It seems that the game industry is always in a race with itself. And in this race there are four very distinct types of people all vying for the front of the pack. The Designer/Writer is the new guy on the block. He came around in the late 80's and early 90's. He went to a big school on an English scholarship but drank a lot and got fed up with the normal run.He thinks up these dope concept games that combine heavy story elements with engaging and addictive game play. The rule sets of the games he creates are mostly complicated and exclusionary. But that is only because he wants the hardcore audience to look at look at his game as art. he wants the Shakespeare, he wants non game players and the snobby literary and film elite to look at his work and acknowledge it as serious. He doesn't care about the masses that only peek into his world as far as the Halo's and Maddens. They only eat junk food and he thinks he is cooking fillet mignon. Fuck em'. So he takes his big Idea to the...


Begat..


The Coder/Programmer/Lever builder/Guy that knows what he is doing. this guy was taking apart his moms computer at about age 10. He slept through computer science class with all A's because that is all he does anyway. L337, haxor, don't bother spouting that shit to this dude because technology for him has long since gone from being an exiting distraction to just... life. All pragmatic and super surly to the point where he knows the specs,the fix, and the code stream to your dreams before you sleep. And it always looks like he just woke up. This guy looks at the sample level drawings and character designs that the Writer got some artist to draw up for a sack of sticky and some Chinese farmed WOW gold, and nearly shit himself laughing. He loves crushing the ideas of designers if only because his gatekeeper title allows him to do so. With knowledge being the power it is, and him with all of it, he can tell easily shave this guys big idea to a skeleton. Not enough memory for this. Would need a hard drive for that. this is just stupid, and wouldn't allow you to do that later. The poor artists eyes begin to water as his golden horse gets beat to death with the hammer of reality right before his eyes. But both reach an unhappy middle ground and take their sample level to...


Begat...


The Producer/The Publisher/The Money/The Alpha Deuche. This guy went to business school. He left with an M.B.A. in "getting that Guap by any means necessary." He followed the money smell into the offices of [insert big game company here]. He doesn't play games, he studies titles. Then he sells them to consumers. He looks at this sample build that the other two guys brought in. The next week he sits them in an office filled with expensive figurines positioned in action poses, and one sheets of games signed by Designers and Programmers past, that look to the guys on the other side of the desk like the the stolen souls of Shang Tsung. He sits back in his chair and tells the guys that he loves what they have done so far, but why can't the action play a little more like "God of War?" Why can't you guys put a little bit of a Sci-Fi twist on the story, like "Assassins Creed?" Have you thought about places that you could put some in game advertising? "You know, L337 it up a little bit, we gotta think about who we are selling this to." They just look at him with blank faces. They hated each other before. But now they have a common enemy.Yet after a lot of arguing, screaming, and sleepless nights, the game goes gold and gets shipped to the hot little hands of...


Begat...


Us/The player/the consumer/ The Civilian. We take one look at this title and see what could have been. We put in the required Thirty Hours of game play, neglecting to collect all of the in game do-dads and finish the filler side quests. then we run to the forums and flame hard and long about the fact that while the game is decent, it didn't deliver anything we haven't seen before. The story was confusing and pointless. The Bosses sucked. The frame rate was for shit. For god sakes, it didn't even have a letterbox option for PC and only ran in 720i! What the Fuck! The Designer gets drunk. The Programmer goes home and has sex with his wife, or his hand. The Producer does lines off a strippers ass while counting his money. We wait for the sequel.


And I say all of that to ask this. The pics above are all of games that attempted to do things with story and gameplay that were well ahead of what was possible technologically at the time. they worked within the confines of an isometric view that proved to be one of the few ways a person could create the illusion of a living world back in the 90's. but now that technology has almost caught up with imagination, game makers are returning to IP's that they probably wished had been 3D in the first place, and are making the games that we loved back then for what they were, better in the process. But where does that end? I went back recently and downloaded the original Fallout to refresh my memory and prep for the new chapter that is on its way. And while playing it I began thinking about all of the titles that deserve a face lift every time technology moves forward. I dunno, is there any titles that you can think of that did not reach their full potential and deserve an upgrade?