9 ways the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii changed games

Regardless of whether or not you play games to unlock virtual silverware, there’s no denying that Achievements (and Trophies) have a huge impact on modern games. On the surface, they’re a way for developers to pat us on the back and say ‘Well done for playing the game as we wanted you to play it’. They’re also a way to reward players striving well beyond their initial motivations (You finished the game on Mega-Uber-Killer-Death setting. Well done, you. And to think you only wanted to get half way through Easy mode).

More than this, though, Trophies and Achievements have become methods by which we benchmark ourselves against other players: usually our friends. Has your buddy really beaten the Evil Mecha Llama in Man-Shooter 6? Blimey, he did--and he got the Trophy for killing it with a peashooter. Hang on? How do I even unlock the goddam peashooter? And so on.

Motion control isn’t in every game we play (mercifully), but it has become a widely accepted thing. It’s all thanks to the Wii, which pioneered the idea of flailing your arms around like a child being attacked by a wasp, as a method for making your on screen persona hit a ball over a net. While Wii’s early games might seem a little primitive now, they have been replaced by some amazing examples of motion control being cleverly used to augment standard games.

And let’s not forget that motion control opened up gaming to a whole generation of more casual players, who have helped our industry grow massively. Look, we’re all very familiar with the workings of a controller, and the logic that core games ask us to approach them with; but millions aren’t. They don’t have the same gaming heritage as us. So when motion control offers them an opportunity to ‘swing a Wii-mote like a baseball bat’ they understand how that works.

Yes, the original Xbox had DLC. And PC players have been downloading games (legally or otherwise, ahem) for years. However, it’s Xbox Live and PSN that made the process of downloading add-ons, and even AAA games, the norm. Steam does it better now, thanks to more sensible pricing and a wider variety of games, but Xbox 360 and PS3 have done a great job pushing consoles firmly into the digital future. Or present. Whatever.

While many are reluctant to give up physical media (you simply can’t recreate that new game smell digitally) entirely, there’s no doubt that digital is an essential part of the modern games industry. Along with iOS and Steam, digital distribution on closed console networks has allowed indie studios to flourish, providing them with a platform to sell their games to a huge audience of players that ‘just fancy something a little different for a few days’. Now then, if Sony and Microsoft can sort out their pricing, we’ll be golden.

Sometimes you just don’t want to listen to Skrillex’s ‘visionary’ rendition of a man running over a pile of spoons with a lawn mower while you’re playing Man-Racer 7. Sometimes, you want to listen to rock, classical, R’n’B--whatever. The point is that custom soundtracks let you do that. Thanks sexy 7th gen.

Sadly, custom soundtrack functionality has stalled on consoles. Yes, 360 lets you play whatever music you like over whatever game you choose, but I feel there’s a real missed opportunity in terms of integrating custom soundtracks into games. Example? What if you could create a custom radio station in GTA 5, using all your own tracks? Surely the tech exists for inserting GTA’s trademark adverts and DJ comments in between songs… Oh, you can do it in GTA San Andreas on iOS? Carry on, then.

While this current generation (or last-gen, fuck: stop being such a pedant) hasn’t necessarily been as big a technical leap as others, the one important legacy it leaves is bringing high-definition to games. Back in 2005, HD was in its infancy, and most TVs didn’t even support it. The film and TV industries had barely touched it, but EVERY single game was in high-definition.

It changed things hugely. Games looked far sharper than those in 480p, in-game text was perfectly legible, and devs could dazzle us with more detailed worlds and characters. Games were the vanguard of the HD revolution, and it’s tough to imagine playing anything in ‘standard def’ any more, unless you’re deliberately going for that retro feel.

Bit niche, this one, but hey-ho. No-one likes being told to stop playing Man-Puncher 9 when someone else wants to watch a TV programme about fat celebrities being dragged around a ballroom by men and women in sparkly clothes. No-one. Time was, you just had to hand over the remote and take it. Now, second-screen gaming via Vita or Wii U lets you carry on playing even when someone else is watching the TV.

Again, this is another feature in its infancy. As streaming technology improves, we’ll be able to access next-gen games wherever we are in the world. Imagine how much more Parappa you could have played if this tech existed during PSone days. You rappin’ good!

When they first appeared, companion apps were a bit rubbish. There isn’t much incentive to play some hobbled mobile version of your favourite game unless there’s some unlockable goodies hidden within it. However, as the last generation progressed, developers found genuinely useful ways to make the second screen a big part of our overall gaming experiences.

I played the NBA 2K13 companion app for ages, earning virtual coins to spend on my player in the full game’s My Career mode. Why waste 5 minutes on talking to someone, or relaxing, when I could earn enough to marginally improve my mid-range jump-shot? Why indeed. Hmm… I may have wasted some of my life, there. Oh well.

So, there you have it. Games really have changed a lot over the past 8 years. The way I’ve been talking about it makes it sound like we were all savages back in 2004, hitting each other with rocks, building houses out of sticks, and using MySpace. LOL, as some say. If you think I’ve missed anything, please tell me about it in the comments below.

Need more fun in your life? I know a man who can hook you up with some high-class… er, never mind. Just read these features instead. Here’s GamesRadar's Platinum Chalice Awards 2013. And now one about The Worst Box Art Of 2013.