IE: need for speed and any sports game made by EA.
BTW, one of the reason pre-made game engines are becoming so popular, such as the unreal engine or source or whatever, is because of the amount of art assets that need to be created, it has increased exponentially as games become more and more complicated and detailed visually. in the past a small team of 3d\2d artists was more then enough, but now you need a small army to create all the content. So instead of having a team dedicated to creating the game engine\physics, they transfer all the manpower to asset creation, trying to maintain the costs of developing a game to a minimum.
As for FLOW, it looks amazing, knowing how complicated it is to simulate flowing water properly i can appreciate the results. And we wont be seeing realtime water like that in a LONG time.
PS: gears of war trailer is all REALTIME, nothing pre-rendered like 90% of the ps3 trailers.
If someone could make game engine that is good and I mean really good that would allow almost anything very real like, it should be that making content should be simple and fast for it, that would be great invention. Others could then get that base engine and build their products to it much faster and using more time to gameplay etc.
Of course problem is that making such engine would require enormous amount of work and resources, but maybe some day we will see something like that.
Who remembers game called Hunter? It was quite unique at it's time and that freedom was something new, quite large game area too compared to others. Spore is perhaps something like Hunter was years ago if we look how innovative game is. But Spore is one man's dream, again it is not made by company working for profit, but it is biggest thing in gaming for long time, imo.
A while ago I got some emulators and had a day of restro gaming, playing all the games of my childhood. Most of them bored me within 30 seconds.
Again, it's a case of rose-tinted glasses looking at the past. In general terms, gameplay 10-20 years ago was not better than it is now (in my opinion).
Say, a racing game in the mid 90's had a car model with 200 polygons, doesnt take long to model a car with that many polygons, but now cars in pgr3 for example use 80000+ polygons, see the difference?
Yes, I know that, those could also be shared/sold so no everyone need to make everything from scratch, but that is not going to happen anytime soon, I believe
Also modelling should be possible to make faster with better tools, that could follow this very good game engine, well I dream again
Flow is a fancy effect, that's for sure. Maybe the logic of the thing could be dumbed down for a game some time in the future. I've never seen water done well in a game before (you guys?), there's never really been anything where water/liquid features as a central gameplay element that behaves even semi-realistically. There's something like Plasma Pong, a small game which showcases real-time fluid dynamics, but that game operates within a 2D plane- the Flow demo atleast suggests that one day a believable 3d physical representation of water may be possible within a virtual environment. Add a little imagination, some game logic...
+1 Been there, done that. Although I still play my old favourites from time to time. The greats are still great. Anyone play Dino Eggs for the C64? So much love and charm in that little game.
This already happens, the problem is as graphics become more complex the artists spend more time on each model. My little studio will spend upto about 1 month on a graphic that will appear close to camera, and we're doing graphics two years behind the times. Artists who sell their work online are asking ever higher prices, but apart from a few, none of them ever make back their labour cost.
It's the opposite, over the last few years the tools have become even more complex, it's all about the end result. The industry is driven by the big companies at the top end with the indi's recreating their efforts in their footsteps, graphically at least, and complex art tools are not something that worries a big companies who can afford 50 or more artists.
I can and have spent evenings playing old games, the sucess of sites like Home of the Underdogs (underdogs.org) and Retro Remakes (remakes.org) are testiment to how popular old games still are. Some games I would have had more patience with when I was younger I now dont, granted, but there are some real gems. Graphics are not everything, but, it is easier to become frustrated with an old game because the graphics are not great.
I actually find it easier to play a Spectrum game with incredibly crude graphics than an old PC game with CGA/EGA graphics. In fact, i've always hated CGA/EGA, even when they where new. I would spend hours playing Grand Prix on a Victor Sirius, with a Herculese display, over some 'new fangled' 4 colour game !
EDIT:
Parts of my childhood are still missing, but I got that generals head several times !
New games cost a lot of time and money because new players ask for more.They want to see high detail characters, realistic environments or things like that.Ppl even buy very expensive video cards to make their games look better. No matter how the game is creative.Just play and throw it away when the new one comes.But creative games are always there.Ppl still play c&c series.
it's like those girl bands.They don't even know how to play any instrument but just because they do something visual, their albums sell millions.Kids buy those things and listen for a month and put it in the drawer and forget it.Because there's nothing creative in it on the music side.But you don't throw a coldplay album away.I still listen to my iron maiden albums of old (good) times.
(i wish my english was better so i could tell you better)
Heck, i still play UT:GOTY, yes, the maps i've played time over time, yes, my rig gives me 20 million FPS with tons of AA/AF, but it's still fun even though it looks rubbish!
How can you say ut goty looks rubbish? Sure the graphics are a bit crap by todays standerds but its got such good style in it, the neon colours, the metal walls in some levels the gothic archetcure (which is way better then quake3). No other fps has the same amount of style, quake 3 is just the standered quake brown/red with some lava if you're lucky. UT2004 doesn't even get it right imo.
