A quote from a Gamespy article which I thought was funny...

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I know I'm supposed to be an expert on this stuff, but hardware makes my brain hurt. Every new generation of technology and it's the same story for me: I'll be at a convention and some really excited guys in polo shirts will say "our new card is the greatest! It'll revolutionize gaming! Look at THIS! "

First they'll show a chart of some sort. "Why, yes," I'll admit. "Your bar sure is longer than those other bars. I can't believe that anyone would even try to play games with ... such short bars."

But they're just getting started. Next they'll show a demo of somethingorother, and I'll nod and say, "Wow, that sure does look like real rust on that car you've got there."

They'll reply, "That's because the new Perplexion Engine has hardware rusticle support, allowing for on-the-fly-rusticulation and up to 3200 times the rusticles."

By this time, I'm all into it. "Holy COW!" I'll say. "How come games don't have more ... rusticles, anyways?"

And they'll say, "Oh, DOOM 3 will have rusticles."

"Oh yah?"

A knowing nod. "Tons of them."

So later that night, I'll go and upgrade my computer...
and I won't know why.

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However, is there a limit to all of this? How much reality do we want? I'm sure no one actually wants to play a game that looks exactly like real life. Its just not..."game"ish/. I mean, do you really want to see every single texture, on your ripped army shirt, with your red blood oozing out, watching as your pimply faced soldier runs around with an exact replica of some World War 2 gun? Some will say "Of course!" but isn't this like watching a show on NOVA? I've thought about this several of times, I'm sure everyone will have there own opinion. It's not like this will happen anytime soon right? We're yet to see a card that will render something like "Shrek" or "Finding Nemo" in real-time. Now that would be cool right? But it still involves this...fake-ness, a cartoonish style that lets you know that this is not real. Now what if nemo looked like a real clown fish. That would be lame. So I just wonder what will happen, when you'll stare at your monitor one day and play game that makes it look like your mind-controlling some soldier over seas...

But let's move the subject a bit. No matter how good graphics are, a game is usually known for its gameplay. Modability, for instance, is a deciding feature now a days. If you can't mod the game, it usually sucks. Unless of course, its a game with some awesome storyline and an awesome multiplayer mode. But sometimes it just gets boring anyway Sometimes, you just get sick and tired of all the games you have. You'll fly through your start menu, looking for something worth playing. Then you think, "Man, I which I had that old game I used to play." And suddenly your downloading ROMs and playing on emulators. For some reason, those games with only 4 buttons, or16 colors become addicting all over again. Why? Something about these games makes them so much fun. I know that lately, I have been playing some puzzle games, like Wario's Woods, Tetris Attack (which really has nothing to do with Tetris FYI), and Yoshi's Cookie. Picking up bombs, swapping blocks, moving rows, these puzzle games get your mind pumping, fingers twitching, and eyes burning. Maybe that's the key? As you can see, Nintendo has started releasing classic NES games on the Gameboy Advanced. I think its a smart move, except for the fact that the main people who own GBA's are little 7 year olds who don't know about any games existing before the N64. What Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo need to do is start making some puzzle, shoot-em up, or platform games with new graphics. That should be the future of gaming. Even if only uses 2 buttons...