Weekend Lounge ~ The Era of Shift

Welcome to the weekend! Let us look at a bizarre subject today, and one of been wanting to put my two cents in on for awhile--a sort of change that almost happened but never did.

The 32-bit console generation of gaming nowadays is usually seen as transitional if not seen as a pale imitation of the one to come right after it. Rarely is it ever considered one of the best these days unless someone grew up with it. There is a reason for that. However, it does contain my personal favorite Sony console, and you will soon see why.

Considered the Fifth Console Generation (though it would be the First Generation if EA had its way), this era has become increasingly controversial over the passage of time, though for many reasons, both valid and not. These days it is rarely anyone's favorite.

One area that was undisputedly a step down from what came before was in sheer performance of the systems themselves. No gen is quite as dated as this one has, and its mostly due to its own short-sighted choices. This is probably what has aged the fifth generation worse than any other before it, and makes it difficult to return to. As far as games that are hard to go back to, this is probably the gen with the most offenders, and it isn't even close.

Before this console generation every single game was expected to be 60fps, unless it had consistent slowdown problems due to mediocre programming or planning. These frames per second helped define gaming as fast-paced and smooth, allowing a feel that perfectly accentuated the arcade roots of the medium even at home.

For the fifth generation, all of that took a hit because everyone wanted shiny 3D graphics before anything else. As a consequence, you would be lucky to have a lot of the games even reach 30 frames per second consistently, never mind 60. This dramatically changed how video games were expected to play because to this day, 60fps has been warped into an unachievable prospect for selfish gamers who are never satiated. In other words, it was excused away so they could see you less for more.

At the same time, the basic technical issues of these consoles were all over the place. PlayStation 1 games were full of texture warping and low res graphics, N64 games were covered in fog and blur, and Saturn games that couldn't even handle transparencies. On top of it, all of them suffered from early 3D problems of camera issues, unsure controls, and games made more as vague sandbox ideas than any idea of traditional arcade play. In just about every way, this is the generation that led us to where we are. For both good and ill, though the good would decay a good bit with the usual entropy and diminishing returns this path was built on.

But there is a hidden part to that transitional era that's been lost amidst the rush for higher tech and even more shiny bells and whistles plastered on top over the years. Even with the change in focus that happened during this time period, there were many who did use the opportunity to use the new tech for the gameplay. You don't hear about these so much because the era was more focused on the graphical arms race that reach a fever pitch (and an incredible low) in the first HD generation two gens later. This was the period where focus on gameplay became lost, leading us to the pit we're in where we are now basically in Gen 7, part 3 . . . or Gen 5, part 5.

What used to define a console generation wasn't just a new system with new bells and whistles, but by the new gameplay styles that were impossible on older tech. Not just in regards to more polygons and enemies on screen, but in the new experiences that could be delved into.

This is the reason why the comedy behind the old "$599 US Dollars" meme in regards to the PlayStation 3 has been lost over time--the system wasn't actually offering anything new at the time when the meme was made. you were just expected to jump in because it was Sony, and the graphics were prettier. That's it.

Now it's just expected new systems will not offer anything except bells and whistles, and you will fork over that $599 US Dollars for a system that gives diminishing returns in exchange for pushing more shiny graphics and nothing else. The industry became the meme and you are expected to consume only a beltline of warmed over and stale seventh gen console games forever. The consoles no longer having creative or unique names should have been the tip off to that.

However, the video at the top of the page is different from all of this. In it, we can see the sparks of an era we could have had instead. There you see a smattering of 60fps PlayStation games, but beyond that almost every single one of them offers gameplay of the like that was not only new at the time, but has never been expanded on in the decades that followed them. This was the path a truly new console generation could have brought us and a path we could have gone down.

It is funny to think of what the industry might be like had the Sega Saturn focused primarily on being a 2D powerhouse, the PS1 on these sorts of new 3D experiences, and Nintendo a balance of both, instead of what they actually did do. The industry would be in a totally different place. Not only that, but the systems all would have aged much better, because it would have been the gameplay that carried them, not the soon-to-be-outdated tech. Everyone could have got what they wanted.

Alas, it wasn't to be!

Regardless, there are plenty of indie and middle market developers now creating their own games and forging their own paths. Perhaps this was all inevitable, but it might have happened much sooner had we not all been suckered in by bells and whistles over what mattered--new gameplay experiences. We should demand more, because ambition should be rewarded over complacency. But that era is over, and now it's up to the smaller guys to lead the way forward.

We need less of whatever tired 2006 rehash with a new coat of paint that nu-Naughty Dog is pumping out and more of this:

That is what I'm talking about! Things are looking up again, and it's about time.

Traverse unfamiliar worlds, fight uncompromising villains, and face magic of the like no one has yet seen before. Full series omnibus now available!