Give 2D a Chance
I've been a 3D gaming geek since it meant "Battlezone" in black & white vector-graphics glory in the arcade. I loved flight simulators, even the primitive ones that ran on the Commodore 64 at two frames per second. I even liked the stepwise pseudo-3D game environments of Wizardry and Bard's Tale. The little mouse-eye-view maze games were fascinating to me. I guess it was the immersion factor, and that feeling that the game world was really (to borrow an overused, embarassing term from the 1990's) virtual reality.

Wing Commander thrilled me in particular because it was much like a game I had imagined creating back in the early 80's, complete with the blocky pixellated graphics. (Yes, back then my imagination was still boxed in by technological limitations, I guess.) The game was just that window into another world I'd been craving for years. I entered some kind of gaming Nirvana and never left. It just kept getting better, with releases like Ultima Underworld (Dungeon exploration with a total "You Are There" feeling! Awesome), Wolfenstein 3D, and of course Doom.

3D was where it was at, and First-Person Perspective was The Way Games Should Be Played.

So here it is, a dozen years since Doom. And I no longer feel that way.

Don't get me wrong. I still like a good 3D game, and I prefer first-person to the "third-person" games that always seem to get the camera hung up on walls or whatever so you can't aim or figure out which way your character is really facing. If you look at the "Game Moments" article list, you'll find that the majority of the most dramatic and wonderful game experiences I recall have been while playing these kinds of games. Falcon 4.0, Ultima Underworld, Rainbow Six, Operation: Flashpoint, Daggerfall... even Forbidden Forest was pseudo-3D.

Once the 3D revolution hit, suddenly 2D games became "only" 2D. Reviewers called the graphics "quaint" and "dated." Consumers refused to purchase such things because the hype said that 3D was newer, and therefore superior to, 2D. Publishers refused to sell 2D games. Console manufacturers (reportedly) started resisting allowing 2D games to be released for their machines. This, in my opinion, was a Bad Thing. When you go that way, you limit your options rather than broadening them.

And the honeymoon is over. The normal-mapped, high-resolution, pixel-shaded, High-Dynamic-Range-Lighted, reflective-surfaced realtime 3D universe has gotten... boring. It's filled with nondescript (if extraordinarily pretty) World War II shooters and sword-swinging hackfests and Grand Theft Auto wannabes. And we've got a bunch of games that would probably have worked really well as a 2D game choking on force-fed 3D design. Practically random camera angles make the real battle one against the controls, not the still-robotic AI. The demands of creating a 3D world have often imposed limitations on what can be done or what would be considered acceptable in a game that didn't exist in 2D.

There are an infinite number 2D game ideas out there that have yet to be discovered, explored, and exploited. Undoubtably, many of them won't suck. Today's technology can even enable some ideas that just couldn't have worked fifteen years ago. In many cases, we can add 3D graphics to 2D gameplay and get the advantages of both.

Fortunately, the rising popularity of casual and indie games - particularly on traditionally "hardcore" platforms like the XBox 360 Live Arcade (and I'm willing to bet they won't be alone in this with upcoming consoles), 2D may be making something of a comeback and regaining acceptance. I'll be cheering it along all the way. It doesn't have to be "retro." It shouldn't have to be about old vs. new. 2D vs. 3D shouldn't be considered a difference in quality at all. It should be about using the best tool for the job - the job in this case making something fun and entertaining for players.

(Oh, yeah, and feel free to click on some of those links on the right to check out a mix of 2D and 3D indie games. I can't guarantee you'll be blown away, but I can guarantee there isn't a World War II FPS among them!)

Labels: Game Design, retro

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:36 AM (Permalink)