Off on a tangent

It’s been a while since I posted anything. I know, you’ve all been worried sick, probably sent out a blogger Amber Alert, but now I’ve got the blog equivalent of blue balls and I’m going to put all my thoughts of the last few weeks into one article. After your done reading this, I hope you’ll wipe you face, and reflect on my ramblings with a new look at the gaming world.
First off of all, I bought a brand new toy, an Athlon 64 x2 4200+ and GeForce 7800 GTX with 17” screen. I know it’s not perfect, not a quad SLI with 4 GB Ram and a 32” plasma, but it should be fine for right now. Which brings me to my first point, why does a game need 4 GPUs, shouldn’t one be ok? Can the human eye really see the difference between something rendered at regular high def and super high def? How high def does something need to be before it surpasses our ability to notice it? I can say that eventually computers graphics will hit their peak, and hopefully it’s soon because I can only afford an upgrade every eight years or so. (Been crawling along on a MX 420 forever) Hopefully this will push developers to make games that focus on game play and less on graphics. And what is this new physics card, I just spent a ton on a graphics card and now you need a physics card to “Make it Real”, Whatev Ageia. I know that these are all important pieces to the realistic gaming puzzle, but how about a game that can keep you playing for a hundred hours without being tedious or having the first screen say “pick your race, trade and bone structure”. A hundred hours isn’t a bad goal for games that cost 50 to 75 bucks.
I just finished Hitman: Blood Money, and although the game was awesome, had a great story and left the series open (if you play the alternate ending) I uninstalled it immediately after I finished because there is no reason to play it anymore, sure I could play every level on Pro until I get Silent Assassin, but I’ve got a little brother begging for a whooping on Halo 2. I don’t know how they would do a multiplayer version of Hitman, maybe add a co-op, but all the pretty graphics and independent boob physics (way to go DoA) in the world can make up for that voice that says “Running Riot”, and without some kind of multiplayer, games just can’t compete for that long lasting appeal.
This is why I am psyched for Prey demo, which releases tonight on Gamespot at midnight (and isohunt at 12:01), because it looks like it will have an excellent singleplayer as well as a revolutionary multiplayer. The game looks absolutely beautiful from the screen shots and should have some interesting game play with “spirit walking” and the never actually dying “death walk”. And it’s nice to know that the pixel shader 3.0 in my graphics card will finally get used. Hopefully, this will mark one more step towards the summit of the computer graphics Everest.
Although it seems like I don’t care that much about graphics and how realistically rocks act when I throw a grenade at them, I just want developers to make games that look good, but are also innovative, and I can’t wait to see what the Wii is like when it comes out. At first, I wasn’t too sure about the wii-mote, or whatever it’s called, but after seeing the preview for Red Steel, I’m completely convinced. Sure the console won’t support the highest high def, but it also won’t cost an arm and a leg, which is good because I’ll bet that Nintendo is working on left and right arm and leg controllers.
If a GPU could produce completely realistic graphics (including human skin) in real-time, I would buy it, and not only for the inherent “good” 3D pr0n, but until then, I don’t see the difference between 60 fps or 600 fps.