Who Says 2D Gaming is Dead?

Retro Gaming with Racketboy has up a feature looking at the best modern 2D games out there, all on the PlayStation 2. He highlights the best of every genre, from the modern classic RPG/beat-em-up Odin Sphere to the timeless beauty that is the Metal Slug series. "Disgaea: Hour of Darkness & Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories: Disgaea greatly resembles other strategy RPGs. Its isometric perspective, 3D battlefields, and nice-looking 2D characters are clearly reminiscent of most other games of this type, and on first impression, so is the game's turn-based combat system. However, you'll soon realize that this game actually plays very differently. The gameplay itself is, in a word, weird."

SF4 - 2D

[Anonymous Coward]

Street Fighter 4 is going to be 2D.

No mention of Live Arcade?

[Brigade]

Plenty of great 2-D games on Arcade all original .. suprised no one has mentioned them yet.

Aegis Wing - 2d Shooter for free dreamed up by a team of interns.
Alien Hominid - not just fun side-scroller but with a fantastic art style.
Heavy Weapon - Cute 2d shooter with a nice sense of humor.
Small Arms - Smash Bros.-esque multiplayer fighter with guns.

Those are just the ones I've played .. all under 50MB, not including the re-releases of old classics. And there's still a plethora of great 2D Flash games for free all over the internet. Plus the achievements drive me to play them (and re-play them) more than any other 2D game has before. I can honestly say that I haven't touched any of the Mario Bros. games after completion unless it was for nostalgia.

Topic Summary

[Shabadage]

It scared me into thinking the article was written by some idiot who though that the best 2d games were all on the PS2. Not the best 2D Games on the PS2. Anyone who thinks 2D games are dead should really look into the indie PC scene though. Aquaria (IGF 2006 Winner) is a beautiful game; and there are many others in development. Heartforth Alicia features some of the best 2d graphics I've seen in a while. http://www.tigsource.com/ [tigsource.com] You can find a ton of awesome 2d games on there.

Narf Butter

[Zephiris]

The title of the Slashdot article itself is slightly misleading. Since when are 2D games even the exclusive dominion of the PS2? And how do they define 'modern'? Last 2 years? I can name off just oodles of (especially arcade) 2D games over the last 10 years, though, I suppose there are few for the PC or bad modern consoles these days, and few games (though particularly 2D) for any platform that actually try to be original. Many of those listed are just yet more basic rehashes. Even since Marvel vs. Capcom 2, the 2D landscape hasn't been all that barren. I know it's slightly offtopic, but I saw '2D gaming not quite dead?', and thought of one (PC) game that really stands out, and I still think it'd be of interest to Slashdot readers on the topic. In particular since most would theorhetically be viewing Slashdot via a capable PC, and not via PS2. ;b

Hammerfall [fun-motion.com]. I'm not even sure how to describe it, aside from "there probably need to be more Russian gamemakers". It's a non-casual physics based game that is an interesting combination of action and adventure. It reminds me of the days when games were actually something to get excited about and actually buy. If I were to buy a game, say, 15 years ago, it was an investment. You were expecting many dozens of ours of entertainment out of the purchase price. There are plenty of games now where there's no reason to keep playing after the first time, and even that's a paltry 10-or-less hours while still being full price. Then again, that (and later) was also back when there were just oodles of sharewhere and freeware games that were decently entertaining and quite a few were a bargain at $5 or $10. But I digress. Hammerfall is just very...unique, innovative, and even if you don't care about the story, the gameplay is just sublime.
There's just something satisfying about taking your beat up Flying Contraption and *smacking* an attached hammer into someone at full speed, causing them to crash into the ground, break apart part of the level (yes, really), and catch itself (and other things) on fire. And the current 'demo' is a pretty complete game in and of itself, despite being pre-release.

It's a pipe dream, but a girl can hope that someday notions like "innovation" or "original" or "risky", actually return to the gaming proper, rather than something to be feared worse than death by companies looking to make an extra billion profit this year instead of spending a few lousy dollars taking a chance on the lost artform of games.

Re:It will always be alive

[mattack2]

"You can still get them..."

http://www.ifarchive.org/ [ifarchive.org]

There are some that various reviewers have said are as good as the Infocom games. Also, using the Inform programming language ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform [wikipedia.org] ), you can write games that will play on all Infocom interpreters.

Re:It will always be alive

[KDR_11k]

There's a clone called Crazy Machines, CM2 came out not too long ago AFAIK. No idea if it stacks up to TIM but it's probably not expensive to try it.

Re:It will always be alive

[eht]

If you liked that you might like Armadillo Run [armadillorun.com] or Pontifex One [chroniclogic.com] or Two [chroniclogic.com]. OK they drift from 2D, but are still very fun construction type games.