Bill Dugan - From Wasteland To Spiderman 2 21
jvm writes "Curmudgeon Gamer has posted an interview with Bill Dugan of Treyarch, producer of the new Spider-Man 2 console game, due to launch alongside the movie of the same name this summer. But, that's really just his latest project in an 18 year career in the video game business. During that time he has designed maps (for classic PC RPG Wasteland), programmed (Out of this World), designed a manual (Dragon Wars), voice acted (Stonekeep), and been the producer for several games (No One Lives Forever 2, Descent 3). In this interview he discusses the precise role of a game producer, the history of Wasteland, and perhaps most interestingly, why the game industry is making better games today than it was twenty years ago, despite the complaints of the nostalgic to the contrary."
Defending modern games (Score:5, Interesting)
- "The ratio of gems to crap then was probably about the same as the ratio is now."
To which I, as a collector of old video games, agree.- "On the bright side, video games today are way, way more polished than they ever have been, and the production values are sky high."
This, I do not agree with. Many modern games are cookie-cutter crap with the same lack of attention to detail as ever. 3D models passing through walls and other 3D models is a good example. Production values were probably highest just before the Playstation was released.- "Multiplayer games of all kinds are much more fun now than they were 20 years ago."
If you want to go back 20 years that might be the case, but I was playing Populous over a null-modem cable 15 years ago and it was just as fun as many multiplayer games are now. My current multiplayer fav is Diablo II -- four years old in a month. Give me a good few rounds of hunt [netbsd.org] over any FPS any day.