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1997: A year in Review Part 2

© Dan Finkelstein

DVD is another technology that appeared in 1997, little hyped by computer companies, but rather hyped by movie and home theater companies (Phillips, RCA, Sony, etc.). DVD drives for computers, however, proved to be very, very expensive, and very little software has appeared for them yet. The advantages of the new CD format are obvious: gigabytes of storage, much more than CD-ROMs; Dolby surround sound; movie-quality video. However, unless DVD-ROM's come down in price in 1998, they may have no future in the personal computer industry.

Hardware technologies to look for in 1998: 3D Graphics cards continue to evolve. Look for 3dFx's Voodoo 2 chip which will blow all other competition out of the water. "Re-writable DVD-ROM's" is an interesting but very expensive technology which would allow you to use a DVD drive as a very high capacity hard drive.

Software: While I hate to say it, 1997 looked a lot like 1996 in terms of games. We saw a lot of "clones": Quake clones and Warcraft clones dominated the marketplace. We did see a lot of innovative products, like Shiny's "MDK" and SCI's "Carmageddon." However, like I said in a previous column, the gaming industry seems to be stuck in sequel-fever. While I liked most sequels this year, like "Need for Speed 2," "The Curse of Monkey Island," "Wing Commander: Prophecy," and (of course) "Quake 2" (the last two which could be considered 1998 products), I would like to see more original products and less sequels in 1998.

Software trends to look for: Software developers will still be fascinated with 3D Graphics cards, and there will be two results: first, we will see several low-quality games with 3D effects thrown in, just so the publisher can put the "3D graphics card support" on the box; second, we will also see lots more action games and flight sims, which will be very good and use the new technology well. DVD-ROM's will be nothing more than "Shovelware," just multiple CD-ROM's "shoveled" onto the DVD. This is the same effect we saw when CD-ROM's appeared, and because of DVD's high price, I doubt we'll see anything else. While I'd love to play "Wing Commander 4" on one CD with theater-quality video, I don't think that would make me buy a DVD drive.

So there you are folks — Dan's predictions. I could be wrong, I could be right, who knows . . . . But however you look at it, 1998 is going to be an exciting year in computer gaming, and I'll be there to cover it.

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