TASK 4: If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit.

If anyone didn't pick up on the title, it's a quote from the doc in Back To The Future. "Oh yeah, that's right!". Duh.
Anyways, it has relevance since this part of the assignment involves us thinking about games of the present and beyond. Awesome!

Games currently have reached a much higher plateau than the games designers of the 1960's could have ever imagined. They would have called us witches (well, maybe not witches...maybe just geniuses...or aliens) if we were to show them an Xbox 360 loaded up with a copy of Oblivion, or a top spec PC carrying UT 2007 and F.E.A.R easily in it's 250gb hard drive and playing them flawlessly with it's Duel Core processor and RADEON graphics card. This would all sound so foreign to them.

While the old 1960's game designers would possibly explode from such a rush of excitement, curiosity and freaked-out-ness (this word is real.), the moment before they were set to cover their surroundings with their internal organs, they would have been proud to know that if it weren't for them, computer games may never have existed or perhaps not be as good as they are today.

I wonder if they'd believe us if were were to tell these people that one day gaming would own the biggest and sweetest piece of the entertainment pie. Even sweeter than the Hollywood's slice. Personally, I think they would if they got a chance to play what today has to offer. Without this though, I doubt they would.

The fact is though, that with the industry growing at such a rate as it is now, games are not going to stop being released, Not for a long time. The audience is going to continue to grow as the planet's population does, new and innotive ideas to attract more of the general public's interest, for example the Wii will grasp at a good few of the remaining popuation and the pie will get bigger as companies get hungrier. Soon many game companies will be the richest corporations out there and will have a whole lot more cash to throw at new games and concepts. Holy crap, I'm startig to think that industries such as Sony and Microsoft are going to take over the world with their revenues. (Argh, getting carried away...)

With new technology for gaming such as the motion sensor stuff, faster processors and new physics engines it won't be long until grpahics reach the stage of "Real Life Graphics" and then what?

I can't help thinking though, that if games had been as good as they are today back in the 60's...what the hell would they be like today?! Would they have become matrix-esque? Would the world have been destroyed by them? Would they be better than even sex? Perhaps sex INSIDE games? Am I going to stop before this gets sick? Yes. I think that's probably for the best. I can only guess what the computer games of the future will be like but they will be god damn sweet!...hopefully.

Working for a games company in the future will be a big deal. Really. Games are getting so big that billions of people already play them across the planet, so imagine how it'll be in 40 years when the next 2 generations are playing along with the current generations that we have now. They will be popular and so will people that have a part in making them. In the future it'll be even cooler to say "Me? Oh, I'm a game artist".



One day will we fly cars? Urm, maybe...I doubt it'll be as soon as 2015 ,Doc, but give civilisation another 100 years and possibly. But which sounds like it'd be most possible; flying cars or actually being in a virtual world? or atleast as close as "being inside" it as you can go, perhaps a dome or ball in which your movements control the game and the "world" around you inside the dome/ball (Think about the Wii...it could be the first step to something alot bigger).

I think FPS played this way would be brilliant and people could be alot more skillful if it were like real combat. Marines and such would then be sucked in as another part of the market, it'd be like a better version of laser quest or paintballing without the bruises. Flight simulators would be so much like the real thing, pilots would never have to fly a real plane UNTIL they got their licence and chat rooms may become like speaking face to face with someone but virtually. Who can tell!

All I know is that I'm hopefully going to be part of this industry someday and I am going to be proud to be there. Whatever the future of gaming holds, it should be a fantasic ride...

"Young Doc: No wonder this circuit failed. It says "Made in Japan".
Marty McFly: What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan.
Young Doc: Unbelievable."
(Such a good quote and very true!)

Now for the conclusion of my personal gaming history.
So I had just got a Gamecube and SSBM was treating me mighty fine (and still is about 5 years on) and my PC was starting to suck.
Well, around this time my mum and dad split up (I'm fairly sure it wasn't over the crappy PC) and my mum took the crap box of dust and old parts with her to Scotland. My dad was in a stage where he thought he needed to please me and my sister so bought us both PCs (daft, I know...), and though it seems as though my sister has broken hers now, mine is still running strong and still has specs to easily handle all of today's games with their settings to the max. God knows how, but it seems four or five years havn't affected the thing.

Anyway, with this fantastical box of tricks I could enduldge in good games again. Yay!
Strangely enough, the first game I tried was C&C Generals. I know, not VERY graphically advanced but it looked simply beautiful with settings turned up high anyway.

Oh, another game I completely forgot to mention on my old PC was Rollercoaster Tycoon. It's such an awesome game that I think it merits going back in my gaming history. Not only did the possibility of sending your guests plummiting to their deaths add some "fun" to the game (I still think the lack of sound after a crash is horrifying) but everything else about it was fun and well thought out. One of the greatest games of all time, surely. RCT3 sucked.

Eventually I got a job and with my first paycheck I bought an Xbox to complete my collection of current gen consoles. I gotta say Microsoft have done a great job with their first console. With it I bought Ninja Gaiden, DoA3 (soon after replaced with the recently released DoA Ultimate), Halo 2, Burnout 3 and Knights of the Old Republic. Some good games there, especially Burnout and Ninja Gaiden.

I think the last console I bought was a PSP. I received it about about 3 months before it was realeased here and for a fraction of the price thanks to eBay. To be honest though, since I got it I have barely played it as much as I thought I would. I think the last time it was actually booted up was the night before I came to DMU, and even then it was only to check that it was still working!

Finally, the last game worth mentioning; World Of Warcraft *cue epic war drums*. This game is awesome. I played it since the beta back in 2004 and then started playing the actual thing in Feb of 2005. Even though I've been playing for this long I've only gotten one character to the top level and haven't even gotten any of the "epic" armour and such. I'm slooooow ^^.
The great thing is though, this doesn't matter! You can take your time or blast through it in a couple of weeks if YOU want to (leave your social life at the gates if you plan on doing this though). The storylines and backgrounds are thought out fantastically and pretty much every NPC has a backstory of somekind. The environments look awesome and add a lot of depth to the game. For example, you have the starting area for humans which is a beautiful castle town surrounded by a peaceful forest, while just across the river is Duskwood, an area tainted by evil and one of the best places in the game to be because of the atmosphere (music, fog, light levels, etc) and the slightly disturbing quests that surround the place.

Anyway, there's about a billion other things I could say about WoW but I don't think it's fair to Mike P so I'm gonna end it here.

Woo, that was fun. Next task please!/


Have a safe ride home y'all!