation? Because the formerly "next-gen" systems are already here. We can stop referring to them as "next-gen" now. In fact, using that moniker is starting to get a bit confusing as consumers are beginning to look out toward what the 2011-2012 generation will bring (if anything!).
Re:Missing one key tech (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, because this is about the technology. And new technology can make new kinds of fun.
For instance, have you played the Star Wars: Force Unleashed demo on the 360? It's a free download, so go grab it. And it's AWESOME and FUN. And what makes it so much fun? Because you have control over everything. You can use the Force to manipulate pretty much any object in the game. For instance, I wanted to destroy a TIE fighter that was zipping around the hanger. Instead of just shooting at it like you would in any other game, I chose to use the force to rip one of the support beams for a walkway right out, and BEND IT in any way I wanted to put in the path of the flying vehicle. This isn't pre-scripted, or one of those things where it's "what you're supposed to do." You can deform most of the environment in whatever way you want. And it bends and deforms and breaks realistically, in real-time, based on the user's inputs.
And why can you do that? The brand new Euphoria engine the game runs on, which uses Digital Molecular Matter, that allows any object in the game to be defined in terms of basic properties that describe how it will break/bend/deform, etc. So now, instead of there being only certain objects in the environment you can manipulate in certain pre-scripted ways, you can do whatever you want to any object. It's fun as hell! And what makes all this fun possible? New technology, and a next-generation engine. (and yes next-gen is the correct term here, because we're talking about next-gen engines, not next-gen consoles)
Re:What about Star wars forced unleashed. (Score:2, Insightful)
Which is a perfect example of how you can put the latest technologies into your game and it will still be mediocre, unless you think long and hard about the gameplay..