S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Team Not Art Thieves 62
Via Kotaku an Inquirer article reports that, despite earlier claims to the contrary, it looks like the folks behind the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. title are not guilty of art theft. It seems both Half-Life 2 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. use textures from a pack produced by Marlin Studios. The similarities are there because both teams used pre-canned materials for their titles, not because of any tom-foolery on the part of GSC GameWorld.
Fantastic News! (Score:5, Interesting)
The game is very original, and I see a lot of promise in this game in the way of mods, expansions, and sequels. This game is so good it made me feel like I was playing a first-person-shooter version of Fallout. In fact, I recently reinstalled Fallout, and am beating it again. If S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is good enough to remind me of such a golden age game, they must have touched on the right nerves.
Hopefully any previously mentioned projects will take less time to develop than the game itself did!
I sort of doubted the original allegations were true, and figured that some kind of licensed or public domain material must have been involved in this. Glad to hear that is in fact true.
This developer shows promise, and it would be unfortunate if its reputation were inappropriately tarnished.
Re:In the minds of the consumer (Score:2, Interesting)
I understand the concept of using tools (Engines, Texture Sets, etc.) to create games. I also understand that it is unfeasible for studios to reinvent the wheel every time they make a title. But when a game is accused of stealing artwork because its graphics are so rehashed, I think it is indicative of a problem. Like I said, these things won't likely affect sales.
Re:Fantastic News! (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps my hopes were too high for this game, and I do intend to keep playing it until its finished, but I cant recommend this game to anyone.
I like this (Score:3, Interesting)
Even better, these kinds of resources need to be made available to small time and independant developers. Writing a 3D game would be a lot easier if a huge number of the objects were already done.