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[team_q]

i don't know if it is a money-maker, but the fact that Tomb Raider games are still being made is an atrocity.

As well as the lack of a Homeworld 3.

If I think of big publishers off the top of my head: EA, Ubisoft, Eidos and Activision(I guess they are Blactivzard now or whatever)

they cram out the sequals at an alarming rate, A new madden every year, a new Splinter Cell, a new Tony Hawk. They can do this because people get familiar with the franchise. I cant wait till Assassin's Creed 2 next year!

[Melly]

Well, I guess you can't argue taste. But I honestly can't see how you would like it.

It's fun, has good pacing, a good story, some sweet graphics, and Disney nostalgia, what's not to like? Just because Disney and Square teamed up? Disney has a pretty dark past, I think they fit in. Although, you don't often hear about their nazi propaganda movies these days.

For me it was far more frustrating than fun because of the issues I pointed out. And a good story? There was barely any story, and what was there was the whole "best friend turned evil", "darkness is evil, kill darkness" and "you'll never defeat us because we have the power of friendship" crap that's been overdone to lunacy. Not to mention the main villain was totally forgettable. Everything else is visiting Disney worlds with very little of the game's actual plot showing up in these segments that comprise 80% of the experience.

[nayon]

i don't know if it is a money-maker, but the fact that Tomb Raider games are still being made is an atrocity.

As well as the lack of a Homeworld 3.

If I think of big publishers off the top of my head: EA, Ubisoft, Eidos and Activision(I guess they are Blactivzard now or whatever)

they cram out the sequals at an alarming rate, A new madden every year, a new Splinter Cell, a new Tony Hawk. They can do this because people get familiar with the franchise. I cant wait till Assassin's Creed 2 next year!

Respect Ubisoft.

[team_q]

They soured me when I tried to run the two latest splinter cells, both ended up with problems and they didn't bother to respond to my support emails.

[Raisins]

i don't know if it is a money-maker, but the fact that Tomb Raider games are still being made is an atrocity.

I am the last Tomb Raider fan, I know they are horrible now but I can't let go. At least they are getting better then angel of darkness.

I was really let down by halo3 and why everyone gave it a 10/10. It had a really bad single player campaign. I enjoyed halo1/2 has a solid console (nothing I would play on PC)  shooter.

Also AAA titles need to learn to keep the hype at a manageable level. To many good games have been shot in the foot by there own hype, Bioshock, Assassins Creed, etc...

[shinygerbil]

i don't know if it is a money-maker, but the fact that Tomb Raider games are still being made is an atrocity.

As well as the lack of a Homeworld 3.

Man, just imagine Homeworld 3 on the Wii. You could have some really nifty way of moving around the 3D space, something akin to the big monitors in the Minority Report film. I think that would be awesome.

[Wilson Saunders]

I am shocked that this thread has gone so long without bringing up games made to profit off books and movies. I have not sunk to playing one since Independence Day, but I imagine the struggle to cram gaming content into the "money shot" of a movie has not gotten any easier.

On the Halo topic, I believe they are not bad games. They just could have been better games if they were created for the PC/MAC, as opposed to the drooling console hoards. Since I refuse to buy an X box or Vista I have only played the first one. The experience was distinctly Nerfed.

[Melly]

I'm not sure, are movie/book games actually popular and profitable? If they are, they definitely fit in this thread.

The big problem with them is that publishers expect the game to be done in time to cash in the movie's hype/success. That usually means very little development time, which leads developers to cut corners everywhere and not properly balance and refine the game. Which means derivative, dull, glitchy, imbalanced and barely playable pieces of garbage.

Not all movie/book games are bad, though. If the damn publishers actually give developers the time they need to make the game good. Example: GoldenEye.

[Akhel]

This is an atrocity that is popular and a money maker (also a sign of the gaming apocalypse). God, it's horrible.

[Melly]

MMORPG's have the unique characteristic of feeling like a second job. After you play them for a while, they aren't exactly fun, but you just HAVE to keep on doing them, like your sustenance depended on it (like a boring dayjob).

Makes me wonder what makes them so very popular.

Some people say it's the community and P2P interactions, but that can be gotten in non-MMORPG's, sometimes in far more satisfying ways. I personally think it's what everybody says it is. The carrot on the end of the stick syndrome. Your life in not complete without that complete epic item set, is it? And when that's done, you still need to build up a Druid!

I personally think these games are much more menacing to society than GTA, but that's personal opinion.

[AdamAtomic]

MMOs are ambition simulators

[Ivan]

I think MMOs are not particularly bad by their nature. It's just the way they're implemented now that's problematic. I played a little bit of World of Warcraft and I had a lot of fun just running around and interacting with people. I never got past level 20 or so and never really felt pressured to actually do anything in the game, but that's not the way it's supposed to be played, so i didn't get that much out of it. I mean, MMOs have followed the same basic grind scheme since the early days, so I think there is ALOT of room for innovation there. Problem is that they are so expensive to build and maintain, so they all go for the money grabbing addiction formula. I think there will be some exciting indie MMOs in the future as technology becomes more accessible.

[idiotmeat]

I am shocked that this thread has gone so long without bringing up games made to profit off books and movies. I have not sunk to playing one since Independence Day, but I imagine the struggle to cram gaming content into the "money shot" of a movie has not gotten any easier.

I would agree, but sometimes there is that gem (Goldeneye, Ducktales, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, E.T., etc...).

[skaldicpoet9]

This is an atrocity that is popular and a money maker (also a sign of the gaming apocalypse). God, it's horrible.

Ah, yes. The curse that has been thrown upon the land in the veil of a large persistent fully realized world. I started playing WOW back in March for awhile and at first it was alright I enjoyed the scale of it, the variety of people and the fact that the game actually was about exploration and social interaction. Those were my first impressions. Eventually i came to realize that the people I was questing with (or even worse, the people in my Guild) really couldn't care about "socializing" and having a good time, they were in it for the grind, for level 70. One day I popped on and I went to go kill something and realized that I would be doing this over and over until level 70 and then after that there would be level 80 and so on. It is a sad thing to see because the MMORPG genre is truly one of the untapped potential wonders in the gaming world. There is so much more that can be done with this great concept. I don't know how anyone here feels about Second Life but the thing is: they are at least doing something that is somewhat different and immensely more interesting then any MMO out there. Hopefully one day someone will realize the incredible potential of MMOs and capitalize off of the stagnant nature of the genre to create something... revolutionary.

[the_dannobot]

Four pages of signs of the gaming apocalypse, and no mention of Beautiful Katamari?  I've never seen a more half-assed game.  That game was so obviously called-in, they might as well have just said "Piss off, we're jumping the shark."

[Stij]

I am shocked that this thread has gone so long without bringing up games made to profit off books and movies. I have not sunk to playing one since Independence Day, but I imagine the struggle to cram gaming content into the "money shot" of a movie has not gotten any easier.

I would agree, but sometimes there is that gem (Goldeneye, Ducktales, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, E.T.,  etc...).

Heh.

...plesae tell me you're being sarcastic.

[Melly]

I really wanna play E.T. Just to see if the rumours, the horrific legends and tales are true. If they are, I feel my soul will be shreded for eternity, but alas, curiosity is part of human existence.

[skaldicpoet9]

I really wanna play E.T. Just to see if the rumours, the horrific legends and tales are true. If they are, I feel my soul will be shreded for eternity, but alas, curiosity is part of human existence.

Ah, yes the end of the gaming industry as we know it in 1983.

I read that Atari actually ordered 5 million copies and at the time there were only 5 million 2600s in existence. Craziness.

Apparently the sentiment was that they could "shit in a box" and get away with it.

Hmm, it seems like a lot of games are taking the shit box approach.

Wait, I like that....the "shit box factor" heh

[ravuya]

IIRC, some magazine caught up with the original programmer (Howard Warshaw: Yar's Revenge) and asked him about it; according to him he wrote the game in five weeks, from scratch. He said he was quite proud of it considering the time constraints (Yar's Revenge was 4-5 months).

It's really quite impressive; I don't know if I could write a decent PC game in five weeks, let alone debugging, testing and mastering an Atari VCS title. At least he had art help.

[lowpoly]

I really wanna play E.T. Just to see if the rumours, the horrific legends and tales are true. If they are, I feel my soul will be shreded for eternity, but alas, curiosity is part of human existence.

let me save you the trouble. We got this game, like every kid my age, when it came it out. It was a big deal. (If I remember, Atari games were like $40.) And it was just as horrible as you've read. It was an incredibly frustrating game, most notably how you'd randomly fall into a pit and would have to joystick mash out of it. That was the majority of the game for me, falling into a pit, struggling to get out, falling in another pit, turning off the atari. I tried it over and over again thinking I was just missing something, but even as an 8 year old I knew the game fucking sucked.

Hearing about how Atari was ran in the end of days and how that whole project went, it's not surprising the game is such a POS. I think I remember reading that the 5 weeks really only covered programming and 'art'. They never really got to test the game because of the super compressed timeline and thus, ET lives on in infamy.