IcyCalm is making a game..

[Ed Oscuro]

Okay. Now, out of the games that are being developed in 3D, how many of those are substantially more complex than the most complex 2D games?

These questions are not intended to be tricky - they're just intended to show that the limitations on games have more to do with people, than with the "possibilities" of 2D and 3D.

In terms of content, there have been very strong genre trends. (Many) people like games about fighting or blowing things up. It's rather predictable.

And, as I said earlier, people are somewhat limited in the kinds of things they can mentally deal with at once. At best we can say that a substantial part of 3D games using 3D capabilities has little to do with core gameplay, and more to do with ornamentation. But even if we say that 3D games do something inherently more complex than 2D games, the question comes down to whether this is an addition to, or a distraction from, the kinds of things the game may focus on.

Finally, while I would say that I'm probably like quash in that I spend more time with 3D (ish) games, there's no denying many people enjoy 2D games more. So all this talk about "better" is trading in abstract generalizations that don't mean much. As nasty_wolverine said, 2D content is alive and kicking still.

[quash]

These questions are not intended to be tricky - they're just intended to show that the limitations on games have more to do with people, than with the "possibilities" of 2D and 3D.

While there is definitely truth to this, it's still hard to deny that you have more creative control once you start working in 3D. Sometimes that degree of control isn't necessary to make a good game, but most of the time it is. STG, again, find themselves being an exception to the rule.

I will forever maintain that 3D STG could have been an amazing genre, had it been given a bit more time to flourish. As it stands, we have a handful of games that while not perfect by any means, are still damn good and showed admirable ambition. They probably wouldn't have entirely replaced 2D STG (since the experience they offer are distinctly different), but it would have given us more kick ass games to play.

So all this talk about "better" is trading in abstract generalizations that don't mean much.

Clearly (and I mean I really hope to God nobody read it as this), I was never saying that being 2D automatically makes a game inferior or vice versa. What I have been saying is that 3D offers much more creative freedom to developers. Hence, it's better in that it allows for more kinds of games to be made; even 2D ones.

As nasty_wolverine said, 2D content is alive and kicking still.

Are we really counting mobile shovelware as content now? Is that how low the mighty have fallen?

[ciox]

If any one of the options could win you the match or just secure some sort of advantage, they're meaningful - in any meaningful sense of the word meaningful.

Bull. Suppose I have a free punish and the opponent has no life left. The option of pressing HP will win the match. The option of pressing HK will win the match. The option of pressing MK will win the match. Three different options that all secure an advantage. That add up to a grand total of one meaningful option.

This isn't always true.
In games with power meters you should always use the finishing move or combothat gives the most meter for the next round.

[Skykid]

Multiquote Mayhem Commencing.

I had to make the distinction in case some asshole tried to point out that 2D fighters have had sidesteps in the past, ignoring the fact that switching between planes in 2D doesn't even begin to approach what 3D fighters have to offer on that front.

KOF's roll has been providing tactile and strategic depth in the game since 1997.

Oh man, I hate to break it to you, but arcades have been dead for a while.

Exactly what I was going to say. How on earth can someone use arcades as a litmus for the current affairs of videogaming? Ridiculous. As Wolverine pointed out, smartphone gaming is the largest market, with a majority of 2D titles being the most successful.

Hideo Kojima

Lol

2001 doesn't have shit on Blade Runner.

I love Blade Runner and I'm embarassed for you. Arguing gaming is one thing, arguing with ignorance is another entirely.

Those have been the basis of the mecha arena fighter genre since the begining, just play VO, Zoids Infinity or any game of the Gundam VS series and you will see they all have the same "problems" you are pointing out. Why changing the mechanics of a winner formula?

I know, I was playing VO in arcades since release. And you're almost right: you can't change the mechanics of the formula, that's why it's remained so similar ever since. Doesn't mean that the limitations presented by 3D cameras and peripheral obsfucation aren't relevant when the designer has to develop a formula that works. That's his primary battle.

But Cripes, quash, if you don't like 2D games, what on Earth are you doing here?

Quash has no real education in 2D games. He hasn't has the kind of experience with 2D catalogues that many pre-PlayStation (or in his case, pre-Dreamcast) gamers had while growing up. So essentially he's arguing about what he knows, and frustratingly, what he doesn't know. Which kind of explains the cyclical nature of the argument.

To summarise his position on his behalf:

I miss Insomnia. I miss digging through reviews of arcade games I'd only previously heard about.

Virtua Tennis was my shit growing up

I suck ass at shooters

So I'd wager, aside from being a dedicated Guilty Gear player, he's not really qualified to discuss the merits of 2D as a gaming medium.

like the part of the thread where Wolverine pointed out that there's financial success in 2D even to this day, and for his trouble all he got was a lame t-shirt.

I think everyone took stock of the message bar one.

There's a quote from Yu Suzuki that pertains to this subject specifically, but I can't find it at the moment. He basically said that he's always conceptualized his games in 3D, and that working within the limitations of 2D hardware was always a challenge for him and his team. If someone else could find it, that'd be great.

Isn't that completely self-explanitory?

Are we really counting mobile shovelware as content now? Is that how low the mighty have fallen?

You're counting arcades as content, except arcades don't make any money.

I will forever maintain that 3D STG could have been an amazing genre, had it been given a bit more time to flourish. As it stands, we have a handful of games that while not perfect by any means, are still damn good and showed admirable ambition.

Can you tell me what these are?

[Some-Mist]

I will forever maintain that 3D STG could have been an amazing genre, had it been given a bit more time to flourish. As it stands, we have a handful of games that while not perfect by any means, are still damn good and showed admirable ambition.

Can you tell me what these are?

I listed one earlier in the thread even though I'm not sure that's what he was getting at:

drunken robot pornography which is a 3D bullet hell/first-person hybrid.

[Ed Oscuro]

These questions are not intended to be tricky - they're just intended to show that the limitations on games have more to do with people, than with the "possibilities" of 2D and 3D.

While there is definitely truth to this, it's still hard to deny that you have more creative control once you start working in 3D.

At the cost of more complexity. I can't begin to count how many 3D games I've broken by just jumping around in places the developers didn't think to check (and this can even apply to games like DOOM, if you just use a source port that enables jumping). It is much easier to button down a 2D game. And this is just one example of an area where 3D comes with a tradeoff - TANSTAAFL.

But you really miss my point if you have to cycle back to "you can do more." Well, so what? That "doing more" has to be in search of a concrete purpose. And one finds that each style of presenting a game comes with its own limitations. Of course, in purely geometric terms, 3D subsumes the entire dimension of 2D. Whether it's artificial or intentional, restrictions are helpful. Though we don't think of them as being exactly alike, we know that the fixed screen-relative-to-avatar of a 2D sidescroller or shmup is useful. In your "more possibilities" 3D space, we still don't just arbitrarily remove limits, either.

And some of these limitations directly influence gameplay. It is much simpler to structure a 2D scene so that even large changes to the camera window - its positioning, its field of view, even quasi-3D effects - aren't so likely to disorient the player. On the other hand, it's hard to make a 3D camera that doesn't offer a lot of opportunities for disorienting the player. Just the ability to cram all the relevant information in one 2D frame is relevant in many genres, while 3D games have often been designed with cameras and gameplay elements that can obscure many elements. In some genres, this directly feeds into the game - in others, attempting to use certain techniques is a hindrance.

The 2D and 3D distinction really isn't that meaningful, and broke down even before the appearance of 3D hardware for gaming - unless we want to count psuedo-3D effects and scaling as 3D hardware! We can always point out areas where games use different techniques that don't seem to fit with the view projection style suggested by the hardware platform. There's Top Gun on the NES. We have 3D-rendered games that use depth only for shading and priority, and we have games that are actually rendered in 2D which use only a handful of effects to give a 3D appearance (classic example is the bombing run in the first stage of Contra III).

drunken robot pornography which is a 3D bullet hell/first-person hybrid.

The bullet hell/fps hybrid suggestion seems like the classic case of completely ignoring the limitations of a perspective.

DOOM sometimes has moments like this, when there's projectiles flying around. But if somebody attempted to literally translate even one of the easier Cave (even Toaplan) boss fights to a FPS perspective, the more difficult depth perception would be far harder to overcome.

[quash]

Quash has no real education in 2D games. He hasn't has the kind of experience with 2D catalogues that many pre-PlayStation (or in his case, pre-Dreamcast) gamers had while growing up. So essentially he's arguing about what he knows, and frustratingly, what he doesn't know. Which kind of explains the cyclical nature of the argument.

Quite presumptious, don't you think?

I don't like flexing e-cred, but I've been playing games for about as long as I've been out of the womb. My family had a PC and three consoles before the 32 bit era even started, and when we did get our first 32 bit console it was the Saturn, not the PS1.

The first games I ever played were 2D, and I continued to play 2D games well into adulthood. I don't think me liking Virtua Tennis when I was younger or not playing Japan only arcade games until years after their release is enough to infer my history with games.

Points for trying, though.

So I'd wager, aside from being a dedicated Guilty Gear player, he's not really qualified to discuss the merits of 2D as a gaming medium.

Allow me to translate:

So I'd wager, aside from being more well versed in the most complex 2D genre than I, he's not really qualified to discuss the merits of 2D gaming as a medium.

Isn't that completely self-explanitory?

It is. That you continue to miss the point even after it's made so clearly is beyond me.

Can you tell me what these are?

The Panzer Dragoons, Gunvalkyrie, and Sin and Punishment. Not in order of how good they are, mind you.

[Skykid]

Quite presumptious, don't you think?

Perhaps, but it's based on your obvious misunderstanding of the arguments put forward by nearly every person who's engaged you on this thread, and your continued blindness to the harmonious co-existence and continuing possibility available in both 2D and 3D formats.

So many people have rationally explained the benefits of 2D over 3D and vise versa, and what it is that 3D still struggles to overcome (see System11's recent input) I don't know why it hasn't gone in yet. At this stage I'm just assuming it won't, and you're partially continuing the debate to save face.

So I'd wager, aside from being more well versed in the most complex 2D genre than I, he's not really qualified to discuss the merits of 2D gaming as a medium.

You mean Guilty Gear? I don't like Arc System's FG's because they're overly complex - but that's a discussion we were actually in the middle of when you went back and restarted a previous sub-topic that ended on page 14. But then complexity is relative to your thinking and ability, or lack thereof. You can play Guilty Gear, can you 100% chain a stage in DDP DOJ?

I'm a long-term KOF player, as an aside.

It is. That you continue to miss the point even after it's made so clearly is beyond me.

No, you missed and continue to miss the point. Suzuki wanted to make 3D games but only had 2D sprite scaling hardware. You're saying the limitations of his imagination would have been lifted if he had the power to process millions of polygons? Why? The games would be the same, he's just saying they would have been easier to build because they're 3D concepts. Have you played After Burner Climax? Where's the revolution in Space Harrier style games afforded by today's 3D technology? Doesn't exactly have its own subgenre.

The Panzer Dragoons, Gunvalkyrie, and Sin and Punishment. Not in order of how good they are, mind you.

You consider these to be a form of 3D STG? Perhaps you need to play some more STGs.
They're a completely different genre, more akin to on-rails crosshair shooters, like an evolution of Operation Wolf, Space Harrier et al. The on-rails aspects are necessary to avoid complications created by free camera operation in a 3D environment. PD's four angles of rotation are static and linear and paced to allow the player to react to radar objects; S&P is basically a shooting gallery with bells and whistles. Like Rez, we don't have any of these games featured in the shmups chat section because they're not on the same general lines as STGs - the player requirements are very different.

I thought you were going to roll out Silpheed or something.

[KAI]

GG isn't complex at all, it's just that the mechanics are nazi as fuck.

[Some-Mist]

The bullet hell/fps hybrid suggestion seems like the classic case of completely ignoring the limitations of a perspective.

DOOM sometimes has moments like this, when there's projectiles flying around. But if somebody attempted to literally translate even one of the easier Cave (even Toaplan) boss fights to a FPS perspective, the more difficult depth perception would be far harder to overcome.

I get what you're saying, I just think it's the closest example of what's being discussed. I don't think you could make a 3D version that's superior to the 2D original, but I think it would still be interesting and somewhat possible.

on a 3D plane I can imagine maneuvering through bullets as you would strafe through tiny openings in team fortress classic conc jumps, but instead of physical walls... it's actual moving bullet spreads.

far-fetched concept and really no market for it, but I hope we get to see something along the lines of a 3D shmup in the future.

edit: sort of like suwako-chan cubed which is a shmup on a 3D plane (which I just found out about because of tain on GAF lol).

[Skykid]

GG isn't complex at all, it's just that the mechanics are nazi as fuck.

Graduating from SF and KOF I find them complex. I persevered with Guilty Gear several times and even moreso with Blazblue, but they're just not for me. I prefer the Zero 2s and 98's, but I'm not taking anything away from the games.

Even though it's broken I think Hokuto no Ken is my favourite Arcsys FG, just because it's HnK.

[Udderdude]

.

[shmuppyLove]

If Nintendo made a 2D/3D hybrid Metroid game I'd be all over that.

Wasn't that Other M?

http://youtu.be/2wUpZL8ybkg

[Volteccer_Jack]

GG/BB sort of play up the idea of too many choices. Lots and lots of decisions that mean little or nothing by themselves but are used to obfuscate the decisions that actually matter. Which would be great, but GG has the entirely unrelated problem of being fucking terrible.

Here's an interesting video I just watched talking about 2D vs. 3D mechanics in the Sonic franchise and the dangers of increasing complexity in gameplay:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW-nMRZGpgA

It's always weird to see a guy saying intelligent things and then turn around and forget all of them literally in a matter of minutes. Modern Sonic being awful has nothing to do with 2D vs 3D, it's entirely down to level design and physics. The health bar in 3D Mario is irrelevant (and it's not like 2D Mario isn't ridiculously generous with power ups, lives, and checkpoints). The decreased emphasis on platforming is the biggest problem with 3D Mario; anybody who lists Bob-Omb Battlefield as their favorite stage has obviously not played any other level in the entire fucking game. The best parts of 3D Mario are the best for exactly the same reasons as the best parts of 2D Mario: a rapid series of interlinked challenges with appropriately balanced difficulty and pacing. Sonic Adventure is light-years ahead of any other 3D Sonic game in quality, btw. Still sucks, but at least it was trying. After that, they just gave up. The fact that R and 3D Blast are better than any Sonic game made in the last 15 years is depressing.

This talk about 3D games needing to be forgiving is nonsense. The best of the best 2D games are all plenty forgiving, and there are plenty of stupidly precise speedruns of 3D games.

the limitations on games have more to do with people, than

Obviously. We're not talking about controlling every member of the Justice League simultaneously in five-dimensional space though. We're talking about things that are perfectly reasonable and already exist in games, even if most games waste the potential (90% of something is crap! If only such a phenomenon could have been predicted ).

If any one of the options could win you the match or just secure some sort of advantage, they're meaningful - in any meaningful sense of the word meaningful.

Bull. Suppose I have a free punish and the opponent has no life left. The option of pressing HP will win the match. The option of pressing HK will win the match. The option of pressing MK will win the match. Three different options that all secure an advantage. That add up to a grand total of one meaningful option.

This isn't always true.
In games with power meters you should always use the finishing move or combothat gives the most meter for the next round.

Fair enough, though in that case it's still only very minorly meaningful. The point I was trying to make is that being useful does not make an option meaningful. In a given situation, it's likely that most of your meaningful choices are also bad choices. Indeed, your ultimate goal is to force situations that allow you to coast by without thought while the other player makes meaningful choices.

[Randorama]

I'm expecting many old faces to come out of retirement for this one.

I am reading, I am reading...

btw, come over to ST, not SF: beer may cost 18$ a pint, but you get the Rando for free...at least until 2015 (!).
Then it's either HK, OS or whatever else I will find.

[GaijinPunch]

Where is ST?

Not sure how realistic SF is without resetting my career to a certain extent, which I'm not exactly excited about.

[Ko.oS]

ST = scandinavian triangle

Spoiler

or stockholm more likely (: which is rather icy at times...

[GaijinPunch]

Ah, cool.
Yeah, Europe would be fun, but it's out.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

DOOM sometimes has moments like this, when there's projectiles flying around. But if somebody attempted to literally translate even one of the easier Cave (even Toaplan) boss fights to a FPS perspective, the more difficult depth perception would be far harder to overcome.

It's not impossible though. Descent, an FPS that came out a year after DOOM, gets very full of bullets when fighting enemies, and dodging is still very possible in a full 3D environment. You design the attacks to work more with the perspective though (mostly aimed shots or ones that are fun to dodge even when visibility is hindered by seeing the bullets travelling at you.

There was another 3D Touhou game that works more like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liNIhKxZslc

[Udderdude]

.

[ACSeraph]

I'd been saving the past couple pages of this thread for a boring day at the office. But, in the end there were so many stupid comments (especially regarding FG) that now I have a headache.

Except for... all the things I've pointed out that are impossible to do in 2D? And then some?

Well, that impossibility helped brew some solid mechanics in the past. Isnt a video game more about mechanics and rules and limitations, then freedom to do stuff. Its like in football you have the ability to hold down the goalkeeper, while your team mate scores a goal, perfectly possible isnt it. But suddenly it isnt football anymore. It becomes a brawl. Rules and Limitations are what makes a game a game, not freedom to do whatever. Its the creativity to bend the rules that makes a game fun.

This is the true core of gaming Philosophy. Right here. The 3D superiorty Icy and his followers are arguing for has nothing to do with games. It has to do with interactive experiences. They are just too stupid to realize that games and virtual realities aren't necessarily the same thing.

Silent Hill 2 is a beautiful experience with a shitty game ducktaped to it. It would lose most if not all of its charm if it were 2D, but that's not because the gameplay would suffer, it's because the experience was what it was all about in the first place. Icy was too much of a scrub for hardcore gaming, so he simply twisted the term and began spouting "philosophy" about interactive artwork instead.

I'm not saying that experiences are inferior to games at all, but it's important for the superiority argument to understand that they really arent the same thing. Stricty looking at gameplay possibilities, 3D and 2D offer totally different sets of possibilities and limitations. The death of 2D in my eyes has more to do with modern players favoring experiences over actual games. As for the argument of 2D (STGs in particular) reaching their mechanical upper limits, I would argue that it's really just that they perfected a specific style of game and there's no reason to change it. 2D had what, 20 years head start on 3D? The "possibilities" you see in 3D are just areas for improvement. A product of the developers not yet stumbling upon the perfect formula for given genres. It doesn't mean the upper gameplay limits don't exist.

[Pretas]

Silent Hill 2 is a beautiful experience with a shitty game ducktaped to it.

But if you took out that game, you wouldn't have that "experience." You'd have just another movie. The mechanics, narrative and atmosphere are all integral to forming the whole of SH2.

[Ed Oscuro]

It's not Silent Hill, but I just spent ~15 minutes going though a "spooky devil with a long neck, and your flashlight!" mod for HL2, called "Inwards" (Release Candidate 2). So the game manages to tell a vaguely interesting story through a number of pieces of paper on the ground, and a few semi-cutscene-like-things. But there's really no gameplay to speak of. Yet the thing wasn't bad.

It is too bad that many people tend to use the word (I've been guilty of this as well) "experience" only to mean "things besides gameplay." Gameplay is experience-forming. Story is experience-forming. You can just about always improve either of these aspects, and while you certainly destroy the whole when you remove one portion of that experience, expanding on one portion of what goes into forming an experience can improve the whole thing. We don't have a response to experience based on simple addition; many games are strong in one department and weak in another, and yet far more memorable than many "good enough" titles. A near corollary of this is that you can also destroy an experience by altering one portion of the experience without considering the whole.

So in short, if SH2 (which I haven't played) gameplay mechanics carefully dovetail with the experience the developers try to bring, so that it can't be easily "upgraded" without harming the overall experience. I'm a bit skeptical of this overall, but when I played SH 4, or any classic Resident Evil / Dino Crisis title, the limitations certainly influence the pacing (and in these cases, lengthen the window for appreciating subtle details that might have been lost in free-roaming, sprint-enabled titles).

I think that people spend too much time trying to find concrete, eluctable and paraphrasable lessons for sharing with others from games - but certainly I think that SH would "say" something different if its combat was more like Dark Souls, or even if it was like Cry of Fear. In that last case, the ability of the player character with lots of combat options in a HL engine game to tear through everything has to be jarringly negated by cutscenes (and games that do this generally leave a sour feeling, SH feels contemplative by comparison); my feeling in SH was that the atmosphere, more than any of the "I got startled and forgot to shoot" cutscenes in Resident Evil games, tend to explain away your avatar's weaknesses more effectively.

[ACSeraph]

I think you're misunderstanding a little what I mean. I'm not saying that the gameplay is wholly separate from experience, I'm saying that having gameplay doesn't make it a game. In Silent Hill's case the gameplay is merely interactivity with the possibility of failure. It's purpose is to facilitate the sense of fear and loneliness experienced by the main character. To help you relate to him on a deeper level than a movie would have been able to. It's a beautiful thing but it's not a game.

Let me give you an example to illustrate what separates a game from an interactive experience. Before it was mentioned that 2D shmups have more or less hit their plateau in terms of basic game mechanics and technological complexity. But despite not really offering new experiences, we still can get a lot of enjoyment out of each new release. The new level design, scoring systems, and mechanics are enough to satisfy us even though at a basic level SDOJ really isn't so different from DonPachi.

But then lets take a look at Call of Duty (single player campaign only, multiplayer is a different beast). When I (and many others I'm sure) first played Call of Duty 2, I was blown away by the experience. I felt by the end of it that I had experienced war. Death and chaos surrounded me. It was an incredible experience I'll never forget, and I don't think for a second that experience could have ever happened within the confines of 2D. Due to it's success Call of Duty kept pushing forward with that same basic formula plus tweaks for the next 9 years. But now almost a decade later I don't have a single fuck to give about whatever new Call of Duty is on the way. Why is that? Why can shmups follow the same formula and never cease to delight while Call of Duty grew stale so fast?

I'll tell you why. It's not because Call of Duty is bad at what it does or it has lost it's edge, it's because CoD and shmups were fundamentally different things in the first place. While shmups certainly have a degree of "experience" attached to them, at their core they are games. Challenges to be overcome and mastered. Call of Duty had gameplay, but it wasn't a game, it was an interactive experience of war. But unlike gameplay you can't just keep giving people the same basic experience over and over and only change the surroundings and layout. Call of Duty, in 2014, is the same experience it was in 2005. What has changed is the level design and the scenery, but those are gameplay changes, not changes to the experience itself. Given that it wasn't really a game in the first place it shouldn't surprise anyone that no one gives a shit anymore. In order for that series to evolve, it's the characters, the writing, the emotional experience that has to move forward, not the gameplay. The gameplay is only a tool to facilitate that.

Anyhow the point of all this is that for the most part I would agree there are more possibilities for new experiences within 3D design. But does that make for superior games? Not necessarily. Great games are born from the goals, limitations, and challenges, placed before the player, and as nasty_wolverine wrote, those limitations and rules are an important part of what makes a game worth playing rather than experiencing. There's no reasonable argument why the possibilities and limitations of 3D are superior to those of 2D in all cases when discussing pure gameplay.

[Squire Grooktook]

*claps for AcSerspah*

[Skykid]

*claps for AcSerspah*

Seconded.

And this will be the Nth time the same point has been delivered, now with another completely logical angle.

Do I expect that to change the minds of Icy's zealots but a jot? Fuck no. But then irrational and stupid has always been a tough combination to crack.

[BIL]

posts

beautiful posts ;-;

[Imhotep]

I can't for myself separate games and interactive experiences, as I feel attracted to both out of the same reason.

I don't care much for the 3D/2D battle. Men finds interesting things when exploring new possibilities and pushing limits. At the same time, I find 2D still very feasible today for economical reasons (manpower, hardware) and I'm getting kicks out of Phoenix Wright at the moment.

[Xyga]

Wow, replace 'games' with 'girls' and this thread becomes very funny. Or creepy.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Wow, replace 'games' with 'girls' and this thread becomes very funny. Or creepy.

2D would still be better.