VIDEO: What the future of video games used to look like

Matt Hawkins Contributing Writer, Video Games

We’re a couple good steps into the 21st century and things are looking… kinda boring. Not just talking about the lack of jet packs, but how futuristic stuff used to look, you know, futuristic. And nowhere is it more evident in video games.

Here’s a video that’s been around for a good while that’s all of a sudden popular again thanks to Kotaku. Not to brag, but I posted this to one of my countless Tumblrs like months ago. Anyway, it’s from Star Rider, a Laserdisc racing game circa 1983, in which all the “space motorcycles” were super imposed on-top of high-end (for the time) computer generated backdrops. Here we have just that, sans gameplay elements…

If someone had to make a futuristic racing game involving outer-space bikes and the like, it would probably have ultra high def graphics, surround sound audio, and intricate and super stylized HUD, silky smooth 60 frames per second animation, ultra detailed vehicles and maybe even drivers, a crazy long draw distance, motion blur, ultra realistic lighting… oh, and look boring as hell. At the very least, like a million other futurist titles these days, it’ll look like Wipeout.

Here’s a trailer for an upcoming WiiWare title called FAST Racing League that got everyone hot bothered upon first reveal…

… Yeah, looks neat. And EXACTLY like Wipeout.

Seems like the better tech gets, the worse… or to be more specific… the blander and more generic the future looks. Take F-Zero X for the N64…

And the GameCube follor-wup, F-Zero GX…

Make no mistake, it doesn’t look horrible per say. And the game plays just great btw. But it just looks kinda “meh”. Seen that, done that.

One of my favorite games of all time has to be the abstract, music based shooter Rez…

It was made in 2001 for the PS2 and looks like how a video game would have turned out if you gave designers from back in the day today’s technology, is how I tend to describe the look and the feel. BTW, the spiritual sequel just came out yesterday, Child of Eden, for the PS3 and also Xbox 360. Here’s how the basic formula looks ten years later and with today’s tech…

Sorry, just not feeling it. At least it doesn’t suffer from the same problem as those contemporary futuristic racers do above, that for sure, and actually comes close to what some Hollywood flick would envision as “a video game that folks would play X numbers of years from now”.

Though, back to racing games, I just wish Rez 2 looks something like this (and upcoming indie title for the PC)…

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