Gah! Intergrated chipset evil!

So I was over a friends house today to play with his spangly new computer, several games underarm I checked the pc's specs everything checked out multicore this gigabytes that but wait! GAH! What was this an Integrated Intel chipset? Something which in some of the more nerdier circles is whispered in hushed tones of revulsion. He would be unable to play most of the games I had brought and the ones he could run would be reduced to 'orrible juddery slide shows of PC gaming's current finest.

Why the hell do Intel do this? They dress up these things to read like the second coming of the electronic messiah in advertisements but when you get down to it there about as powerful as a calculator, like every other sector of the hardware league Intel and AMD are in a constant battle to produce the fastest zippiest processor, even at the budget end of the spectrum there processors are still more than adequate to run a modern game respectably so why are there graphic chipsets so crap?

Of course you could argue that these onboard graphic chipsets aren't really graphics sets but merely something to display windows, perhaps display video and the ever cheeky office game of solitaire, while it falls to dedicated video card makers ATI and NVIDIA to produce something that caters to anybody wanting to do anything more demanding than run Windows but with the recent purchase of ATI by Intel rival AMD this has been put into question.

Microsoft's next iteration of Windows Vista, has a new graphical interface named Aero glass that pretty much demands a card capable of displaying these complex graphical titbits, a bog standard Intel integrated job by simply won't cut it. This coupled with the ever increasing popularity of high definition video endures that the casual e-mail sending, web surfing pc user is going to require something much more powerful.

Of course its the corporations that ultimately control this, PC makers such as Dell concentrate on the more recognisable indicators of a systems power in advertisements when targeting there casual pc using audience the choice of graphic chipsets often seems like second fiddle to the more recognisable representations of a pc's power namely a headline dominating processor speed and ram size these are the numbers the general public understands, so long as it sounds big and flashy its ok.

Additionally its companies like Dell's biggest customers that also effects this the most not the casual pc user but the IT sectors of gigantic corporations if it costs a IT manager an additional $5 to increase the graphics chipset to something approaching respectable speed what’s the harm but increase that over 50,000 pc's and suddenly you see why graphic cards are sill are luxury.

Games for windows

I wandered into a GAME shop the other day, that place is fast becoming the sole reason for my ever increasingly jaded view of the traditional public image of games but more on that later. A quick look around any games shop confirms one thing, the PC section is shrinking skulking and further back into the shadows a sad collection of budget titles and console ports while the shelf space given to console titles seems to be ever increasing - hell the PS2 section in most GAME shops seems to almost dominate half the shop, the things almost dead yet its still given quadruple the space to the PC arguably the birthplace of all games.

While the revenue in things like MMORPG and casual online games are increasing ten fold a 10% drop in traditional titles from last years shows something’s up, with the ever shrinking public image of PC games it’s hardly surprising.

Well its fallen to Microsoft to address this issue, with there unveiling of games for Windows initiative, all console games have a standardised box layout, console name on the top perhaps on the back details of the numbers of players supported that kind of thing; with pc games its different there’s no fully standardised look with each publisher taking a different approach in presenting specifications, genre etc all the things customers look at when deciding a purchase. It maybe purely psychological but having a instantly recognisable banner and look on each pc game would make the pc look more like a viable gaming platform a brand if you will and less like a scary mix of specifications and publisher branded games to the casual gamer.

Addiotnally Microsoft are also tackling the traditional trap of the requirements box to Mr Casual gamer, working with Vista's new PC rating system the pool of numbers and stats are now broken down into a numerical score on your PC, if your PC scores a 3 and the game requires a 3 or lower than congratulations you can run it! Of course there’s bound to be mistakes in this approach but it massively increases the potential of people trying games on there PC's rather than simply being put off at the first hurdle.

Of course you could just argue that Microsoft is doing this simply to control the PC games sector much the same way it does with the 360 make the PC a closed system, they hold all the cards in the same way there trying to do with DRM for multimedia. Only time will tell

Dreamy cast

I bought a Dreamcast today for the princely sum of 20 pounds plus a copy of jet set radio, for many reasons I see the dream cast as something of a forgotten gem and standard setter, the first online console, the first proper current gen console - shudup Atari jaguar your are NOT 128 bit, the first console in which the aspirations of online game play and console to pc connectivity are realised.

There’s nothing quite like a new console even if this one is old hat to the rest of the world, the exotic looking controller, the start up jingle promising so many hours of discovering some of gaming's classics, mentally adding to your internal repertoire of games played and rated seeing where franchises started before becoming muddied by shameless ports and sequels, Sonic Adventure anyone? An opportunity to see first hand exactly what Sega did to ensure this was there last console ever made *Sniff*

I've also discovered thanks to a custom boot disc written some years ago there is absolutely no need for me to buy any of the games languishing in Amazon limbo, a quick download and burn to a bog standard cd ensures I can sample many classics which for whatever reason would be out of my reach be it region or ridiculous rarity coupled with even more ridiculous price - seriously have you seen the price of Shenmune 2? Because its a dead console there’s not the slight twinge of guilt I feel when downloading a game normally either.

Now if only I had bought a memory card with this thing I could get a bit further in jet set radio

Console Exclusivity

There’s always one thing that’s irritated me with new consoles as the hype for them reaches fever pitch and all and everything is promised of there capabilities games normally associated with the PC seem to get up and leave or even worse games originally intended for PC suddenly become console only, lured in by the Microsoft or Sony dollar, boasting there title portfolio for shiny console X.

Of course there’s several reasons why this is done, consoles are standardised things, technological snapshots of whatever was the cutting edge when they were made this presents an easy opportunity to push a new game to a consoles maximum capability's and not worry about the balancing act of high and low end pc architecture, when a console is brand new is the only time it will match the average gaming PC displaying a developers vision as well as possible but when publishers take time to port a next generation game say from the 360 to the PS2 a console now nearly 7 years old it makes you wonder why they don't bother with the PC a system arguably more than capable of hosting the 360 version. Of course sales projections come into it why bother porting a game to the pc if only X number of people are going to buy it? While porting it to the PS2 may ensures it has a massive graphical downhaul sales ensures this would be more than worthwhile.

This robbing of titles has been going on for years as far back as Elite moving from the BBC to the NES, if there’s any good from this I believe that the PC is where new games and genes are created and nurtured before they reach a level of recognition and size to be ported to a console, creating room for the next bi g thing, fad or genre all game genres began on the PC with the the possible exception of the dancing game (woo) and I can't see any reason why this isn’t going to continue.

Of course its just as bad as when traditional PC games are 'consolofied' (swish!) then ported back to the PC at a later date, Deus ex 2 while a passable game on the Xbox just doesn’t compare to the PC's original and the PC port of Halo is frankly more than a little lack lustre (sorry Michael it really is) when compared to thorough bred pc fps games.

Still in a few years we'll all be emulating 'Console title smash!' on our pc's so whets there to worry about?

The industry as of now

Like any industry the games industry is growing faster than anyone could have predicted, once purely the realm of the talented bed room coder the games industry itself has warped and transformed into a global industry employing thousands and thousands of specialised people much the same way the film indsutry began to diversify as talkies started; the increasing complexity and additional rise in development costs has meant development houses have had to outsoruce much of the work to third parties usualy located in poorer countries were the wages are generally lower, great news if you've just started a game art course, with the prevalance of the internet many people can now work as contractors for hire moving from one developer to another producing a specified model when requested a good example of this would be the poop in my mouth chap
who has built up a solid portfolio of work for potential clients - this global bulletin board is great for attracting much more potential employment but it also places you in competition with every other would be game artist.
This decentrilisation of development houses could mean that people who work together for many months of possibly years may never meet face to face - im not sure of the outcome of this but having a global pool of talent instead of the people who could get to the offices each day could have an enormous increase in the games quality or it could make it a confusing mess like Splinter Cell: Pandora's tommorow the multiplayer element being developed in Shanghai and bearing little relation to the main game. Communication is always key it would seem be it if the person is across the room or across the continent.

Course as games do become more expensive and longer to create publishers are going to want to see a profit to this title however many million's they've poured into game X - a prime example would be publisher EA until recently working overtime there was considered normal and developers worked long in to the night getting a title complete before its projected release date, if a game misses the holiday scheudule there bound to make less but when anything is rushed the quality suffers.
This increasing rush to get games out and recylcing the same idea's means games are slowly but surely losing there creative appeal to many. Additonally developers at EA signed a lawsuit against EA alleging they had not payed them for working hundreds of hours of overtime, images of some developement sweat house are hard not to imagine.

Story and charecter

I pity the fool who dosen't want to play this, yeah

Forget all your tactical realism mods that seem to be churned out nonstop, i've found the best mod ever Battlefield 2, look! It replaces all the butch soldiers and vehicles with lego charecters - who dosen't wanna drive around as Mr. T i wonder?

All a question of control

Being more of a pc orientated good ol' keyboard and mouse kinda chap there weren't many console pads I thought I had sampled but giving it a few mins thought made me realise how many I’ve come into contact with over the years and they all seemed to leave some kind of lasting impression on me, I still maintain the best pad ever was the original megadrive pad, it followed the D-pad on the left, face buttons on the right mantra originally devised by Nintendo's NES controller something of a missing link to past controllers which before it were simply a mish-mash of buttons crammed onto a pcb squezzing buttons in wherever there was space, ergonomics being a Swedish armchair manufacturer or something then.

I think as games became generally longer and people began investing more and more time into them, the design and functionality of the controllers became more important would the original super Mario be quite as good if it wouldn’t on the NES' standard setting controller? If making the fat plumber jump over Piranha Pete was too hard, would the game be as popular as it was and still is? A console pad links the player to the onscreen protagonist be it a soldier in ww2 or a high speed dragster if the game controls difficultly because of a poorly designed console pad the game will ultimately suffer, a controller has always been about making a design so streamlined and unrestrictive to a players thoughts and reactions to any given situation that his or her reactions and decisions are displayed instantly without them having to look down and remember the controls.

That’s why I think Nintendo's Wii is trying a more adventurous route, forget the fact there trying to target a wider audience by making it look less like a scary console, a console pad has always been translating a players thoughts and reactions to the screen. Pressing a button is far too mechanical for emulating the swinging of a sword, having the player actually physically swing his/her 'sword' makes it far more real and visceral than merely pressing a button. it should be a real test for more bizarre methods of control to see it the wii and its unique style of control will succeed, judging by the ridiculous levels of preorders worldwide I think merely having a new way of playing games is increasing the hype more than anything else.

Storytelling in games

Unlike other popular media where the story acts as a train for a series of events, scenes or chapters games can be detached sometimes to the point where a storyline is not even necessary to some games. Because of the repetitive nature of games, all games can be broken down into a series of tasks and activities; you shoot this, jump there etc a story is for the most part simply a brief explanation as to why you’re hurtling through space or killing mafia goons.

However as games become increasingly more complex mirroring movies not only in terms of cinematic effects and angles but in storytelling games are increasingly being judged by the quality of there storylines alone, with specialist storywriter’s stories are fast morphing from something which was shoehorned in last thing in development to briefly explain why the player was in a given situation to being fleshed out and revised at the very start of development, defining all visual and aural aspects of the game.

Unlike the film industry where telling a story has always been key games have found themselves with this burden of not only telling a competent story but tying together gameplay as well, did Space Invaders ever need a story? There were aliens coming down the screen what were you expect to do but shoot them, you didn’t need a story for that. But people now need explanations as to why there in a given situation even games clearly completely devoid of a storyline such as death match games now somehow need a shoddily constructed story purely to justify to the nit-picky reviewer there existence.

As games further diversify along there different genre paths types of storyline and the way in which there told is also changing, an fps such as Half Life 2 would be an epic albeit completely linear experience with events in the story closely mimicking and complementing the environments – you’ve gotta break someone out of a creaky converted Russian gulag? Fine then along you go! If HL2 or any other shooter was presented purely as a series of corridors, would it be such a good game? Do people even consider most games storylines when there in the thick of a game for the most part cut scenes are used to illustrate and expand upon the story, a non-interactive element of what should be a completely interactive experience ‘sit down, shut up and I’ll try and explain why you’re here’ the games seem to say.

Actually because of there interactive nature, can a games storyline differ as you progress? Rather than follow the same storyline with the same events placed in place months, sometimes years ago shouldn’t the player be able to forge and create his own story? We’ve already got sandbox gaming where events or motions can be discovered by the player that wouldn’t necessarily have been thought of by the developers surely a games overall storyline could be altered by the actions of the player rather than simply bumping along a story path much like the linear gameplay, taking a tangent at key opportunities.

Going back to stories in general a story seems useless if the characters it contains are not cared or feared for by the player, characters present a reason for the player to continue playing if people can find themselves emotionally attached somehow to a given character in a 2 hour film surely games should be able to do it in 10? So called ‘digital actors’ high polygon, naturalised models with personalised details such as ripped jeans and other details create a sense of the model standing in front of the player is a real person or at the very least a collection of pre-recorded lines and dialogue following a predefined path throughout the game that makes the player believe that there following a real genuine person.

Looking at games where perhaps the characters and the situations they may find themselves have already been defined often in the form of books or film tie-ins, such as Reservoir Dogs that was demoed today, its even harder to not only follow the original storyline and ethos of the source material appeasing both publishers and fans alike but to create an actual game around it as well. This is one of the reasons I believe games of films are often so poor, despite the incentive to rush it out of the door publishers and the film studio’s being overly protective of there material massively hinders the creativity of the development studio.

Art direction

An art director’s job is essentially the head of the entire art team for any given project; he alone decides the games art style and direction, ensuring all artistic standards gel throughout the entire game. This usually happens at the very start of a projects formation and ideally would take around 3 to 6 months although for the most part pre production takes place around 3 to 6 weeks during this time a games entire visual ‘personality’ is created including characters, environments, weapon designs anything that would make up the game visually is first drawn and conceived during this time. Without the correct standards; for example texture resolution, polycount etc elements of the game will look widely different to other elements - part of an art directors job is to reign in individual members and ensure all elements of the game not only suits the game style and plot but looks consistently professional throughout.

Take for example, Half Life 2 - the main Art Director, Viktor Antonov this person essentailly had to decide the games overall look and feel creating several stunning images - seriously look at the site, to give the various modellers, texture artists and various other specialist artists to produce a consistent enviroement both to his original vision and one that valve ould be proud of.

The art director also acts as the head for the entire art team, deciding whether a teams artistic goal is possible within a specified time and money budget, an average game simply for the art and design budget is around 3 million pounds (CHECK THIS!) so it is vital the art director can decide whether or not the design team can produce the work if not time and more importantly money is lost pursuing an over budget over time game.
Additionally technical specifications are written for sections of the game these documents detail the average poly count of a typical prop its texture resolution as well as any other elements that will determine the technical background of a game - the end specification of the console or pc it will end up running on is also considered - this is where the technical specifications come into there own a model can look stunning but if its too high poly for the end machine its useless.

For this the art director typically goes back and forth between the design team and the programmers ensuring there vision is possible and mapping out any limitations or drawbacks to the system it will be supporting

Being an art director means a person must be able to tie together an artistic vision bereft of technical limitations with a strict polygon and time limit of a modern game, the person must balance an artistic vision and allow every team member to envision this vision, there is little opportunity for individuality in the working environment, the art director ensuring all members are working to a similar goal. Unlike a number of jobs in the games sector which are individual to the sector, an art director’s job seems interchangeable with a number of other popular media's including TV and films.

Infect as games become increasingly more complex and the resulting art direction in turn becomes more complex wouldn’t it be possible for a person previously worked on the art direction for a number of major films to transfer to games? Well, not really - for the most part an art directors position in TV and films seems to be a more managerial position determining if a team can produce an artistic vision within a specified time limit - a games art director does this and more having to take into account the technical limitations of the games and the target platform

'One of the hardest things as a Art director is to get everyone to see your vision' - Rick Hath, Former Art director for Codemasters