Checking Up on the Great Farsinghi

Fortunately, we don't have to rename the fictitious swami "The Great Nearsightie." Many of the predictions proved mostly, if not completely, true. Here's how "the great one" fared.

3-D Card Only: The Great Farsinghi predicted a half-dozen products would be shown that would be 3-D card required. I personally saw four products with that requirement and more than a dozen that will have special versions for the 3Dfx chipset. Also, most companies are planning to make all of their products scaleable to take advantage of D3D support for multiple 3-D cards. Accolade's Redline, a first-person perspective genre-buster where players work their way up through the ranks in a mission-based gang war set in a dark, near future, was the first "3-D required" title that I saw. I was already aware of Microsoft's 3D Baseball prior to the show as a "3-D card only" title, but didn't realize how dependent on the 3-D accelerator CART Precision Racing was going to be. Finally, Sirtech Software's newest edition in the Wizardry series will require a 3-D card. As the prediction was intended to suggest, it's going to be a 3-D Christmas.

Persistent Universes: Microsoft unveiled Acheron's Call, a stunning premium game for the Internet Gaming Zone that has a deep role-playing component, stunning first-person 3-D graphics, and a persistent universe that should really work. It was one of three new massively multiplayer game worlds with persistent universes demonstrated at the show (naturally, Kesmai and the Multi-Player Games Network showed newer versions of their persistent universe games, which have been available for a long time). Ultima Online stole the show with an online world that most of us cannot wait to enter. Also, Ned Lerner (father of the Chuck Yeager series of games for EA) was showing his new massively multiplayer game in a suite off the show floor. Meanwhile, the prediction suffered from the fact that one publisher plans to support an upcoming out of the box product with a persistent universe, another publisher with an unannounced product that entails a persistent game universe did not show any working code at the show, and a major designer only talked about his upcoming universe behind closed doors. Chalk this prediction up as a limited hit.

New Publishing Relationships: I thought this little prediction would be a slam-dunk. I heard from several developers that they were changing publishers, but in nowhere near the number I was expecting. They didn't make a big deal out of their new relationships and I won't either. Label this prediction either a clear miss or wasted space.

35+ Real-Time Strategy Games: Real-time strategy games were present in nearly every booth of the show. This is clearly a dominant category for the near future. I see Command & Conquer 2, Close Combat 2, Starcraft, Sid Meier's Gettysburg, Mech Commander, and X-Fire as the real-time strategy games that rise above the noise. This prediction was too easy.

Physics-Based: If the number of developers gathered around the Trespasser: Jurassic Park demo stations is any indication, the tools being used by DreamWorks Interactive are certainly the first of a new wave designed to bring computer game realism. DreamWorks was demonstrating the wave model (for water effects), falling and damage model for different types of objects, sound model (for different objects), dinosaur AI modules, and bump-mapping technology. This game has incredible potential for pushing realism in computer gaming and had many developers hoping to do something similar in their next development cycle. I saw plenty of games that were using more and more physics, but Trespasser is still the clear leader. Call the prediction correct so far.

No 3-D Audio Products: I didn't see any products making use of 3-D spatial audio positioning. That's what I expected, but I had hoped to be surprised by at least one. Prediction correct.

I give Farsinghi five out of six. Wonder how that compares with the Psychic Network.

As for general impressions of the show, I came away with a feeling that there are going to be a lot of winners this year. It will be difficult to vote for a single stand-out product because all products have improved significantly. I'm personally most excited by the return of role-playing games like Might & Magic VI, Return to Krondor, Wizardry 8, and The Elder Scrolls: Battlespire, as well as the spate of terrific racing games like CART Precision Racing, ABC Sports Racing: Road to Indianapolis, X-Car Experimental Racing, and Legends of Grand Prix. I'm also looking forward to Close Combat 2, Mech Commander, Sid Meier's Gettysburg, Computer Battletech, Panzer General II, and Road to Moscow. Those will be the games that will occupy most of my time during the next three to six months.