Nov 14, 11:28 PM

What is "next gen?"

How do you know when a game is truly “next generation?” I’ve been playing Gears of War for the past few days, and yes, I will say that it is freaking awesome. But is it next gen?

The graphics are mind-blowing – but is that enough? The folks at Nintendo would say no. GoW has innovative gameplay – the emphasis on using cover and the fact that it is a third person shooter is surely new. But how is that any different than the incremental innovations in games that took place inside the last generation? Does the IP have to be new? I think GoW could defintely spawn a few sequels. Hmm. I would probably consider Gears to be next gen, but a strong case could be made for both sides.

Take the other two flagship games for example: the PS3’s Resistance: Fall of Man and the Wii’s Zelda: Twilight Princess. Resistance (purportedly) has killer graphics and is new IP for the system. But along with Gears, it seems to have a pretty standard story: you are human, you must kill aliens trying to eradicate/enslave human race, and shoot them with cool guns. Is that next gen? Take Twilight Princess – what number Zelda game is this? 53? The graphics don’t look that impressive, but it does have the unique control scheme. And well, it looks like its going to be a vanilla Zelda game: you are Link, you have to go into dungeons and figure out puzzles. Is that really innovative? Is that next gen?

Looking around at the current field of games, can you name any which are clearly next gen?

What is and what isn’t “next gen” isn’t so cut and dry. Maybe the term is even meaningless – even when new systems come out with exponentially better hardware, progress in game development doesn’t really make jumps like that. It just evolves over time, occasionally requiring more powerful hardware for growing room.

-Jon
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