One step forwards, ??? steps back

It has been said that every technical breakthrough has an accompanying downside or set of drawbacks equal in value to the advantages it brings. In some cases it seems that the bad points may even outweigh the goodies (nuclear weapons, trad jazz music) and, believe it or not, this may impact on the future of computer gaming. As technologies become more complex and computers become capable of doing so much more then the programmers who have to use them are going to have to become exponentially more proficient or programming teams exponentially larger in order to keep up with the trend, the way I see things. Companies have got to be very careful: obviously everyone wants to tackle the big projects, the new openings, solve one of the unsolvables of gaming (for example, how many companies have set out attempting to create "a fully integrated realistic world / city / population simulation"?) but these are increasingly likely to be turned down by publishers who have been burned by previous projects which have overrun or gone wildly over budget.

This seems to leave us with the grim prospect of facing endless rehashes of the same worn formulae or and endless run of sequels, remakes and rip-offs (think the Friday 13th Series). Look around even now and truly daring projects are quite hard to find. Those which are being made fall broadly into these categories:

- sequels to existing franchises which have sold well, therefore creating leeway for the creators to experiment a bit more. One fine example of this looks to be Unreal 2 (although admittedly we have only seen screenshots so far - but it is at least breaking new ground in that field) and the even more distant Doom 3 which looks like taking instant gratification to new heights. - Games from pioneering companies who think they can go it alone. Good luck to them, but there must be a limit to how many of these can survive in a competitive market. The company I fear most for is Volition who are making Red Faction, the first game ever to boast completely destructable and deformable scenery throughout its levels. This in itself poses a problem: how do you guide a player through a level or area when he/she can merely destroy it on a whim? -Games a la Black and White which are made by recognised individuals who can create space for their teams to create.

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