Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | about this site What today's game designers can learn from Space Invaders. (17 Dec 2003) For the last decade, most game companies have been governed by one obsessive idea: that making games more lifelike-more three-dimensional and hyperreal-will make them more fun. But this hasn't worked. Even the crappiest game today has an elaborate 3-D world you can wander around and marvel at the superb rendering of shadows, the elaborate tattoos on the characters, or the lens flares when you look up at the virtual sun. But after you've finished admiring the scenery, the game itself is often incredibly tedious. You're just running around, solving obtuse puzzles, and listening to wretched pseudoacting by virtual characters. Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2092798/ Read 21 more articles from Slate sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Jean Piaget - The Three Mountains This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy