Evolution of Gaming

[GamerPerson]

It may all seemed like yesterday that we were just little kid gamers that played whatever was the new thing and was amazed at what played before us on the t.v. screen. Who would have thought that what astounded us then could be trumped time and time again with something new? Each time the wow factor of games have been raised. I want to know a few things:

What were your wow factor moments from a game franchise?
Did you expect games weren't going to get better than what it was at that current state, if so, when?
Finally, where do you think the next evolution will take us?

I'll start off with my favorite game when I was growing up: Soul Blade.

I loved playing as one of the 3 female characters on the game and just going around pretending to be her and doing her victory pose. I thought it was cool to see a miniature human in a game that was believable in appearance.

I was DEAD surprised when I saw the progression she made from being this block-y humanoid shape to an actual person, smoothed out with the super unrealistic moon jump that they had in the 90's. My mind was blown.

I can only imagination what will game be like once the console wars are over and there's no one left standing, but the gamer and the creator themselves; just for them to look at one another and the creator to just smile and show the way to another level that's beyond our comprehension.

 

[aboleth_lich]

Most recently I had my "If graphics never advance further and become more realistic than this, then I'll be beyond content! This is all I could ever dream of in that department!" moment when I first played Batman: Arkham Asylum (on the PS3) at a friend's house.

Prior to that, during junior school DOOM felt like a real, revolutionary paradigm shift to me: being my first pseudo-3D game (that moreover broke a lot of taboos) after a childhood of a great many blocky 8-16-bit 2D platformers. I relived that experience when I first picked up a N64 controller and had my first truly 3D video game experience with Mario 64.

Back in the day, the opening to Final Fantasy VII also made my jaw drop as the first glorious cinematic cut scene I had seen in a video game.

Given time, I'm sure I that could produce a lengthy list of other such moments--but those are the most salient, clearly revolutionary moments that come immediately to mind.

 

[Damien Lee]

Gaming evolved at a very fast rate between the 8-bit, 16-bit to 32-bit eras. However, the law of diminishing returns started to rear it's ugly head just after the Dreamcast/PlayStation 2 consoles. The graphical leap between the 6th & 7th generation consoles was present but not that significant. And current gen systems feel only slightly more powerful than those of the 7th generation. Online gaming can't be considered a modern phenomenon as PC gamers were already enjoying that back in that 90's.

The only major leap that gaming can undergo now is virtual reality. However, there are stumbling blocks as many folks will not want to wear those VR headsets to enjoy gaming. Therefore, I foresee virtual reality just becoming a subset of gaming and not entirely mainstream.