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Beyond Machinima: Rudy Poat and John Gaeta on the Future of Interactive Cinema
GS: That would be great. JG: As far as story heavy games go, I'm fascinated by the Metal Gear Solid franchise. That universe is unusually rich. I'm also curious about the team who made Resident Evil 4 because they have a great understanding of atmosphere. The Myst series has innovative weaving of passive and interactive structure and is an excellent ambient play experience. The Black & White Series and Peter Molyneux's God game concepts in general, playing God. ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, both are very cinematic and immersive. You feel like you're inside a movie. The Final Fantasy series redefines the Japanese visual aesthetic, and has an expansive universe. The Half-Life series is a great science fiction concept, with excellent suspense. With action, I'm a fan of the Mech Warrior series. I love the shock and awe style robotic destruction. Soul Caliber has really cool characters and surreal combat. God of War is completely psychotic, violent and cool. On the strategy side of things, I'm also pretty fond of the Age of Empires and mythology games because they make wanting to learn classic literature and history fun. I also enjoyed the Sims, but I'm really excited about Spore. I think it could be the Citizen Kane of gaming. I'm also interested in games that are physics based. There's a variety of interesting car games out there. GS: Like Burnout? JG: Yeah, like Burnout, Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo or Need for Speed. I like all the car games because they're interesting, inspiring and free. For example, if I'm working on a movie, and I can't tell you what I'm working on, but it'll make sense of this statement: if you look at car chases in movies, which is what I'd do if I'm going to be working on a movie with a lot of car chases, finding out what works and what doesn't. You know what? I think that those times are kind of passing us by where that would be our references.
Again, the current generation, unbeknownst to many adults in the film industry, is being completely infused with a higher order of action with some of the gameplay. Driving games, robotic battle, all of the different topics at hand, can be done much more freely. You can create a more visceral interaction, and in doing so have begun to pursue fantasy mutations of things that can only be done in a physical way in the movies. They're completely virtual. You know, when I view cinema, play games or watch people play, I always prefer for it to be on the widest screen possible and it must have surround sound. I firmly believe that the objective environment to have, and will be had within a number of years, is a dedicated sound proofed room, let's call it a "Boom Room," with a hyper broadband tethered HD projection system (capable of optional stereoscopic) no smaller then one full wall up to 12' in diameter (but someday should be three or four walled) and a deafening surround audio system, Holophonic if available. Even if the graphics are not photo realistic in nature, the highest possible resolution at sixty frames per second can induce heightened psycho-physiological experiences. The "Cadillac" boom room includes a pure oxygen system as well. Those with serious cash on hand should keep a therapist on tap between session to convince them to keep going outside and processing reality in its raw form. We all know the moment that the only thing that limits you is conceiving it in the computer, even if it looks very minimalist, yet the idea of it can be delivered at some quality, at that point it's all about the experience of the action. I would rethink car chases, car stunts, everything to do with cars, space ships or robots by way of the type of experiences that some of the games are delivering. The audience is most likely coming into a movie about cars or robots having already witnessed completely outlandish things that no movie has delivered yet. I think that's the imaginative frontier, and it's much wider now that it was. It's not necessarily delivering the sharpened, sculpted super-punch that a movie can, but there's certainly forays into different genres are being pushed out way faster than they are in films. I observe games obsessively for different clues. |
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