Does 2D still have a chance?

I personally don't think 2D is dead... dying , very slowly, maybe but certainly not dead...

I have recently got back into my Super Nintendo and I can sit on that thing for hours playing 2D games like:

Donkey Kong Country
Yoshi's Island
BattleToads
etc, etc...

I can play any of these games much longer than I can sit and play any 3D game I own...

I think that the quality of 2D games gameplay wise was much higher back when those games were out...someone just needs to bring back that quality...[:D]

That said, with unique games like Gish and such, I think 2D gaming will be around for a while longer... [8D]

2D will never die as long as their are portable consoles with small screens. It will also stay well alive in the small PC markets, however i think for decent commercial releases on PC/console it will start to find itself confined to puzzle games and fighting games.
CYer, Blitz

I actually checked out a bit of Alien Hominid by chance today, and it looks really great. It was good to see that they were putting in a lot of fun things to do like driving vehicles, special moves, and other things rather than a bog standard sideway scroller. The animation and explosions are great!

If anyone has a cable connection and they wanna check out Alien Hominid (chat with the animators and developers on how things got started, a tour of their small studio, and a great look at the game), go to http://www.gamespot.com/onthespot/ and click on the streaming media for 07/29/04 .. - I've been watching a lot of the streams at http://www.gamespot.com/onthespot/ - it's so much better watching reviewers talk about the games and see footage as they talk rather than reading about it on a webpage. Plus they do tonne of developer interviews and studio walthroughs too..

Just a note on that particular stream - there were about 3 or 4 other *new* games of a 2D nature that they were reviewing in there. Apart from Alien Hominid, they were all from Japan. It seems 2D games is still alive and kicking over there, from side way scrolling beat'em ups (Viewtiful Joe), fighting games (Samurai Showdown 5, Guilty Gear), and I'm sure 2D sideway/vertical scrolling shoot'em ups are still very popular there too..

Just to add, 2D games got a pretty hefty blow when Sony limited most things 2D from being released on the PS2..

Yeah, but it turned out to be a smart marketing strategy. Most people these days don?t look twice at a title if it isn?t 3D.

Perhaps this will change their mind ^_^ once you see the things you can pull off in this game, you become hypnotised. My workmate is buying a gamecube just so he can get AH. [:D]

quote:Originally posted by palantir

Yeah, but it turned out to be a smart marketing strategy. Most people these days don?t look twice at a title if it isn?t 3D.

maybe the reason why people don't look twice at a title if it is not 3d is because 3d is all they know as that's what's being shoved down their throats by the marketing people =)

2d might be dead on consoles, but they still have 3d games that play like 2d games (constriction of the z-axis).
like crash bandicoot or something similar.

the new fighting games that have 3d backgrounds look awsome! the old franchises have kept their characters 2d tho, maybe that because they are justing using old sprites?

hmm... do you guys think its easier to make, say a platformer, with sprites, or 3d models? in reality of it, its still just bounding boxes flying around a screen, in either 2d or 3d.

I think a new type of 2d game will evolve from this all. One that combines the traditional gameplay elements from 2d games and brings it into a 3d setting, or uses 3d technology to give it more oompth. Think Duke Nukem Manhattan project, or something such as a platformer using a 2d foreground and characters (taken from highly detailed 3d models) and put them into a 2d parralax world that's actually coded in 3d. Or something like TA, that used 2d background graphics, along with 3d data and units to create a highly detailed believable 3d world.

Nothing really ever dies, it just evolves and/or becomes a very (small) niche market.

ive personally always really loved the look and style of 2d over most 3d games. daemin i think paper mario does something sorta like that as well and it has been pretty highly praised.

well the shift to 3d powered handhelds will make things interesting. 3D is even making it into phones these days.. but for the next little while specs like MIDP v2 and BREW mean that 2d will be very well represented for the near future at least

how much 3d will we really find on these things (phones)? particle effects? freeform sprite rotation and scaling (sadly missing from MIDP v2)? kinda reminds me of the SNES era all over again :D

Matt D

Yeah, the publishers like mobile phones, because they're the same as the console platforms of yore, and they can use the same IP and same art - just different code - to produce classic games for a new market, thus more revenue for essentially very little effort.

the reason people forgot about 2d was because it's so easy to market for 3d... for example the first wave could be like "LOOK AT THIS 3D GAMES!!! REAL 3D! FORGET 2D! THIS CONSOLE IS THE FUTURE BUY IT NOW!!!"
and the current ones "WOW EVEN BETTER 3D THIS IS MORE FUTURISTIC THAN EVER! IT MAY BE THE SAME REHASHED GAMEPLAY BUT JUST LOOK AT THE POLY COUNT!"[B)]

biggest shame was when worms went 3d... vector is the next step for 2d!!! they did it because there is a bigger market for 3d games, but there is also a bigger market for real time games! so i bet when they run out of ideas they will make it real time[V]

2D is my fave scene =)