March 09, 2005

Gaming Mania

What a really cool concept! "City Of Heroes" is a massively multiplayer RPG i stumbled across on the net. Basically, everything takes place in Paragorn City, the city of heroes. As the story goes, it is the biggest and baddest city in the world, and heroes flock there for fame and fortune.

As a player, you can create any character you want, including your own costume (i've always wanted to be a naked superhero). The main characteristics that determine what kinda character you are is:

  1. Hero Type
    • Mutant
    • Technology
    • Natural
    • Magic
    • Science
  2. Archtypes (basically, whether you're a fighter, defender, long range etc)
  3. Power Sets (Me thinks there are different sets of powers one can choose)
If only i had the free time and PC capable of playing such awesome games. MMoRPG's have certainly come a long way. The graphics dont look half bad either.


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On another note, has anyone heard of "PHYSX"? Nope, me either, until a couple hours ago. A company called AGEIA has created a product called PHYSX that, much as graphics cards did a decade ago, promises to transform the gaming experience into something that approaches the kind of reality seen only in the Star Trek Holodeck.

The whole concept behind the thing is this:

"But what if could introduce real physics into a game? What if objects could realistically interact with other objects? What if water acted like water? What if we could achieve a much more realistic virtual reality? "

If this piece of hardware really takes off, what are the possibilities? Would kids spend less time in reality, and more of their time online, in virtual spaces and gaming sites? Or just another really kickass experience for us children that never grow up? Possibly both i imagine+imagine what the world would be in 10 years time?

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