The future looks fun

For anyone with even the most passing interest in video gaming over the past 30 years - be that the puzzles of Tetris, the cartoon adventures of Mario or the cinematic thrills of Metal Gear Solid - these are changing times. Ever since the days of Pac-Man, the emphasis has always been on better graphics, more involving gameplay, deeper realism. But for those of us watching the news that emerged from E3, the major games expo, last week, there was something fundamentally different in the air. The industry professionals who converged in Los Angeles for the annual event weren't so much discussing much about which games we might play in the years to come, but how we were going to play them.

The big three console manufacturers - Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo - made major announcements that, they promised, will radically change the way games are experienced in our living rooms and bedrooms. To be honest, they always say that - and usually such pronouncements signal the arrival of a brand new console that immediately makes everything else look positively ancient. This time, though, it is different. The launch of Microsoft's Kinect - out in November - is something altogether more interesting. A small black box which will retail at the $100 mark and plugs into the existing Xbox 360, it boasts a video camera, an infrared sensor and a microphone. Nothing particularly spectacular about that, perhaps, but the technology inside that box reveals something groundbreaking for video games: it tracks players' actions and commands and converts them into the movement on screen. If you jump, the character on screen jumps. If you run, your character will indeed run.

Most importantly, all of this is achieved without the use of cables or handsets, taking the idea of Nintendo's Wii remote controller to the next level. It's just the player, in front of the Kinect box, looking slightly stupid as he manically jiggles around. In all honesty, the actual Kinect games look slightly gimmicky: Kinect Joy Ride has the player clutching an imaginary steering wheel but there's no accelerator to speed up the car, and Kinect Sports - which includes boxing, table tennis and bowling - is really just family fun. But these are early days; the real talking point is the possibilities Kinect lends to gaming in the future. Playing video game football could really be as intuitive as kicking a ball in a park. No need to learn complex button presses or joypad moves; the only person to blame if you miss that penalty is yourself.

All of which rather trumped PlayStation Move, the motion-sensing controller for PlayStation 3 which Sony trumpeted with a selection of new games at E3 in advance of its September release. All of a sudden, actually having to hold something in your hand in order to fire a gun or hit a ball seemed a bit last decade. But a comparison of Kinect and Move did reveal something rather telling: if Kinect will be something of a technological demonstration to have a bit of fun with, Move will be a lot more precise and useful in proper gaming. Perhaps pressing buttons is still important after all.

Of course, the company that brought us motion-sensing controllers in the first place was Nintendo, in 2006. The Wii has been an incredible success - 70m people own one worldwide - and is proof that better graphics and more realistic games are no longer the dominant force in gaming. After all, the Wii is by some distance the least powerful of the three consoles. Its critics say that Wii is for the casual gamer, and it's true that most of its games have a family-orientated, cartoonish look and feel. But Nintendo achieved something more fundamental and elemental with the Wii: it reconnected people with the simple joys of playing addictive, interesting and, crucially, fun games, rather than maddeningly monotonous gun fests set in dystopian near futures. Super Mario Galaxy 2, out last week, might not look like any world you're familiar with, but that's half the point. It's pure escapism; combine that with a hugely inventive gaming challenge, and it's just about perfect. So what Nintendo does next is fascinating, if only because it's almost certain that everyone else will try to copy them. And such high expectations were met with the announcement of the Nintendo 3DS, a handheld console with 3D technology which, brilliantly, doesn't require the gamer to wear special glasses.

But the reason the 3DS - which has no on-sale date as yet - became the star of the show wasn't just because it's a nifty gimmick. Again, this new development was as much about changing the feel of how games are played. Because the screen is small, the glasses-free 3D actually works (Sony also announced a raft of 3D-compatible games, but with glasses), and it means games such as Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater have a depth and scale which immediately makes them feel more immersive. The addition of a 3D digital camera - and the news that a selection of 3D Disney and Dreamworks animated movies will run on the machine - makes the 3DS a mouthwatering prospect.

While E3 was essentially all about the technology this year, below the surface there were plenty of reasons to be cheerful about the artistic development of video games. Not least because three of the biggest and best games of the past year have been genuinely thoughtful new additions to an industry usually as obsessed with tired sequels as cinema. Heavy Rain on PlayStation 3 brought an element of film noir to its tale of the mysterious Origami Killer. Red Dead Redemption (PS3 and Xbox 360) might have been the successor to Red Dead Revolver from 2004, but it was essentially a new adventure set in the Wild West which really did allow for the possibility of riding off into the sunset. Flower on PS3, meanwhile, made a virtue of controlling the wind to blow a flower petal through the air - and was somehow a huge hit.

So it's good to see the makers of Flower are now deep into developing a new game, called Journey. Once again the emphasis is on the emotions: the player awakes in a vast unknown world and is left to explore the land of an ancient, mysterious civilization. This is more innovative than it sounds - rarely are games so open-ended. And it looks gorgeous, too. One of the most interesting concepts was a less-heralded game. From Silent Hill to Tomb Raider, video games and cinema have increasingly cross-pollinated in recent years - not with the greatest of results, if truth be told. So it was interesting to see Bodycount (PS3) take its inspiration from television and box sets: it's a pretty straightforward first-person shooter but split into "episodes" which gradually tell the story of a mysterious organisation. It'll even end on a cliffhanger for 'season two' - ie, the game's sequel.

It might end up being an awful game to play, but that's not the point. In an increasingly crowded marketplace, standing out is still key. It's why the designer of Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii) can make a virtue of being inspired byCézanne, why setting Assassin's Creed: The Brotherhood (Xbox 360, PS3) in renaissance Rome - and rendering that world to virtual perfection - is a genius, and genuinely exciting, idea.

All of which can only be good for anyone who, 30 years ago, wondered where the mazes of Pac-Man would take them in the future. The answer, it seems, is just about anywhere you want.