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Games Entertainment

The Best Games of 2020 136

Gamasutra held a contest this year to describe what hit video games in the year 2020 would be like. Over 150 detailed entries were sent in, and they've posted the top 20. One persistent theme is the ever-present connectedness to the outside world, both in reality-based games and with multiplayer modes that are part of typical daily interactions. Quoting: "It's just an average day at your job. Noon swings around and it's time to amble out of the cubicle farm and venture outside into the city to find some lunch. You put on your slick steel framed Hunters Glasses, place your Hunters earpiece, and with black and white Hunters Gloves on, step out of the building and onto the street. After a block suddenly your dark tinted shades switch to a red tint. A silky female voice echoes in your ear, 'Players within range. Good Hunting.' The glasses are acting as a WiFi enabled computer screen. You swivel your head to scope the scene and find someone standing out within the red crowd as a white outline. The man with the white outline is scouting the area as well, trying to find who else is in the game right now. You get within range, pack a virtual snow ball with your gloves, approach slowly, wind up and throw with all your might the virtual snow ball at the man with the white outline. 'Player Eliminated,' says the female voice, 'Uploading Statistics.'"
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The Best Games of 2020

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  • duh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Keebler71 ( 520908 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @07:03AM (#27223047) Journal
    Duke Nukem Forever
    • Re:duh (Score:5, Funny)

      by DamienNightbane ( 768702 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @07:12AM (#27223097)
      That's pretty optimistic of you.
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Fred_A ( 10934 )

        That's pretty optimistic of you.

        Well the second preview video that they released in late 2017 really looked good (although it was a bit short to really see what the game was going to look like).

        But now that they've confirmed that DNF is going to be released "real soon now", I really don't see any other game having a chance. GTA XV is getting a bit old, Doom IX is too dark (I mean even in 3D, black is still black). No, it's DNF all the way.

        • You jest, but DNF was announced twelve years ago next month. It's not so much of a stretch to imagine it still being "in development" in twelve more years.
        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by n3tcat ( 664243 )

          GTA XV is getting a bit old, Doom IX is too dark (I mean even in 3D, black is still black).

          I played Doom9 a few times. But DVD Fab turned out to be a better tool than most of what hey had to offer.

    • My Calculations have it more toward 2022-2038.

      Using Mores Law on Ray Tracing Speed for a complex images and a 30 FPS minimum.

  • ..weren't we promised that in the far off distance of the year 2000?

  • Obviously (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The Best Game of 2020 will *not* be Duke Nukem Forever, due to a slight delay in the release schedule.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Please, quality takes time!

      It will be done when it is done but I can tell you that we are still working on it.

  • by Anonymous Coward
    21 pages??? For the love of god...
  • by Samschnooks ( 1415697 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @07:28AM (#27223171)
    What?! You want a shoot'em up game?! By 2020, I expect full virtual reality game play and MY choice will be "Party and Orgy at the Playboy Mansion".

    Geeze guys! You are geeks!

  • by TFer_Atvar ( 857303 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @07:33AM (#27223189) Homepage
    reminded me of a saying I once heard. "Humanity's last invention will be the holodeck."
    • Scott Adams, I think, in The Dilbert Future.
  • That different? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by mathgeek13 ( 1287912 )
    I don't really think that video games will be so ridiculously advanced as many of these predictions paint them. 2020 is only 11 years away; 11 years ago, we had the N64 and Playstation. Since then graphics technology has greatly improved and online multiplayer has appeared, but the consoles are really quite similar (at least, not nearly as different as they are painted in these articles). I also don't see the huge paradigm shift to real-life games. For the most part, games are still something you play in yo
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      I don't think you realize just how much technology has changed since the days of Goldeneye 64 and Pokemon Red and Blue.

      Back then multiplayer was you bringing your controller to your friend's house or connecting your Game Boy to your buddy's via link cable. The only time you'd ever play with someone that you didn't know was when you played Street Fighter at the arcade in the mall or movie theater. Handheld consoles had tiny screens that weren't backlit, which made playing in anything but ideal conditions
      • by Anonymous Coward

        ROFL!
        11 years ago (i.e., 1998) I was happily playing DF2: Jedi Knight multiplayer against 4-8 people (iirc, it supported up to 16 players).
        The game was released in 1997, and wasn't the first game to allow multiplayer.

        The Gameboy color, which was released in 1998 ran for roughly 15 hours on two AA batteries. The gameboy did 9 on 4.

        As for text messaging?
        You're obviously American, as I was happily SMSing back in '95 here in good ol' Europe.
        All cellphones I've had came with an address book, btw.

        In other words,

        • by Tuidjy ( 321055 )

          I see your1998 Jedi Knight, and raise you a 1993 Netrek. 8 players
          per team, different classes of ships (no, destroyers do not suck),
          persistent player ratings, tournament ladders for both coasts, etc...

          No, gaming had not gone that far in the last 11 years.

      • by grumbel ( 592662 )

        There was no internet.

        The internet was very well alive back then, its after all where I got most of my N64 infos from. There also was Quake. Online on console wasn't yet practical, but a few exotic devices existed for SNES and Genesis that made use of one form of online or another (Satellaview, Sega Meganet). On the Amiga you had modem support in a few games.

        which made playing in anything but ideal conditions nigh impossible

        Well, back then you had the choice, either go GameGear or Lynx and get color and backlight or go GameBoy and get a decent battery life.

        When it comes to games not much has re

        • by FnordX ( 115944 )

          I believe he was saying there was no internet on cell phones, which is true. I was kinda confused by that part as well, but I saw he was talking about it in the same section as his points about cell phones, and, yes, I assumed.

          Because no one here would argue that there was no internet a scant 12 years ago, right?

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        Back then multiplayer was you bringing your controller to your friend's house or connecting your Game Boy to your buddy's via link cable. The only time you'd ever play with someone that you didn't know was when you played Street Fighter at the arcade in the mall or movie theater.

        While this may be true for you, most of us have been playing multiplayer games since 1993 or so. Yeah, they had this bad ass console called a "Computer" and it had a James Bond clone called DOOM that had internet multiplayer.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Xest ( 935314 )

        Your comment holds true only for consoles and ignores years of PC based gaming that had all that.

        PCs were doing online gaming well before Goldeneye 64 came out and with the arrival of software like Gamespy, or formerly, Quakespy, we had software that could find games.

        Even in Quake 1 people were developing clan skins for their characters and were able to share them so that their clan's players had their own skins. Modding and sharing content goes back even further with games like Doom having support (Alien D

      • by Zerth ( 26112 )

        Get off my lawn. [wikipedia.org]

        Seriously, get off it [wikipedia.org]

  • by Xest ( 935314 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @07:34AM (#27223193)

    Quake 1 came out 13 years ago, most of what has come out since then isn't all that different. Better graphics sure, but the recipe is the same, the worlds are still 3D, multiplayer support has actually gotten worse - we've gone from 24 to 32 players being fine in Quake/QW CTF down to 8 - 16 being the average in a lot of games nowadays.

    That's not to say there haven't been innovations, the Wii is a good example, but it's still only shifted around 40mill units and around 150mill games, which is great, but not enough to suggest it's killed off the classic style of games (the PS3 + 360 + PC have still shifted a lot more games than the Wii in the same period). I think if anything the Wii has just added a new style of gaming that'll sit alongside the existing style, it's certainly earned it's place, but it's also unlikely to be a killer. But even then, particularly in the case of games like duck hunt are the Wii shooters really even an innovation even if the likes of Wii sports is?

    But even moving away from that and moving away from FPS, 12 years ago we had Ultima Online, nowadays we have WoW and Warhmmer and I'm not convinced they're relatively any better. Graphics are of course but certainly the time I spent playing UO I enjoyed much more than the time I spent in both WoW and Warhammer, it simply had less of the boring grind/level crap you have today and more about actually enjoying the game and having fun.

    So if not much has changed in the last 12/13 years other than the obvious changes we get with more horse-power such as better graphics or in the case of duckhunt to Wii shooters, the ability to move around and shoot has much really changed to suggest that games in 2020 will necessarily be anything different again? Particularly as somethings haven't move on in the last decade- again, multiplayer player limits in FPS haven't increased.

    We were always promised bigger worlds, bigger battles and so on but all the horsepower goes into better graphics, better collision detection than stuff that particularly effects gameplay. This coupled with the fact that internet connection speed improvements are pretty lacklustre in most of the world means we haven't seen what we might have envisaged a decade ago.

    Don't get me wrong, I love many of the games that are out today, but I'm not getting my hopes up that games in 11 years will be anything more than to games now that games now are to what they were 11 years ago. I'd rather the next decade was spent on gameplay rather than graphics personally, but gameplay doesn't sell hardware upgrades I guess. If we start to see graphics and story telling like that in Gears of War 2 coupled with the control styles of the Wii it'd be a good start, but for this to happen either MS/Sony need to adapt to Nintendo's control style or Nintendo needs to start catering to the hardcore. I think this is more important than many realise too- I think if Nintendo's control method isn't taken to the hardcore it runs the risk of eventually being just another fad, rather than an integral part of gaming. Hell, even the joystick died out to the mouse and keyboard, which back in the joystick's prime, people would've laughed at the idea of.

    • Quake 1 came out 13 years ago, most of what has come out since then isn't all that different. Better graphics sure, but the recipe is the same, the worlds are still 3D, multiplayer support has actually gotten worse - we've gone from 24 to 32 players being fine in Quake/QW CTF down to 8 - 16 being the average in a lot of games nowadays.

      I generally agree with your post, but more players doesn't necessarily make for better gameplay. I recall plenty of times playing Quake, 10 years ago, that the map was over

      • by Xest ( 935314 )

        I understand where you're coming from and agree to an extent. My point is not so much that more is better, but that more offers greater potential. As you say you can't just stick 32 players in a 16 player map and expect it be more fun but I do believe a map designed specifically for 32 or perhaps even 100 players with 32 or 100 players in it generally has greater potential to be more fun than a 16 player map with 16 players.

        Implementation matters more than anything, but greater player numbers I believe open

        • That's not entirely accurate. They did plenty to Planetside. They killed it with a complete lack of marketing, an utter refusal to fix some glaring balance issues, and an absolutely terrible strategy of trying to balance things by breaking everything but the one thing that needed to be fixed in the first place. From the bullshit that was the Jackhammer, especially when combined with surge, to the constant juggling and nerfing of the TR MAXs and the way they made the Stryker useless while making the Prowler
          • by Xest ( 935314 )

            To put it into context I was playing Dark Age of Camelot and Planetside at the same time, I know some new stuff went in but compared to the likes of DAoC the amount of new content that went into Planetside truly was negligible.

            It's the amount of new content I took issue with, it wasn't enough to keep the game fresh. Primarily though it was as you say, largely just changing numbers to change balance without any real actual content.

            They should've developed it more like an MMO rather than just an FPS with more

        • I dunno that I agree. I mean, what's really the difference between a map that's "1 unit big" with 16 players and a map that's "2 units big" with 32 players? The density of players on the map is about the same. Yeah, there's potentially a bigger variety of players, but how much does that really add? I guess playing on a larger map is nice, and you do need more players to be sure that you don't spend most of your time just looking for somebody to shoot at, but are there any other benefits? After all, we

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Xest ( 935314 )

            I think it's because with more players you usually end up with a better variety of tactics and aren't stuck fighting over the same bridge/building/whatever for the whole map as well as having more different players to fight. Effectively you end up with much more variation and it becomes harder for 7 players to just camp one building.

            I guess basically, some people like to snipe, some people hate snipers, some people like fast paced close quarter combat, some like to camp a room in a building, some just like

    • Quake 1 came out 13 years ago, most of what has come out since then isn't all that different.

      I really don't believe so. There are whole genres of games around today that pretty much didn't exist 10 years ago. Rhythm action, for example, and that's not counting the recent phenomenon of instrument peripherals. There have been dramatic strides in how the traditional RPG should operate, in part due to cross-pollination from online RPGs where character automation for grinding becomes inevitable rather than si
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by nschubach ( 922175 )

        I really don't believe so. There are whole genres of games around today that pretty much didn't exist 10 years ago. Rhythm action, for example

        You've never played with a Simon [wikipedia.org] have you? Oh, I guess you're right. That was nearly 20 years ago. 10 years ago we only had Parappa the Rappa [wikipedia.org].

        • For one thing, I don't really consider Simon a rhythm-action title on account of it being a set of unstructured tones rather than actual music. For another, Parappa the Rappa is widely considered the origin of modern rhythm-action (and certainly set many of its tropes), so I don't think it's a stretch to say it "pretty much didn't exist" before then.
      • by grumbel ( 592662 )

        Storytelling, from the sublime elegance of System Shock 2's logbooks to MGS4's split-screen-cut-scene absurdities, has advanced tremendously

        For one thing, System Shock 1 is a a 15 years old. For another, storytelling really hasn't advanced much at all, for most part it has taken many steps back. Sure, MGS4 has insanely long and pretty cutscenes, but those things are cutscenes, not gameplay. The disconnect between story and actual gameplay is still as bad as it was a decade ago, if not worse, since dynamic scenarios such as seen in XCom:Ufo or EF2000 have pretty much disappeared and replaced by much more linear structure in most games. And of co

        • Okay, maybe "advanced" is a poor choice of words, given that 98% of it's still shit, but if nothing else storytelling in games has certainly diversified. It's not like nothing happened in game storytelling in the past decade, which was the unfortunate confusion being put forwards. Large-scale adventure storytelling went underground to a large extent, but it's still there if you look.

          I'd question whether the disconnect is still as bad as it was, though. Silent Hill 2 is largely linear, but in the context o
    • by Jaysyn ( 203771 )

      We were always promised bigger worlds, bigger battles and so on but all the horsepower goes into better graphics, better collision detection than stuff that particularly effects gameplay.

      You should try Space Rangers 2: Reboot.

    • I'd rather the next decade was spent on gameplay rather than graphics personally, but gameplay doesn't sell hardware upgrades I guess

      The same is true for movies. As the graphics get better, the plots are getting weaker - and this has been going on for 30 years at least.

      Already the budgets of games have expanded to the size of big-budget movies, and I expect that in the future games will expand to take over broader audiences, while at the same time younger generations will be more accustomed to games and less accustomed to movies. Eventually, games will become a sub-genre of games - They'll be know as input limited games.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by KDR_11k ( 778916 )

      So you missed the Wii and DS, huh? The idea behind those was that more graphics don't matter as much as new inputs and genres. A plain horsepower race won't be able to happen from here on, the current "HD" market is already ruining companies with its costs, a race would mean death for everyone.

      BTW, we do get bigger worlds, bigger battles but it turned out that you can only interact with so much land area and so many enemies at a time (especially in games with melee combat as the only way to fight) so the pa

    • You're right about a lot of that.

      But I have something to add, regarding player count... the number of players possible has been overshadowed by more complex physics. Different kinds of weaponry with more data synced to the server means more bandwidth usage and less players possible.

      Companies are also reinventing the wheel over and over. How many games can you think of that sync the positions of everything every "tick"? The Battlefield line is notorious for this. Developers need to take a cue from HTML; if y

    • by Repton ( 60818 )

      If you think that's bad, check out the real world some time. I mean, can you believe people still play tennis? Or soccer? Hell, I tried a new sport a few years ago, one I'd never heard of, and it turns out they've been playing it in the Netherlands for a flipping hundred years.

      And don't even get me started on chess...

  • This whole article is obviously one big Duke Nukem troll!
  • Wild Gunman (Score:3, Funny)

    by rarel ( 697734 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @07:58AM (#27223355) Homepage
    Of course, this means you have to use your hands, so it's actually more kinda like a baby's toy.
  • by Sockatume ( 732728 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @08:06AM (#27223421)
    You know what really killed VR's prospects as a game interface? You look like a total tosser wearing any kind of VR goggles. The worst possible off-in-his-own-world nerd stereotype brought to horrible life. The example quoted in the summary seems to think that not being enough of a tosser was the reason for failure. And let's not forget how you're inevitably going to get tased when you walk down the street "scouting out targets". Jesus.
    • Yeah, just wait though until the VR goggles make every girl you see look totally hot. Every guy in the world would want them then. It could do subtle things, like trim that unibrow on that one girl at D&D night. Or it could just make them all naked if you want to get straight to the point, but that'd probably be a hack.
    • If you were the VR goggles in private, say, in your living room, then what's the problem?

      • The problem is that would be considered anti social. Gaming has only been truly popular when it's a social experience.

        Look at the Wii's success and the success of MMO's.

        • Popularity is relative. I'd even argue that MMOs are not about social experiences but about competitiveness with millions of people and being able to escape reality's social experiences. If popular gaming is social, arcades would be thriving today.

        • by brkello ( 642429 )
          Sorry, that's just your stupid stereotype. People should spend less time judging how others spend their free time and just relax. Some people aren't extroverts. That doesn't mean anything is wrong with them.
        • #1 selling PC game of all time: The Sims [wikipedia.org]

          The Sims: Not MMO, not multiplayer, and not something you do with your friends.

          Please do some research before you make blanket statements like that.

        • by brkello ( 642429 )
          That's a load of crap. Look at Solitaire.
    • You know what really killed VR's prospects as a game interface? You look like a total tosser wearing any kind of VR goggles.

      No. I think the fact that VR goggles hurts your eyes and your neck after an hour of gameplay.

      That and the cost.

      That said, I've heard good things about EMagin's [wikipedia.org] goggles, but you still have to pony up $1000 some for it and your eyes still hurt.

    • I'd suggest the price of the arcade versions didn't help. I'd see a VR game somewhere, look at the $10 a turn cost, and walk away. And I was someone really interested in trying it.
  • New level cap: Level 130!
    Paladins are still busted!
    New Archmage heroic class - start at level 120!
    All your life are belong to us!
    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Also, people are seeing problems of their HP rolling over into the negatives when they get more than about 2.14 billion.

  • by ledow ( 319597 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @09:04AM (#27223883) Homepage

    First, classic mistake of picking a year SO close to us that there's almost no time to even guess what will happen before it comes around. It's like back in the 60's when everyone was discussing silver-jumpsuit-clad superhumans who live off food-tablets and have computers as their best friends on Neptune in artificial gravity... too much exaggeration in too short a time... all the "incidentals" that aren't mentioned (i.e. minor technical innovations that are mentioned in passing, or just assumed to be present) occur along the way but nobody ever noticed them. Come on, we still haven't properly managed videophones yet, although Skype comes damn close (it's just not "simple" enough that everyone wants to go out and buy a Skype-phone that doesn't need a computer switched on 24/7).

    All we've done in the last ten years in gaming is go from Quake to Quake IV... it's all graphics. The *real* innovation in the last ten years has been in things like the Wii (specifically the controller), but STILL nobody wants to look like an idiot by *wearing* anything computer-related... the closest thing we have is fashionable mobile phones that you carry, but you STILL look a pillock with a Bluetooth headset - it's a simple fact.

    Games in 2020 will be like games today... they will use the computer's facilities. This will undoubtedly include more speed, more CPU's, more realistic graphics (although "more" sound probably isn't achievable without spending a fortune on specialist hardware), smaller hardware, more touch-interfaces and more networking. The controllers may well change, but they will still be controllers (you can't beat a keyboard/mouse combo for FPS, a D-pad for platformers, a touch-screen for certain simple games, but there may well be "new" genres to take account of new-style controllers too)... you won't want to carry *anything* that you're not going to use throughout the day, certainly not a game controller. They may well integrate (so your phone is just as good a controller for your console as a Wiimote), but commercial "enterprise" will ensure that nothing works together without a hell of a lot of messing about.

    We've been *technically* able to have the sorts of games that people are discussing here for DECADES. I've even suggested it myself in the past - combine paintball/lasertag with a real-time 3D game, stick a silly head-display on them and let some nutters run around in an enclosed virtual environment and shoot the crap out of each other (virtually). In an enclosed environment, location of each of the players quickly is almost trivial (especially if they are wearing your hardware), matching a plain warehouse modelled on the in-game map with some actual plain green boxes to clamber over is easy. That same plain-green background can be video processed by the most basic of PC's to overlay player's *actual* position/image into a virtual game perfectly - so you're running around a warehouse with your mates, but in your display, you and your mates are running around a map in Counterstrike. Targetting, aim, distance, recoil etc. is available through a conventional toy-gun accessory. It doesn't matter what it looks like in real life in this case (which is a big plus, because you do look a pillock running around an all-green warehouse firing a cap gun at virtual enemies), so it's easy, cheap and doesn't need a ton of technical expertise. You might only find them in theme parks, or specialist places at first, but we haven't even got *that* yet.

    Instead, paintball has died. Lasertag died years ago. The companies that used to do it could *easily* have switched on to new media but didn't, because people *LIKE* the game-reality border, even if it blurs, they still need to know that they (and other, possibly more unstable people) are in a game and not killing real people. Plus, I don't *want* to play the games in real life... I play them to relax, not run around scared that someone will run faster than me, catch up with me and kill me in the game I'm paying to play.

    Now, "all-digital down

    • I agree with your post and was going to mod you up, but I really had to stop reading - please use asterisks sparingly, otherwise your post becomes unreadable and cloying.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by WillAdams ( 45638 )

      ledow said:
      > you can't beat a keyboard/mouse combo for FPS

      ?!?

      Let me introduce you to the Wii Zapper.

      Wii Zapper, please meet Nyko Perfect Shot Pistol.

      Nyko Perfect Shot Pistol, please meet:

      - Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles (unfortunately v4 Wii edition doesn't work w/ a normal Zapper)
      - Quantum of Solace
      - House of the Dead Chop Til You Drop
      - Call of Duty World at War
      - Medal of Honor Heroes 2
      - Call of Duty 3
      - Wiiware: Onslaught

      Even Link's Crossbow Tra

      • So when you spin your body around 180 degrees to take shots at the guy behind you launching rockets at your head... how do you see the TV?

        • I've actually tried to do that --- but if one controls one's reactions the control system will rotate one in place.

          William

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ledow ( 319597 )

        I didn't say you can't USE other systems. I said you can't BEAT mouse/keyboard.

        - Tiny flick of the wrist and tap of a key = 180 turn (or slightly more, or slightly less, depending on your needs - 3D sound and good knowledge of the terrain make this especially useful), crouch, compensate for height difference (perfectly if you know how), straight into a headshot. You can't do that with anything except a mouse/keyboard (or extremely realistic virtual reality) setup.

        - Precision movement of one pixel up and t

        • My metric for games isn't whether I win or lose, but how much fun I have and how it's played.

          I push a mouse around quite enough at work, and I've zero interest in sitting and playing a game by pushing a mouse around --- that's the big win on the Wii --- it makes new forms of gaming possible.

          It would be interesting to see how players using different control systems would do in competitive play though.

          William

      • by grumbel ( 592662 )

        Let me introduce you to the Wii Zapper.

        The Wiimote is rather troublesome for FPS, since they have yet to figure out a proper way to actually turn your character. The whole 'move cursor to edge of screen' is really awkward and makes both turning and aiming troublesome. Even as straight lightgun replament it isn't good, because it lacks proper line of sight aiming, which is why you get a cursor in all games.

        • As I noted in another post I've actually tried to turn around when playing. Improvement in this area would be welcome, but for the current system it's a matter of balancing responsiveness and twitchiness and most games tend to be conservative, hence less responsive.

          Aiming based on the Wii remote is somewhat improvable by adjustment in some games and Ghostsquad does afford the option of turning the aiming reticle off.

          The real question this poses is when will consoles begin to offer multiple display out conne

    • by brkello ( 642429 )
      Meh. You speak of facts but I don't think you know what that means. Just because you think someone is a "pillock" (whatever the hell that is) doesn't mean that everyone views them that way. If everyone felt that way about headsets, no one would wear them. So it isn't a fact, like you claim. It is your opinion.

      You say people don't like clutter, but then you have all these people with various guitars, microphones, and drums laying around all so they can play one genre of game.

      I don't disagree with ever
    • "You can't beat a keyboard/mouse combo for FPS, a D-pad for platformers"

      Wow, I can't believe I'm replying to such a passing statement, but I can't help myself. I'm a nerd, after all.

      I just thought I'd point out that the anolog sticks on a console controller work far better than the D-pad for platformers. However, some people would argue the D-pad works better for fighting games and side-scrollers (but even that's arguable).

  • Dennou Coil. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Aladrin ( 926209 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @09:13AM (#27223975)

    There's a Japanese Anime/Light Novel called 'Dennou Coil' or 'Cyber Coil'. It's about kids that have grown up with glasses that are their link to the network. It lets them buy virtual items of all sorts, including pets and toys. They virtual items obviously can't interact with real objects, but they can react with other players (especially the glasses of the other players) and virtual objects. And they can make phone calls using the glasses by just making a phone shape with their hand, or call up a virtual keyboard and monitor for direct input/programming.

    Yes, you'll still look a little silly to anyone not wearing the glasses. But once there are enough people doing it, it ceases to look funny. Bluetooth headsets are proof of this. 15 years ago, you'd look like you were talking to yourself. Now, everyone assumes they can't see your earpiece.

    Also, having phone capabilities in the glasses will speed adaption greatly, even for those who don't normally wear glasses.

  • April 1, 2020: Square-Enix announces that Final Fantasy XIII has been delayed again.

  • by Hoplite3 ( 671379 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @09:44AM (#27224307)

    I see the "future" of gaming in digital restriction management. Sports Game 2019 will automatically stop working when Sports Game 2020 is released. Moreover, maybe Sports League will convince Console Company to lock players out of the game when actual sports games are being played so as to conserve their audience.

    Also, to shut down the used game market, games will become tied to the first console they're played on and won't work on others.

    The rise of the big game financiers will push all games stories towards a generic formula that involves space marines. People won't like it, but what are you going to do, read a book! Muhahahaha!

    Oh, sorry. Continuing, Rock Band 2020 will innovate significantly, featuring not only toy guitars drums and a microphone, but also a virtual hotel room that you wreck after the show for bonus points and a USB whiskey bottle.

    It'll be a bright future!

    • Funny? I wish. This is more +1, Sadly Prophetic. Especially the part about sports games not working when a real game is on.

    • by Renraku ( 518261 )

      Actually, you might not be far from the truth.

      Ever since this DRM thing came out, the big companies have been asking their lawyers if its legal to make a game stop working (like imagine if you had it through steam) when the follow-up game came out. The general consensus is no..but if you were to patch the game and make it worse and/or unplayable, that would be just peachy.

      I don't think it has been done yet, but I think that time is coming. I don't think steam would cater to the kind of company that would

  • So the only game I have to look forward to is a VR snowball fight? This is the best they could come up with? Looks like everyone will be renewing their WoW subscriptions and grinding to level 200
    • I read through them and thought the same. I personally hope to have some massive virtual worlds with seamless transitions, weather, deformation... hell, I just want my Dwarf Fortress worlds to be persistent and explorable in 3D with fortresses and kingdoms that compete for population and trades while fending off goblins, dragons, and demons. Oh, and add to that the need to protect their trade routes...

  • Wait a minute... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Faulkner39 ( 955290 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @10:31AM (#27224955)
    Could you imagine the snowball scenario described in the example happening in real life? You would randomly see adults acting like idiots in the middle of the street. They'd be running in front of cars, diving across hoods, running into people, ducking behind old ladies, and pretty much just be acting like a-holes. You basically would just succumb to never being able to get laid again. I could imagine the scenario, "Well, he's good-looking, dresses well, and has 12-pack abs, but he play's SnoFight (tm)". Maybe the same argument can be made about MMORPGs, but at least you can hide that from the rest of the world. Then what would happen when RockStar games licenses the technology and makes GTA 10. "Your honor, I was just playing a game. I needed to get my money back from that girl so I could buy more ammo. She's supposed to respawn like every 5 minutes."
    • I can't wait for the legislation making public gaming illegal. You know, to protect the kids from themselves.

  • by HTH NE1 ( 675604 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @12:29PM (#27226929)

    "It's just an average day at your job. Noon swings around and it's time to amble out of the cubicle farm and venture outside into the city to find some lunch. You put on your slick steel framed Hunters Glasses, place your Hunters earpiece, and with black and white Hunters Gloves on, step out of the building and onto the street. After a block suddenly your dark tinted shades switch to a red tint. A silky female voice echoes in your ear, 'Players within range. Good Hunting.' The glasses are acting as a WiFi enabled computer screen. You swivel your head to scope the scene and find someone standing out within the red crowd as a white outline. The man with the white outline is scouting the area as well, trying to find who else is in the game right now. You get within range, pack a virtual snow ball with your gloves, approach slowly, wind up and

    you are struck by a car.

    'Player Eliminated,' says the female voice, 'Uploading Statistics.'"

Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated. -- R. Drabek

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