Playing Around
The year may have barely began, but it's already offering a sneak peek at what interactive entertainment will mean tomorrow

Your Future Awaits Rodrigo.Esper (CC Licensed)

Welcome to 2009. We have seen the future of gaming, and it looks a lot like its for your mother, grandfather and ADD-afflicted pals. Cheerfully, there's still hope for hardcore PC and console enthusiasts. It just doesn’t come in a shiny, shrink-wrapped retail box.

Expanding the medium’s reach to include women and seniors, Nintendo's family-friendly DS and Wii systems continue to dominate hardware sales. To meet demand this year, publishers will focus even more heavily on mainstream titles from Grey’s Anatomy to Wii Fit-inspired workout simulation EA Sports Active. Championing socialization and community, free-to-play massively-multiplayer online universes targeted at teens, tweens and social butterflies like Habbo Hotel and zOMG!

are expected to fast outpace traditional offerings’ popularity too. Even next-gen console manufacturers are keen to tap the market, predicted to top $13 billion by 2011 by analyst group DFC Intelligence. See Sony’s new PlayStation Home cyberspace realm, and Microsoft’s Avatars, which join Nintendo’s Mii virtual alter-egos online.

Courtesy of increasing interest in user-generated content, tomorrow’s next superstar designer is also staring you right back in the mirror. What LittleBigPlanet and Spore started (by making it simple and intuitive to build and share original game types and evolvable creatures) titles like Skate 2 and LEGO Universe continue. The former allows aspiring Tony Hawks to assemble and swap custom obstacle courses. The latter, encourages submissions of brick-based designs via its Web site for possible digital inclusion by developer NetDevil in the online realm.

Never mind upcoming high-profile, DVD or Blu-ray based titles like Halo Wars and Street Fighter IV either. Digital is this year’s watchword, as innovative Internet-only offerings like PlayStation Network’s Flower—where you play the wind, blowing floating petals across verdant plains—take top billing. Thanks to downloadable custom level editors and expansions, yesterday’s bestsellers are also promised second winds. See Fallout 3, presently benefiting from the free G.E.C.K. toolkit, which lets fans create new adventures and in-game objects. It’s also receiving three online add-ons (Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt and Broken Steel), one per month, respectively, from January-March. Grand Theft Auto IV's downloadable episode “The Lost and Damned” arrives for the Xbox 360 on February 17. Casual portals like BigFishGames.com and MSN Games, and mobile platforms like the iPhone, whose App Store boasts over 3,000 digital diversions, will also heighten interest in value-priced, on-demand delivery.

For software makers and enthusiasts, the rules of the game are quickly changing. That means for us, the desktop computer- and HDTV-huddled masses, there’s never been a better time to come out and play.

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10 Comments

I hope we are not totally inundated with family games 0.o
At least Fallout 3 has the G.E.C.K. The most powerful game editor I have ever used. Mods are what make games last (just look at Oblivion and Morowind)

down.artem

from Readfield, Maine

B.I.T.

Some games are pretty good but I want to play some hard-core games like Fallout 3 and Halo 3 and Gears 2 instead of some of the wii games

Blinding Light64

from cairo, N.Y.

Honestly they need to figure out how to create a game that really incorporates multiple genres and keeps the player interested even after you complete the game

Blinding Light64

from cairo, N.Y.

Halo 3 Rocks also the graphics compared to other games is stunning

I would like to correct the author about Halo Wars in the fact that it isn't in Blu-Ray format because it is a Xbox 360 exclusive game and the Xbox 360 doesn't support the Blu-Ray format. He is right about Street Fighter IV though.

The wii is fun games to play like my favorites super mario galaxy mario kart wii and if you want a hard core games for the wii there is mad world and the conduit.

Mods are what either make or break a game. Like speedy b said, but sometimes backwards like with Sonic Adventure Battle 2, >.<

REVENANT REPUBLICAN = REDNECK OF THE FUTURE

See, there is a hard thing, making a game with replay value, or the thing that makes you want to play the game over and over again.

And I would like to correct Blinding Light64. They did make a high-replay-value game: Halo: Combat Evolved.

Now, many people just say the graphichs suck, that's why they hate the game, but modern games do exactly the opposite: They induce the best graphics to awe the player, but after a few plays, the game gets boring. Secondly, the game was made in 2001; of course it has bad graphics.

Making any game with good replay value is fairly simple; but modern game makers do not incorporate this any more. A game with good replay value would be one where there are countless hidden delights; a game that, every time you play it, you discover something new; a game that, in a way, is infinite.

I LIKE GAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who are the "they" that need to create the games that you want. I found a tutorial that shows me how to create my own games in about an hour at www.juniorgamemaker.com. It uses drag and drop. No programming necessary, until you want to get advanced.

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