I just read on Old-wizard.com, Top 10 Reasons All Video Games should be 2D and I wanted to shoot that person’s 2D ass with my 3D Dark Matter Gun. Some of the arguments presented in that article are so absurd, they do deserve a good hearted laugh.

10. Simpler: Remember how simple Mario 1 was? Remember how simple Contra was? Were these games easy because they were simple? Absolutely not. They were difficult, detailed, and challenging. These games proved that you could make a game simple yet at the same time complicated. Super Metroid serves as another great example of this reason. Castlevania “Symphony of the Night” is yet another game that will always be remembered in it’s grace and beauty but held it’s simplicity with it’s 2D scope. It’s with combining the simplicity of the 2D space movement and the complexity possible within this space, that great games were made.

Simplicity of the game has got nothing to do with it being designed as 2D space or 3D. Mention of Portals should be enough to blunt your argument which was at least 3D (and arguably a 4D game) with great simplicity and incredible fun. Just because you liked cartoon characters jumping in 2D doesn’t mean you will start hating them when they jump in 3D. It is true that a lot of games are horrible designed in 3D but same has been true for 2D cartoonish games as well (Remember Bubsy or Kung-Fu).

9. More Entertaining

How bored did you get playing Mario 64? You were walking…and walking some more in the same direction, with nothing in the way of where you were going. In the 2D video game space, there is always something to see, evade, or destroy. Why would I want to meander about a 3D world? I do that everyday in real life. In the 2D world, there is always something in front of you keeping you on your toes. This keeps you in the game knowing that something can come from behind or in front of you. This makes the game much more entertaining and has much more of a possibility of always being on.

Ha ha ha.. This has got to be the funniest argument of all. I mean if you get excited about knowing something can come from behind or in front of you, won’t you feel the same or even more if there was another thing that could come from the side. I mean if games were just 2D, would you ever be able to see you are right beneath a zombie hanging upside down from the roof in a survival horror game?

And what’s up with “Why would I want to meander about a 3D world? I do that everyday in real life.”. Why do you go watch a movie or read a fiction when you are already living your life? Maybe you don’t.

8. More linear

With the 2D format for gaming, the video game was obviously more linear. Why is this a good thing? It gives the gamer a sense of purpose knowing that they have to go from point A to point B rather than having the massively relative options of going from point A to any point in a massive geographical 3D environment. The linearity of a game gives the gamer a specific place to go, and a specific thing to do. This linearity creates a sense of escapism for the gamer who already has too many things to do in the 3D environment given to them in “real life”.

Now either you have not played any good game or you don’t really realize that even in 3D games, most of the time, your path is linear. You get to explore your surroundings, interact with everything that is around you but your path is still defined. That answers your first part. Secondly, with 3D games, it has been possible to design non-linear games and you should not be surprised if some of us likes to write our own destiny in games such as Fable or The Suffering.

I would agree that sometimes designer screw things up when they forget to design a game that is confusing or does not indicate what to do with the environment but once again, it is a design problem not a “3D Problem”. I mean, even in 2D Battle City, I could cage myself in with a custom map and could curse all night long if I decided to.

7. More room for creativity

With not having massive world where you can move anywhere you want, the game developer is given more room for creativity rather than just filling space. In a 2D environment they can worry more about the enemies that a protagonist encounters, or a perfectly timed jump that needs to be executed. The game developer can worry more about how to challenge the gamer, rather than how to make them seem more like real life. Remember, we are in the video game world, not “3D reality” where we have to be in every day. Videos Games’ original greatness came from their sense of escapism rather than its pretension for some purported reality.

Completely disagree! Creativity can come from constraints as well as freedom. When designers were constraint with 2D spaces, they had to design game that had most unrealistic or unsatisfying feeling and when you defeated the boss, it was still in the game, not lying dead next to you. With the 3D game, you can feel the boss staring down at you and your actions and movements are way closer to what you would experience in real life, making it a lot of more satisfying. Just slash a guard in Prince of Persia original and compare it to the feeling you get when you cut off the head of Volf in Ninja Gaiden 2 and tell me which one feels more satisfying.

3D games gives creativity another dimension to explore. That’s better, not worse.

6. Easier on the eyes

There was much less strain on the eyes when playing 2D games. When you jumped, the whole screen didn’t jump with you. When you walked, you had a whole view of the screen while you were walking as the protagonist of the game. Turning around as your 3D character in these 3D games sometimes puts them so up-close immediately that you quickly move backwards from being to overwhelmed with a full screen of some face. There’s just too much screen movement in these 3D games. With the 2D format, you could see yourself within a static surrounding. This was much easier and more pleasurable experience for the eyes, especially when you sometimes wanted to concentrate on an aesthetically pleasing background.

I have just one thing to say if you want to save your eyes - stick to your comic book. Gaming is about immersion, the more you enjoy immersing in that world, the better it feels. Why do you think Wii is so successful.

5. Loss of focus on graphics

If the video games went back to 2D, there wouldn’t have to be so much of a focus on creating the “new graphical chip that will expand graphics to even more real life themes!” Game developers will be less worried about eye candy and more focused on story line, innovative levels, and how to specifically challenge the gamer. Starting with games like Virtua Fighter, gaming has sacrificed quality for graphical innovation. Once this unconscious drive for technological innovation is curtailed, video games can one again find their roots in which they first stemmed.

I kind of agree to this argument that developers have been focusing a little too much of making it visually appealing than making it fun. But when its done right, better graphics adds to the gaming experience. Gears of War was so powerful only because it felt awesome to be in that broken world and it was so must fun to shoot at  the monsters there. So focus on graphics is very important but definitely not more important than focus on gameplay.

4. Smoother controlling

Ever play Resident Evil? Ever play GTA? Don’t these games sometimes just piss you off in the controlling? It takes two fucking hours to turn around in Resident Evil. This isn’t real, its just fucking annoying. The blocky, slow movement of many of these 3D games takes away any sense of gaming moving forward by not replicating the real phenomena of the human body like it wants itself too. You’re getting eaten alive by zombies and it takes you literally 5 seconds to turn around and knock these bastards down. This isn’t fun.

Once again, you are focusing on some bad designs and ignoring some great designs. How much more fun it is to control your characters in Dead or Alive vs Mortal Combat 2D? How much more fun it is to dodge and counter attack in Assassin’s Creed vs Street Fighter. Controls overall have gotten better and more satisfying than before. They might not be fast due to a horrible implementation but that changes from game to game and has got nothing to do with 3D.

3. No more GTA’s

Although the first two Grant Theft autos were 2D games, the series found its first real success in the world of 3D. This is when it started to dominate the video game world. In a 2D world, there would be no more Grand Theft Autos, thank God (or at least they wouldn’t be as popular as they are now). There would be no more news stories of this hyper-urban game that found its success on bloodlust violence and man’s lack of good taste for immediate pleasure. No more having to see front covers who people who wear “bling” and are holding guns in front of them. This pathetic excuse for creativity in a video game would be abolished if the 2D world was able to reign supreme. The gamer would be back on an epic journey rather than living a pseudo-reality of gangster life that has nowhere to go except to modern violence.

Take your Republican widely discredited argument of linking Video Games to violence and shove it up your Atari. You would rather spread the guns than video games?

2. You don’t want to play in the same dimensions you live in

You live in a “3D” world. You walk in it, you eat in it, you sleep in it, and worst of all you work in it. Why would you want to carry over these habitual characteristics to the video game world? I don’t want to think about another 3D universe when I go home to play games. I want to be taken into a simple 2D world with great story lines that have nothing to do with my own “real” life. Mimicking what we perceive as “reality” is not progress for the video game medium; it’s a lack of understanding of other dimensions, and more precisely, just another way of unconsciously privileging ourselves (ego) in all facets of the universe.

Video games are about overcoming challenges and feeling good about it. From the moment you made Mario jumped for the first time, you are presented with challenges that you need to overcome. You must have already seen a lot of people who give up on game after being defeated multiple times. So simple rule is, challenge should be hard enough to keep the player on the edge but still manageable. The more immersed you are in the challenge, the more satisfying it feels to overcome it. This is where 3D gaming comes in. 3D is the world you live in, as you put it. Therefore, 3D challenges are quite often more satisfying. The uber hit genre first person shooter is about you feeling as if you have the gun and you are shooting it. The more immersed you are, the better it feels. Ask anyone who played Call of Duty 4. So 2D might be good for few minutes of experience but 3D is something where you can spend hours feeling part of the video game world.

1. Better Games

Why were games like Mario, Mega Man, and even Sonic (Yes Old-Wizard admits Sonic was OK!) great games? There were many reasons why these games were great, but one thing is common to them all. They were all 2D games. Even when Mega Man saw it’s ascent to the 16-bit format, it didn’t change it’s 2D style. If I remember correctly, the Mega Man X’s were great games also. The same holds true for Mario’s ascent to the 16 bit age. The games that will be remembered past this time will be the 2D games. The new 3D games are going to be seen as being too tied to the times, and specifically the times lack of substance.

My Answer: Gears of War, Ninja Gaiden 2, Call of Duty 4, BioShock, Half-Life and of course HALO!

Bottom Line:

Video games are about playing and winning. The more realistic the play, the more satisfying the win. This is why 3D does and will RULE.

Related Posts

• Gears of War 2 BLASTS and here is why