Off Topic: A Sad Note About PC Games

TerranC · #1 February 23rd, 2002, 09:23 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Richard:
... Wargames and sims suffered first. How many hardcore wargames or sims do you see coming out of major publishing houses today?... ...Remember SSI, Microprose, Interactive Magic, Janes, Origin, etc...

And let's face it Space based 4X games are a niche today.

Oh boy... Those were the days.
The scariest fact is SSI. they released Reach for the stars about 2 years ago and look at them now.

Yeesh.

Richard · #2 February 23rd, 2002, 04:28 PM

Actually even the RTFS remake was done by SSG, not SSI, and it was released from the remnants of SSI (most of the SSI folks had long been laid off) that was owned by Mattel Interactive at the time.

And RTFS is a PERFECT example of what I am talking about. It was a game where they tried to please everyone and pleased no one. They tried to remake a game that was a darling of the hard core 4X crowd, but dumbed it down a great deal. And they tried to make a game that the general public would like, but many of that audience didn't care for it.

Don't get me wrong the game has good qualities but there were a lot of folks that were disappointed by the overall quality of the remake. It surprised me too because I am a big SSG fan. In my mind you should always try to please you core audience with a game like this, and hopefully if you do a good enough job you will win converts from the casual gamers out there.

As far as SSI goes I was a huge SSI freak, my wife said I should buy stock in them

. If it had SSI on the box I used to buy it without thinking as I knew I was going to get a game I would love. Those were the days

.

disabled · #3 February 23rd, 2002, 06:05 PM

Personally, I don't like consoles much these days. Most of the games just suck. I play Final Fantasy and Test Drive Series on the sony, but beyond that most consoles controls seem sluggish and awkard to me plus game play is short most of the time.

Now....
Last night I spent a good 7 hours playing Space Empires I, 2 and so on. Why? It was fun.

As for Space Empires IV, I sincerly hope that it doesn't use RTG graphics like most games do. I hate the blocky and stretched texture look more RTG games have on this ships and graphics. MM shouldn't go down that industry standard...

Phoenix-D · #4 February 23rd, 2002, 09:33 PM

RTG?

Phoenix-D

capnq · #5 February 23rd, 2002, 09:48 PM

RTG = Real Time Graphics, a computer graphics (animation?) standard.

I don't understand Hadrian's comment, though, since SE IV's graphics are based on .bmp formats. Did you mean some hypothetical future sequel?

disabled · #6 February 23rd, 2002, 10:30 PM

If I recall it right, MM would be using the next few games to develop and test systems to be used in SpaceEmpires V.

[ June 14, 2003, 18:28: Message edited by: General Talashar ]

Taera · #7 February 24th, 2002, 09:39 PM

Just a note that whatever happens and whatever good will the consoles be, do not forget that PC has advantages when talking about serious fps or strategy games. Strategy games is what realy keeps the PC on. Ok, so imagine the SEIV goes for consoles. Now what? How exactly would you add your own "Traushignty Imperium" racestyle to the game? Or how would you mod it to your heart's content? or even just make the AI a little smarter?

The PC has the power of customization. Nothing would ever beat it. plus, i think that the PC proccessing unit allows for more artifical intilligence capabilites for the games than consoles could ever reach. Ok, so you played a game, finished it, whats now? The AI in those consoles is dumb thing that does as it was programmed, nothing else.

To finish the post i'll give another example, Quake series. It would never have such a large community simply because you couldnt record demos, create models/skins. And no bots. Nothing.

Console is like a headache. It comes, it passes, and you forget it.