The Future of Gaming

The “future of gaming” is the new "are games art" question of new games journalism. Every amateur hack is whining on about whether it should be graphics? (Sony Lies, Xbox Lies and Nintendo Statistics) User-created ipodcatowningsecondlifesanfransisconofightingflickrpishimadeafourtyfootmodel
ofmycatlisteningtoanipod? (Second Life) Or emotional storytelling (Ummm…)

Well Fuckward journos if you put your mac down for two seconds we here at That Guy’s will set you straight.

First of all games are inherently broken. Fix them please by following my easy recipe here.

Secondly, fuck-online play. Soooo many console games have a one player mode, no splitscreen mode and a hashed-out-deathmatch-only-crappy-level-online aspect to it.

Sure keep doing your MMORPGs but make fighting compulsory and let people ambush the guilds who endlessly hang around the hubs talking to each other.

Now, if you want to make the next thing in gaming, I’m going to give the recipe to you right here and now:

1) Take GTA San Andreas and strip out all the missions and eateries etc.

2) Make it online but also 1-4 player splitscreen offline or online. Also make it playable on link-up mode also.

3) Get rid of levelling up so that every player is on an equal footing and you don’t have to play millions of hours to start enjoying the meta game. If you want to inspire progression put some achievements in and have a leaderboard or something.

4) Here is where the magic is. So you have San Andreas with all its lovely settings and residents, and you have 100+ gamers milling around ready to play. What you do now is simply take the summons from the Final Fantasy games (for ease of imagery) and have them periodically attack the city. As a player you’d be hanging around all tooled up and then suddenly everyone gets a message on their screen “Bahamut has appeared” and an icon on their map. Imagine the thrill of being part of a hundred strong convoy of planes, bikes, lorries, cars and helicopters converging on the blinking icon all with the same aim, to be the one to finish off Bahamut (gay!).

5) Bahamut is hovering above San Fierro and as you get closer you can see Squadrons of jet fighters launch streams of missiles, some of which hitting their targets, Bahamut then picks up a nearby articulated lorry and throws it at one of the jets resulting in a mid air explosion. Other players drive their motorbikes of off buildings, jump from their bikes and land on Bahamut in acts of fearless bravado. Meanwhile, helicopters turn up gatling guns blazing. A nearby lorry with a trailer has ten people standing on the back firing RPGs into Bahamuts face. Then after countless player deaths Bahamut starts to fly into the air as a giant blue fireball gradually expand in front of his mouth (FF:AC anyone?). Seasoned players know that this is his (her?) special attack and turn to get as far away as possible. Noobs still fire into Bahamut from nearby buildings. Bahamut then reaches his highest point and releases a giant fireball into the ground. Players far away see the flame ball impact the ground, the screen flashes white and the game goes silent for seconds then a powerful shock wave sends players and vehicles flying in every direction as a crashing noise deafens the nearest players. Surviving players then scramble to find nearby vehicles and salvage the weapons of the dead and head back into the brawl. Eventually Bahamut is taken down. Individual players stats and a replay are then available for everyone to browse and awards a given for high amounts of damage inflicted, stunts, acts of suicidal madness. Players then have enough time to head back to base for a post mortem, weapon selection and vehicle tooling up before another message appears “Leviathan spotted off the coast”…………

6) The game could be made even better by making players choose one of four factions when they first start. Players then have to fight the latest monster that attacks San Andreas as well as sabotage other factions efforts and fight for resources when not on missions. A whole other sidegame could be fought between factions to secure a mega-weapon (think the Mega Tank from Advance Wars or a Battle Cruiser for sea battles) which can inflict high amounts of damage. These mega-weapons are by no means invincible to enemy faction fire and are painfully slow but if captured and deployed carefully they can turn the tide of a battle. The factions that take down the latest monster are awarded with rare weapons and vehicles as well as extra kudos.

7) The game developers that make this game should employ people to play as the monsters thus allowing intelligent action as well as unpredictable behaviour to keep players on their toes. For offline play AI will suffice due to the dramatically decreased number of hunters.

I only used Final Fantasy summons as an example for ease of reference rather than describe “a variety of large monsters”.

This game would be great because it encourages team play, tactics, innovative play (if you want to try to parachute out of a plane and chainsaw a monster through the head give it a shot!) as well as being a lot of fun. I couldn’t give a shit about realistic graphics look at WoW, glitchy shoulder blade articulation (as well as the comical planet sized cobbles in Stormwind).
You can make as many GTA clones as you want but most makers-of-True Crime-types just try to copy, it or copy it and add those other beloved staples of bullet time etc. But that is all we want a fun, cooperative, pick up and play, addictive game that lets you play other games if you want to.

There is obviously great potential for Resident Evil: San Andreas but that’s a musing for another post…………