betED.com - The View from the Couch - by Gavin McDougald!
- Peering into the future?
Covering sports way back into the last century, I?ve seen some pretty radical changes in this wonderful world over the years. It?s changed so much so, there isn?t even a ?wonderful world of sports? anymore. ABC sports ceased to exist last week, replaced by its little brother that could, ESPN.
So, glancing around this ever changing, online betting and poker obsessed, X-Gamed sporting environment, it?s good to ask occasionally, what?s next?
Perhaps two recent technological introductions are harbingers of what?s to come, and if they are, it?s gonna be pretty frikin? cool!
The first is an update on a classic, but a revolutionary update. Selling more than 51 million copies since 1989, Madden Football is one of the largest sports video game franchises.
This latest incarnation however is something special.
Madden NFL ?07 has the best graphics in the industry, and they?ve added some depth to the regular smash-mouth content. John Madden's voice is there and he?d recommend that you run instead of pass, as some of the game's best running backs, like coverboy Shaun Alexander, bowl over linebackers with stiff arms. Instead of controlling the runners, this version adds a cool new feature called "Lead Blocker Controls." For whatever reason it?s more satisfying enabling a great run than actually controlling that run.
There is some weird stuff like the ability to create your own players ? and I?m not talking about simply cobbling together assorted skill sets. You pick a player?s parents in an almost perverted sports Eugenics project. You cycle through sets of possible breeders establishing the perfect match with each ?coupling? producing a different position. (That?s the player position, i.e., running back, wide receiver etc. Not the other kind. There is no actual sex acts portrayed in the game, that I could find anyway. And I did look an awfully along time.)
In the ?07 version of the game, the playing field actually degrades the longer you play thanks to 3D grass. They?ve even introduced hair physics, I guess specifically for Troy Polamalu, because ever time he sticks someone; his hair does this funky move thing.
However, what I found most interesting is a new feature called Madden Gamer Level. Simply put, the more you play and the better you get. Recording everything you do, every great run, interception, tackle, along with every time you beat your best friend, you are given the ability to bet points along the way.
For the first time a sports video game can be played by opponents with a quantifiable skill level allowing Madden NFL players to compete for a legitimate title.
Which also means that playing Madden NFL ?07 --are you ready-- could be defined as playing a sport.
Okay, maybe not by everybody, but by an increasing number of folks.
Now, combine that with this: the next generation of television. If you are all thrilled with your brand new HDTV, or thinking about investing in one, consider yourself old school. Or rather, 2 dimensional. 3D TV is coming and without those ubernerd glasses.
Wired Magazine writes about the demo of a special 42-inch LCD screen that sends slightly different images to the left and right eyes -- mimicking our stereoscopic view of the real world. But where old-fashioned 3-D movies rely on the special glasses to block images meant for the other eye, Philips' ?WOWvx? technology places tiny lenses over each of the millions of red, green and blue sub pixels that make up an LCD or plasma screen. The lenses cause each sub pixel to project light at one of nine angles fanning out in front of the display.
So, in English, if you sitting in front of the thing, it looks like what?s taking place on the screen is actually taking place in your room.
The problem is content. Nothing substantial has been filmed in true 3D, mostly because no one really knows how.
So ? what good is it then? Well, computer generated graphics are all three-dimensional. In fact, they have to be flattened when they are put on our old style TV?s. Now they don?t have to. Now they can be played as they were rendered.
The sport that is Madden NFL ?07 can be played in three dimensions.
Now - just think about that for a second.
Think about a worldwide Madden NFL ?07 tournament, that you yourself can compete in, to decide who is the champion.
And it all unfolds in photorealistic terms, and in 3D, right in your living room. It wouldn?t be the real thing, but it would sure look better than the real thing.
Could this be the future? Could two guys with remote controls perfecting their craft in their parents? basements be the sports stars of the future? If so, many of us will be asking, why go to a stadium ever again? Why pay those ticket and beer prices?
When you think about it, professional sports are a messy business. All those athletes and agents, owners and coaches, who all have separate agendas from us fans.
What if we fans could just get rid of them altogether? What we like about sports is watching skilled players facing off against other skilled players.
What difference would it really make if that skilled player, as apposed to a man-mountain, was a pencil necked geek?
Cheers - Gavin McDougald - AKA Couch
- Peering into the future?
Covering sports way back into the last century, I?ve seen some pretty radical changes in this wonderful world over the years. It?s changed so much so, there isn?t even a ?wonderful world of sports? anymore. ABC sports ceased to exist last week, replaced by its little brother that could, ESPN.
So, glancing around this ever changing, online betting and poker obsessed, X-Gamed sporting environment, it?s good to ask occasionally, what?s next?
Perhaps two recent technological introductions are harbingers of what?s to come, and if they are, it?s gonna be pretty frikin? cool!
The first is an update on a classic, but a revolutionary update. Selling more than 51 million copies since 1989, Madden Football is one of the largest sports video game franchises.
This latest incarnation however is something special.
Madden NFL ?07 has the best graphics in the industry, and they?ve added some depth to the regular smash-mouth content. John Madden's voice is there and he?d recommend that you run instead of pass, as some of the game's best running backs, like coverboy Shaun Alexander, bowl over linebackers with stiff arms. Instead of controlling the runners, this version adds a cool new feature called "Lead Blocker Controls." For whatever reason it?s more satisfying enabling a great run than actually controlling that run.
There is some weird stuff like the ability to create your own players ? and I?m not talking about simply cobbling together assorted skill sets. You pick a player?s parents in an almost perverted sports Eugenics project. You cycle through sets of possible breeders establishing the perfect match with each ?coupling? producing a different position. (That?s the player position, i.e., running back, wide receiver etc. Not the other kind. There is no actual sex acts portrayed in the game, that I could find anyway. And I did look an awfully along time.)
In the ?07 version of the game, the playing field actually degrades the longer you play thanks to 3D grass. They?ve even introduced hair physics, I guess specifically for Troy Polamalu, because ever time he sticks someone; his hair does this funky move thing.
However, what I found most interesting is a new feature called Madden Gamer Level. Simply put, the more you play and the better you get. Recording everything you do, every great run, interception, tackle, along with every time you beat your best friend, you are given the ability to bet points along the way.
For the first time a sports video game can be played by opponents with a quantifiable skill level allowing Madden NFL players to compete for a legitimate title.
Which also means that playing Madden NFL ?07 --are you ready-- could be defined as playing a sport.
Okay, maybe not by everybody, but by an increasing number of folks.
Now, combine that with this: the next generation of television. If you are all thrilled with your brand new HDTV, or thinking about investing in one, consider yourself old school. Or rather, 2 dimensional. 3D TV is coming and without those ubernerd glasses.
Wired Magazine writes about the demo of a special 42-inch LCD screen that sends slightly different images to the left and right eyes -- mimicking our stereoscopic view of the real world. But where old-fashioned 3-D movies rely on the special glasses to block images meant for the other eye, Philips' ?WOWvx? technology places tiny lenses over each of the millions of red, green and blue sub pixels that make up an LCD or plasma screen. The lenses cause each sub pixel to project light at one of nine angles fanning out in front of the display.
So, in English, if you sitting in front of the thing, it looks like what?s taking place on the screen is actually taking place in your room.
The problem is content. Nothing substantial has been filmed in true 3D, mostly because no one really knows how.
So ? what good is it then? Well, computer generated graphics are all three-dimensional. In fact, they have to be flattened when they are put on our old style TV?s. Now they don?t have to. Now they can be played as they were rendered.
The sport that is Madden NFL ?07 can be played in three dimensions.
Now - just think about that for a second.
Think about a worldwide Madden NFL ?07 tournament, that you yourself can compete in, to decide who is the champion.
And it all unfolds in photorealistic terms, and in 3D, right in your living room. It wouldn?t be the real thing, but it would sure look better than the real thing.
Could this be the future? Could two guys with remote controls perfecting their craft in their parents? basements be the sports stars of the future? If so, many of us will be asking, why go to a stadium ever again? Why pay those ticket and beer prices?
When you think about it, professional sports are a messy business. All those athletes and agents, owners and coaches, who all have separate agendas from us fans.
What if we fans could just get rid of them altogether? What we like about sports is watching skilled players facing off against other skilled players.
What difference would it really make if that skilled player, as apposed to a man-mountain, was a pencil necked geek?
Cheers - Gavin McDougald - AKA Couch
