Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 347)

Trigger Happy
349
Core enthuses over the possibilities offered by the next
technological standard:
There are far more things you can do with Lara’s hair, and
with her clothing . . . The leaves that you’re going past or the
vines are all moving and animating, and there may be water
dripping off them on to a pool which is making a ripple
effect. PlayStation2 can do this camerablurring where you
can home in on the central character and the view-distance at
the back is blurred. Can you imagine the possibilities that
that’s going to open up? It’s going to give you a depth of
field that’s so huge it’s just like opening up a whole new door
into gaming. Games are gonna have great depth—depth and
atmosphere. Superb!
It certainly looks as though the more able a game is to
draw an atmospheric, beautiful world—as in the frankly
stunning Shenmue—the more willing the player will be
to shuffle off his or her chthonic shackles and swim
happily into that world, where he or she can then get to
grips with its symbolic play.
What have we decided? That underneath the flashy
graphics, cinematic cut-scenes, real-time physics,
mythological back stories and everything else, a