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[DeathDude]

Yeah EA's strategy as of late has been something to watch, that whole incident with Ubisoft was something interesting, but I was glad to see that UbiSoft wasn't going to give into EA's ploys of buying those shares, even though they didn't claim if wasn't anything hostile.

[Jim6]

Well, I'm not going in for any more EA bashing, aside from saying more or less what (I think!) people are saying here but from a different perspective: Is it just me, or is it the easiness of the games that is the main problem? I'm not talking about save-load-save-load-finished kind of ease, but rather the total lack of immersiveness caused by the lack of interaction and complexity. Compare: Xcom1 and say... the Sims. Even Xcom1 and (what's now an oldie) Incubation. Picard: you mentioned Civ3: compare that to Master of Magic, or even Civ2.

I'm not sure, but there *is* a certain something lacking from the modern slew of games that are out there.

Whoever said that about Tie Fighter - just play the '95 remake; there's no need for Doom3 style graphics!

[Microprose Veteran]

Well, being originally a simulator-freak (now more a strategy gamer), I can only say that better 3-D graphics, sound, etc, have done wonders for the simulator games.

I'm still playing Ghost Recon and it's an awesome simulation. It doesn't even feel like a game sometimes, though I understand some people will find the politics not sound. Anyway, after some patches the enemy AI is even better and now I have big problems keeping my team alive in some missions.

Like this mission where you have to support a tank team, capture a town and destroy artillery on hill tops. Just now I completed the mission again, best result so far: only two of my team killed. The tank was destroyed unfortunately, as was most of the tank infantry. But 4 others of my team made it and we got those artillery pieces...

I wouldn't recommend playing this game for prolonged sessions, but for a quick shoot (15-25 minutes) it's superb. A real thinking, tactical shooter this one.

CIV II had one big mistake: you could use cannon to attack (it's only a support unit) and if the enemy had railroad tracks you could almost play like you were using tanks instead in a blitzkrieg campaign. I also think the 'Culture' factor in CIV III adds much to realism and captured cities revolting is a nightmare but look at reality. It's not that easy to capture and hold territory (with people on it).

[Charmed]

Well here is another good read - it will be interesting to see what developers will be saying a couple years after the next generation of consoles are released.

http://news.com.com/Developers+uneasy+abou...ml?tag=nefd.top

[DeathDude]

Yeah that's a good article that brings up a lot of points mentioned, such as the rising costs and such, it's really good look into the industry and the concerns that are mentioned.

[The Niles]

That article is a little dated when it comes to the numbers. Many top video games already cost upwards of $20M. The game industry is already dominated by a very few big companies. I have been hearing the line "There is no creativity left in the industry" since the late nineteeneighties.

This atricle is called fear mongering and should not be taken seriously.

[Microprose Veteran]

Tetris

(not my kind of game though)

[TheSmyth]

I don't see the argument personally.
If a game is crap, then don't buy it. Anyone with an internet connection has more than enough sources to find out almost everything about a new game (sometimes including demos) to decide if it's going to be there sort of thing or not. :bye:

I don't buy many Brand-New games myself (prefer to wait for budget titles - that justify the games I'm paying for), but there are a few exceptions (e.g. Half-Life 1, Hitman 2, Deus-Ex 2, C&C RedAlert 2) people may not agree with my preference of games... but notice how most of them are sequels.

The developers constantly making sequels does mean that there's a lot of crap out there. But that doesn't mean they they should stop doing it. It's still pushing innovation.

Who, in there right mind, can tell me that GTA: San Andreas does not blow GTA1, GTA2 (not to mention GTA3 and GTA: Vice City) completely out of the water? :bleh:

If you avoid the rubbish and only buy the innovative stuff, the developers (and publishers) would eventually get the idea.

Question: Would Doom3 be any better of a game if it hadn't been made by Id and hadn't been called Doom?

A rose, by any other name would smell as sweet?????????

[BeefontheBone]

...as would a turd, yet somehow sequels which are pooey get away with it (C&C gets worse and lazier every time IMO) and new games which are brilliant are ignored (MDK, Sacrifice, Darwinia...). So roses by another name are easier to ignore, it would seem.

[a1s]

a rose by any other name is hard to procure trough a shiping catalog
also, it would be as good if it was called destiny instead of DOOM3, but it would be different were it not by ID.

and hasn't it ever hapened to any of you, that you look up a game in the internet, and you see that everyone says the game is briliant (you know, 110/100) then you go into a store, buy it and see that it's, well 'Ok' or 'good', but certanatly worth neither that overhaul you just gave your PC in order to meet the requirements, nor the 90$ they demanded for the boxed version (which you hopefuly didn't get, but everything could happen) .