The 2000's

The 2000’s

The age of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft was in the horizon. The Play station without no doubt dominated the forthcoming years in constantly proved in the variety of games and the amount of third party developers it had. The GameCube on the other hand was equally good in graphics but the number of games developed and released was a lot less than its competitors. Microsoft made its appearance to the gaming industry in 2001 with the xbox which was their first game console and they instantly rivalled in graphics and good hardware specs and Halo: Combat evolved definitely showcased this. It was certain at this point that the main competitors for this decade at least were these three, so publishers took notice of this and more and more multi-platform games started to emerge.

The games industry as we all know have grown very rapidly and we are heading towards an interesting period in the gaming culture as during the 1980’ the games that emerged were very unique and very original. The games in general are now being designed for the mainstream audience and I personally think it is lacking in originality and creativity in games. There are most certainly several factors so for this so let’s reflect on the games consoles, consoles such as xbox and play station mainly had one purpose and that is to play video games but now the industry has grown significantly and so other forms of entertainment such as movies and music are becoming a part of modern day consoles and this is again to appeal to the wider audience. Similarly the games that were developed during the 80’s and 90’s games had to be original as there was an unbelievable variety of games and most of the studios were trying to get a big break in to the industry so they really have to be different from their competitors. The video games that are being developed nowadays have a lot of pressure on them and even though the advancements in technology should push creativity, this doesn’t happen too often as studios are always under a lot of pressure to deliver a game that they expect and of course there is a lot of money involved and so developing new ideas is a risky business.

It is important to remember that despite this struggle game developers are still being able to produce interesting titles and developing games that not only the push the barrier in terms of the visual aesthetics but also sprinkled with creativity! Heavy Rain was a game that breaks barriers in visual story telling in video games, although Heavy Rain might not have satisfied the modern warfare audience, it has certainly pushed creativity and innovation especially with the motion move controller edition. There were mixed views about this game as hardcore veterans’ said it’s just and interactive movie where as the newer casual audience found these sort of games very playable and like it because of the fact that it literally played like an interactive movie without the constant shouting and gunshots and enemy flash bangs that we hear year after year (call of duty series).