The Generation Shift

Gaming goes through generational shifts. With a slew of quality games being released across multiple systems on home consoles, mobile gaming taking off as a legitimate platform in itself and the sheer technological power that is available to utilise for gaming, it’s hard to doubt anybody that states that we have entered a new ‘golden age' of gaming. However, as with all the generations before this one, we have to start looking forward to what is to come in the next generation. It’s hard to imagine what else there is for gaming, as it’s astounding as to what we are doing in the current generation. Well, here are a few things that Gamerspot would personally like to see in the near future.

[Brosy]

There are examples of a couple of the things he mentions already in this generation.

Oblivion and Skyrim both have scaleable difficulty. Notice how there is no "level grinding" to get past more difficult enemies in Oblivion and Skyrim? Thats because you only face enemies that are in your level range. From easy to hard.

And the morality in video games has been explored in the Fable I.P.. It's Lionheads take on morality and it's up to the gamer to decide if they like Lionheads vision. But you certainly change throughout the game and the game world reacts to you according to your deeds.

[daveng88]

Thanks for the points about Skyrim. I did state in the article that I'm wasn't entirely sure about progressive difficulty (especially since I've never played Skyrim or Oblivion), so it is good to see that it's being implemented in some way or form.

I do have to disagree about Fable with the morality system though, since it's a bit flawed in its execution. The point I was trying to get across in the article was that morality needs to have a bit more weight to it, rather than just being 'there'; switching morality is all fine and dandy, but there needs to be some real progress to make it happen, not just donate money to become good again. If it could become more realistic, it would give some real substance to the whole idea of having a moral stance, and require some real thought about in-game decisions. To me, it would be about making it difficult to go back if you stray too far down a path.

Thanks for reading though.

[GenericNameHere]

PLEASE DEPOSIT 40 QUARTERS??!!
Thank goodness I don't live in CapcomWorld!!

[TheDivine]

Brosy has good examples. I love Fable to death but i cant wait to see the idea expanded upon. Like when you can do a quest which causes a bridge to built down the road which leads to a new area. I want more things like this and how the villagers respond to your deeds by hating/fearing or loving you. I also like the idea of scaling difficulty in theory. It would be the perfect challenge for everybody but so far it just removes any real challenge. I love hitting a boss that destroys my ass and makes me devise a good strategy and practice. In skyrim i never got a challenge. There were a few points where i died but never anything truly hard.

[daveng88]

The Fable system is crying out for someone to take to a new level. The framework for a really comprehensive morality and action/consequence system is there; it just needs a push in the right direction.

Progressive difficulty is a bit of an iffy subject, since having that extra challenge as you stated is something that would be counter-productive to the idea of it. Perhaps having scalable difficulty in the main areas of the game, whilst still keeping that fixed ridiculously hard boss/fight would be a good balance between both options? We can all dream...

Thanks for reading.