Help me with my gaming paper! (on Mario 64 and its impact...)

[pumbaa]

So I'm taking a class of Japanese Pop Culture in college (its a Senior level course in case anyone is wondering) and I've got a paper due on Thursday. I'm not going to go in specifics (I'll post the paper when I'm done with it) but I do need opinions. Basically I'm writing about how Super Mario 64 is the definitive 3D game.

My entire paper is based on the premise that Mario 64 essentially taught a generation how to move around in a 3d world with a truly analog joystick through various devices (Collecting Stars, the Lakitu Camera, Sleeping FireFlowers, Spinning Bowsers, etc.) It basically served as the buffer for the gaming transition from 2D to 3D. Gently letting people get into 3D gaming.

Not to say that people who didn't play Mario 64 don't know how to game in 3D, just that it was a peice of art that accounted for a majority of this "training".

As some proof, I use the fact that before N64 (and SM64) the Playstation didn't have Analog control, essentially making 3D graphics a window dressing and now a reality. Before the N64's analog stick, even though graphics were 3d, control was essentially still 2 dimensional.

Sound argument? Help me out!

[Scorch]

I'm not so sure. Playstation had some 3D games, but as you said, a LOT of them were 3D graphics on a 2D control scheme. It's a good argument, but i'd need PS1 and N64 release dates to compare (not system dates.. launch games and game release dates).

[rockhero]

Quake was the first 3d game, and tons of people played it so I'd say it beat Mario 64 to the punch.

[alongx]

Saturn had analog control before the N64, if I remember correctly. In the US at least, NiGHTS with controller was released a few months before the N64.

The only gaming thing I had to do in college was a 45 minute presentation on how gaming affects society for my computer ethics class. It was amazing.

[pumbaa]

Saturn had analog control before the N64, if I remember correctly. In the US at least, NiGHTS with controller was released a few months before the N64.

The only gaming thing I had to do in college was a 45 minute presentation on how gaming affects society for my computer ethics class. It was amazing.

Yes, but control was still generally on a 2D plane. Mario 64 was essentially the first 3D "playground".

[whiteboy]

Quake was the first 3d game, and tons of people played it so I'd say it beat Mario 64 to the punch.

It still had 2d control though. Definately Mario 64 was the first game that had 3d graphics as well as analog control.

[rockhero]

How is an analog stick different from a mouse and keyboard?

[OiBoy]

I'd say even before Quake.

If you're just discussing console gaming, your arguement might have validity.

But by taking that premise, you would be leaving out the large amount of games released for the PC. Flight simulators, with analog control, were on the market long before Mario 64.

The rise of the 3D shooter (specifically Wolfenstein 3D & Doom) would be a better example of the movement from 2d to 3d, though they didn't have full analog controls. Their success, along with the drastic increase in processing power, made the use of 3d a more viable and known medium. I would say that this in turn made a lot of companies look more closely at taking franchises in the direction of the z-axis.

Credit could be given to Mario 64 in being the first fully analog console game that achieved wide-spread popularity, bringing 3D to more people than would have had computers at that point.

[pumbaa]

I'd say even before Quake.

If you're just discussing console gaming, your arguement might have validity.

But by taking that premise, you would be leaving out the large amount of games released for the PC. Flight simulators, with analog control, were on the market long before Mario 64.

The rise of the 3D shooter (specifically Wolfenstein 3D & Doom) would be a better example of the movement from 2d to 3d, though they didn't have full analog controls. Their success, along with the drastic increase in processing power, made the use of 3d a more viable and known medium. I would say that this in turn made a lot of companies look more closely at taking franchises in the direction of the z-axis.

Credit could be given to Mario 64 in being the first fully analog console game that achieved wide-spread popularity, bringing 3D to more people than would have had computers at that point.

Yes, Computer games are cut out of the equation. Theres a reason I'm concentrating on consoles as well. The paper is centered around McLuhan's "Understanding Media: Extensions of Man" which talks about "sense ratios". The paper is supposed to focused on "sense ratios" and the role of the artist and the art in relation to the media talked about. If that was Chinese to you, don't worry about it. If it didn't, by all means comment... PLEASE!

[OiBoy]

Not Chinese at all to me.

Before I would be able to make any arguements in relation to sense ratios, I think I'll have to go back and check McLuhan again (have it at home). Haven't opened that in awhile, and just really skimmed it then.

[epobirs]

Mario 64 set a lot of new standards for what this technology meant to gaming. It didn't bring 3D to the world but showed how it could be practically implemented.

Possibly the best comparison could the effect of D.W. Griffith: http://imdb.com/name/nm0000428/

Before Griffith almost all movies were made froma rigid unmoving perspective. The camera wastypically mounted on a tripod that had litterally been nailed to the floor to keep it steady. (This was a big concern with a hand cranked camera.) Movies were little more than stage plays with all movement confined to a narrow focus.

The potential for the things we take for granted in film was already there but it was Griffith who had the imagination to see the advantage and make it happen. He not only got the camera moving from shot to shot, and conceived more interesting ways of transistioning between shots, he also realized that film need not be linear in how it told a story. While in a stage play flashbacks were either conversation or limited to whatever set arrangement could be done in a few moments behind a dropped curtain, Griffith saw that you could insert an entirely different movie with the same actors or characters implied to be those actor at an earlier age and the audience would get it.

Mario 64 was like that. It took tools that had been readily available (leaving aside a few visual functions in the N64 hardware that were still uncommon even in PC video boards then.) and built something better than anyone had believed was possible.

[epobirs]

Also, I would say the likes of Castle Wolfenstein and Doom are highly overrated in terms of the rise of 3D as far as consoles are concerned.

Star Fox on the SNES was a far better indication of where the future lie in that it had a true polygonal engine in a completely plug it in and play environment. The downside was the requirement of an expensive chip in the cartridge to empower this ability. Nintendo and others saw that a console with a serious native 3D functionality would be a big hit. Third parties would have all of the functionality without the cost of the added chip and it would attract a wider range of customers with new visual splendor while the existing 2D techniques would continue as well.

Nintendo originally expected to make this happen with their attempted designs for a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES. One of the major features was to be having the latest revision of the FX chip built into the unit. Consumers would only have to buy it once and developers would have a new frontier to exploit. After the Sega-CD became a turkey Nintendo chickened out on their approach to the same device despite having greatly superior features and a $100 lower price point. A shame since Square's Secret of Mana was ready as a launch title along with a 3D enhanced port of Konami's Xexex shooter. Secret of Mana shipped as a cartridge with no FMV but Xexex couldn't work without a FX chip and was just allowed to die.

At the time the PS1, Saturn, and later N64 hit the scene, PC gaming was starting to embrace 3D but the advent of dedicated 3D hardware was only just beginning and the games using 3D tended to fall in a narrow range within the narrow subset PC gaming represented in the overall interactive gaming market.