3d vs. 2d? I don't think so!

Games and Politics: Make Your Choice

"3-D" vs. "2-D?" I Don't Think So!!!

When I began Games and Politics I had a very specific reason. It was to fight certain authoritarian elements, both within and outside the government, who wanted to suppress freedom of speech in the video and computer gaming industries. However, this fight is becoming irrelevant. I find that the actions of the people who control these industries are destroying the art of video gaming just as much as a censor's knife would.

The problems within the gaming industries are many and varied, however, I am going to talk about the one that urks me the most. This is the current marketing of polygon based games as "3-D" and the denigration of sprite based games as "2-D." This is complete nonsense, of course, polygon games are not "3-D" they are "2-D." Yes, so are sprite based games, but polygon games sure aren't "3-D."

So, where does this come from? Marketing, like politics, operates by manipulating language. It's kind of tough to fool a person's eyes into thinking that ugly, blocky polygons are as beautifully detailed as sprite graphics. Take any SNK/Capcom sprite based fighter and compare it to any polygon fighter. No matter how much work is done on the polygons, they still won't look as detailed or attractive as the sprites. So what are the advantages of polygons? I'll be honest with you, to my mind there aren't any, but I suppose what a marketeer would tell you is that they can move on multiple axises. That's where the "3-D" concept comes from, but to me, there are problems with it. For one thing, I object to giving up beauty and detail for supposed access to another axis of movement. For another thing, though, I have yet to see a game where access to this other access of movement has been some huge improvement. Look at the Tekken series. I'll admit to liking the Tekken series, though not as much as Samurai Spirits or Darkstalkers. But are any of the Tekken games, even Tekken III really fought in "3-D?" I'd say no more than the early Fatal Fury games which had a second track to let you sidestep blows. The "3-D" is an interesting visual gimmick, and helps to distinguish the Tekken games from other fighting games, but it doesn't make it superior, just different. However, what the marketing departments of Sony, Nintendo, and Sega would have us believe is that Soul Blade is better than Last Blade (you won't see it unless you import), which simply is not true! My opinion is that both in looks and play control, Last Blade beats Soul Blade, though I think I like Soul Blade's story and music better.

Unfortunately, it is not only fighting games that this is happening to, all types of games are being polygonized. They are being polygonized for the sake of polygonization, not because it adds to the game. I defy anyone to tell me that the N64 Castlevania games are better, or even as good as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I'd like someone to tell me why, after years of fans begging for a sequel to the classic Ninja Gaiden series, that Tecmo thinks that what the fans have been crying for all these years is "yet another Tomb Rader clone?"

Actually, I believe I have the answer to these questions, and to understand this we need to return to the horrors of an earlier era in video gaming. I refer of course to the era when CD-ROMs first appeared as a format for video games, the era of full motion video games. Nobody wanted full motion video games. Games like Night Trap, Sherlock Holmes and Make Your Own Music Video are not classic examples of the video game maker's art. They are forgettable and irritating early example of VCD with some limited interactive content. These types of games began with Dragon's Lair and seemed to have ended. If you remember Dragon's Lair you'll remember it looked great... but it was hardly a game. However, while Dragon's Lair will always have fans of the art and animation present in the game, most of these types of games are of little note. They did not sell very well to home users, and yet the game companies continued to make them and market them. Why?

The answer is technology. The advantage of using CDs to store games as opposed to cartridges is simply that CDs could store more information more cheaply than a cartridge. Unfortunately, this is a tough sell, especially if you intend to charge the same amount for CDs as you did for cartridges. You have to try to prove that CDs are going to allow you to make superior games than cartridges, and you do that by showing off what CDs can do that cartridges can't. One of the few things that works is full motion video. I mean, honestly, the Lunar series for SegaCD is a great game series, but except for the anime cut scenes and music, they could just as easily have been Super NES games. No, what we had was technology pushing the types of games that were being made and lots of money wasted by Sega and 3DO on games that no one really wanted to buy.

We are in that situation again. Despite the fact that people are more comfortable controlling things in two dimensions, especially considering all they are allowed to use is their thumbs, the ability to move on a third axis is considered a great technological step forward for gaming platforms. The fact that, in truth, this third axis is rarely used is a testament to how people actually play games. It's sort of like the "3-D" chess game on 1960's Star Trek series. I'm sure they put it on the series because it seemed more advanced, but chess is still chess and checkers is still checkers... "two-dimensional" games, which don't make use of the z-axis. Why? Because adding a z-axis wouldn't make the games more fun!!

There are a few games, in which limited use of the z-axis is a benefit. Most games, however, simply limit the gamers use of one of the axises to avoid making the game nearly impossible to control and allow it to still be fun (Resident Evil for example). There is no good gameplay-based reason to abandon the classic side scroller format OR sprite based graphics. Gaming is falling victim to marketing, and for this reason, games like the Rockman Complete series are denied to the American market and limited in the Japanese market. It is a shame when Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden are forced to resemble Tomb Raider when the only reason is to prove how great a NextGen system is at crunching numbers to make polygons without adding any gameplay or fun element. I won't even get into the question of why games like Final Fantasy, turn based RPGs, use ugly polygon for their graphics when movement does not even operate in real time (and therefore just as beautiful, "3-D," visual effects could theoretically be done using sprites).

I will say this, the main reason I didn't buy a N64 was the appearance of it's games and the fact that I couldn't "get into" controlling them. It seems to me that all modern systems are headed toward ugly polygons and no play benefit, so I see no reason to buy any of the next generation consoles. Do you?

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