NEW DIMENSIONS IN GAMING a look at the rise of 3D computer games by Peter D. Ward '3D' appears to be the current trend in computer gaming. Is this just the 'fad', or is it a result of the increased power of the new machines? Whatever the case, this article sets out to examine the development of the 3D game by taking a look back at some of the titles through the years. DOOM, DUKE NUKE 'EM 3D, SPACE HULK, VIRTUA FIGHTER, VIRTUA RACING... The list of 3D games currently available for various formats is 'virtually' endless. This means not only first-person perspective 'virtual worlds', but other games which use fully- developed 3D models of worlds and/or characters, such as the above-mentioned virtua fighter, as opposed to 'flat' sprites. But where did the genre start? Not everyone reading this may be of such age as to recall the earliest computer-games (though I suspect many are), so first of all, a look back at those. I was at a holiday-camp when I saw my first 'computer game' arcade console. It stood out as something different to the other machines - the one-arm bandits and other 'jackpot' machines, cascade, pinball tables and purely mechanical machines. The game was called 'Pong'. It consisted of two moveable vertical lines for 'bats', a square blob for a 'ball' and two large numbers at the top of the screen to keep score. I recall this version even had the 'court' printed on the screen as opposed to appearing as graphics. For two players, it was a sort of tennis game. If you let the ball pass you instead of hitting it back, the other player won a point. The first person to ten points won the game. And the game was in monochrome (white on black). There is a lesson to be learnt here. The graphics were not important, it was the playability of the game itself which kept you coming back for more. In the years following, these games gradually became more varied and graphically improved. First of all larger versions of 'pong' appeared, with more 'bats' and called 'soccer' or 'ice hockey'. Then colour appeared, and so too did 'tank battle' (two players). Then there was a vertically scrolling 'racing' game where you had to avoid cars scrolling down towards you to gain points (which I cannot recall the title of), and 'Indy 500', with up to four players racing cars round a top-down view track. This included 'oil patches' to skid on! Then, of course, there was the game considered by many to be the one which really started the whole arcade-gaming boom - SPACE INVADERS. I am sure I do not have to explain this one, as clones are still popular today. It is rather ironic that the most popular, full-colour version of this was made by ATARI, a company which now cannot seem to get its act together. (Incidentally, they also manufactured the first popular 8-bit home console which preceeded the Sega/Nintendo 8-bit wars by several years.) Around this time there also appeared the first 'Mario' game, 'Donkey Kong'. I am sure this is familiar to all, too (and I don't mean 'Donkey Kong Country'), so I won't examine this closer, since the main focus of this article is 3D. I do not pretend to have researched this article in any great depth. It is purely a personal view from my own experiences, so I may be incorrect with some details, for which I apologise in advance, and welcome any additional recollections or corrections. The first attempt at some kind of 3D as I recall were the 'Isometric viewpoint' games, the only one of which I can initially recall (though I had others on my old Commodore 64) is ANT ATTACK. I do remember being fascinated by one in which you explored a castle and could move and collect objects and fight guards, but cannot recall the title of it! It was black outline figures on plain-coloured background, made by 'Ultimate'. Anyone else recall this one and its title? However, the first 'true' 3D game that I can recall, and the earliest first-person 'Virtual world' was that of 'Mercenary'. This consisted mostly of 'wire-frame' graphics (which can be achieved with 3D construction kit 2) as opposed to filled polygons, and apart from the sky/ground flat colours (much like 3DCK), was again a single plain colour. The 'underground' sequence corridors and rooms did have the appearence of being 'solid', but the objects within them were wire-frame. Objects could be collected and moved around the environment, however, and there were various 'vehicles'. The author of the game, Paul Woakes, has since improved his game-engine, and has produced a whole filled-polygon solar-system with explorable planets on the space of one floppy-disk in DAMOCLES and MERCENARY III. These do not have the total freedom of 3DCK environments (you cannot look up and down), but you can pick up and relocate objects, which you cannot with 3DCK. Woakes also produced 3D shoot 'em ups in the form of ENCOUNTER and BACKLASH. Some may wonder why DUNGEON MASTER has not been mentioned yet. Well, good though it was, and spawned many imitative clones, it was not 'true' 3D. The player could only look in four directions and move in 'blocks'. There was no smooth-scrolling involved, and no vector-graphics. However, we cannot do this article without looking at games, professional, shop-shelf games, which were produced with almost exactly the same development system as the one which probably just about everyone reading this has a copy of - FREESCAPE, the system of 3D Construction kit. The first, as I recall, was DRILLER. And, preceeding DAMOCLES, was in my experience the first full-colour filled- polygon first-person perspective 'virtual world' - though the terms 'Virtual world' and 'Virtual reality' had not then yet appeared. I was very impressed. And the sense of true involvement, of actually 'being there' that it gave was tremendous. CASTLE MASTER, TOTAL ECLIPSE, DARK SIDE and THE CRYPT all followed using the same system. I never dreamt that one day I would be creating my own worlds with FREESCAPE! Another very popular 3D game worth mentioning, which started out with 'outline' monochrome 3D in its earliest form is ELITE, the space-trading and combat game, and its sequel FRONTIER. Though the 'professional' world of 3D games has moved on, 3DCK is still the most user-friendly home-computer based 'virtual world' creation system available, and at a very reasonable price. So now we are into the 'post 3Dkit' era. The next step was texture-mapping. A game even appeared for the Atari STFM with full texture-mapped buildings and 2D sprite characters and relocatable objects set in a fantasy environment: LEGENDS OF VALOUR. And they said it couldn't be done. This engine was very similar in many respects to the now terribly famous DOOM, though it was not as fast or as smoothly-scrolling. Of course, we could not possibly ignore true VIRTUAL REALITY, and in particular the most widely-used system in arcades , VIRTUALITY. These are almost full immersion 3D games, as I am sure everyone must know. If you've not played one, you should, at least once, despite the cost,just for the experience (I have played DACTYL NIGHTMARE.) Now, like SPACE INVADERS and later DUNGEON MASTER, DOOM has started a genre of its own. This brilliant game has well-detailed texture-mapped play-areas, but the enemies are two-dimensional sprites. This can lead to some strange effects when a dead monster gets caught on the edge of an elevator, and any stationary objects such as dead monsters and equipment appear to 'rotate' as you walk round them to show you the same view of the object. Another very atmospheric game which suffers from this problem is ALIEN vs PREDATOR for the Atari Jaguar system. These 2D objects are being improved with fully-rendered sprites (which I do not believe are true 3D, though I may be wrong) in games such as SPACE HULK, and the up-and-coming ALIEN TRILOGY for the PLAYSTATION claims to have true 3D sprites. Yet, at the same time, particularly on the PC but also on the new generation of consoles such as the SONY PLAYSTATION and SEGA SATURN, other 'third person' view 3D games are appearing. There are TEKKEN and VIRTUA FIGHTER and all similar beat-'em up 3D clones, and a couple of the most impressive newest adventures to appear are 'The D' and 'RESIDENT EVIL', the latter of which crosses the 'third person' view with DOOM for a new experience, and with graphics that are incredible. In conclusion, it appears that for the forseeable future at least, 3D is here to stay, which can only be good news for affectionados of 3D computer graphics such as ourselves.