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Games Entertainment

Europe's Version of E3 67

Posted by Hemos from the report-from-the-floor dept.
soapy writes "Europe's biggest computer gaming trade show, ECTS, took place in London this week. There's a pretty good show report that summerizes all the games coming out later next year such as Violition's Red Faction by Volition which uses the Quake 3 engine and No One Lives Forever, that James Bond first person shooter. There's also some details on some the console stuff going on such as Nintendo's Gameboy Advance, The Sony PlayStation2 and the PSOne. " If you're got more links, post 'em below.
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Europe's Version of E3 More

Europe's Version of E3

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  • Re:Are you completely daft of human nature? (Score:4)

    by codemonkey_uk ( 105775 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @02:48AM (#799417) Homepage
    Dispite this beeing an obviouse troll, I'd like to retort, Hairy_Potter [slashdot.org] wrote:
    what kind of fascination, wonderful games have come out of the UK, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Crumpets III D, Bow to the King? Face it, just like every other facet of the computer world, American's make the best computer games
    X-COM, Magic & Mayhem, Creatures 1,2 & 3. And their just the ones from the companies I've worked for. The UK is also the home of The Bitmap Brothers, Codemasters, Psygnosis, Bullfrog, Rare, SCI, Muckyfoot, Jeff Crammond, and more (my co-workers are realing them off faster than I can type!).

    Thad

  • Jeff Crammond just released Grand Prix 3, Which as usual is now the definative Grand Prix type game (for those of you who enjoy racing around in circles)

    http://www.mgon.com/reviews. phtml?id=30044&language=en [mgon.com]

  • Gamecube News from ECTS [ign.com]
    - From cube.ign.com [ign.com]

    ECTS Wrapup
    PC [zdnet.com] and Console [zdnet.com] news
    - From ZDNet's [zdnet.com] GameSpot [zdnet.com]

    ECTS Final Wrap-Up [ign.com]
    - From psx.ign.com [ign.com]

    Nothing major at pocket.ign.com (Game Boy Advance), xbox.ign.com, or dreamcast.ign.com. Maybe I'm too tired and missing them... ;)

    Hope some of this is somewhat useful :)

  • ECTS is nothing but shiny things, flashing lights, loud noises, lies, and small women with large breasts.
    Here are the photos [angelfire.com] I took at ECTS on sunday...

    http://www.angelfire.com/tv/micromaniacs/ects/ [angelfire.com]

    --
    Jonathan Hunt
  • Unfortunately, today's video "games" train our children to be professional killers. These games are so realistic, the military uses adaptions of them for their OWN training simulations! With the cadre of pro-violence and anti-Christian games released every day, it is not a suprise we see our society in the state it lies.

  • I don't think you can say one country is better when it comes to games.

    Japan: a lot of the early arcade classics came from Japan- Space Invaders, Galaxian, Galaga, Xevious, all those other classic Taito, Namco, Konami, Nintendo games. In recent times, most (but by no means all) of the good games for the Japanese consoles have come from Japanese developers.

    Americans: Just like Japan, a lot of the truly classic arcade games came from USA. Joust, Robotron, Asteroids, Tempest, etc. All those early arcade games from Atari, Williams, etc. And let's not forget pinball, OK? :-) In recent years, a lot of top-notch computer games have come from America ranging from the classic Infocom and Sierra adventures to FPS games like Wolf3D, Doom, Quake, etc.

    Brits: The Brits have played a somewhat smaller role, but have contributed a LOT of great games that the posters before me have already listed at great length. Bullfrog Studios, etc. I've never been a fan of Psygnosis games buth ey, whatever floats your boat.

    Of course, other great games have come from ther countries too like Canada and France and others. In the end, I think the lion's share of great games and technology have come from Japan and USA but like I say the Brits are no slouches either. Per capita, they're definitely holding their own over there. :-)

    Now here's the question. We don't see a lot of Brit games over here, but the ones we do see tend to be high quality. Does that mean that Brit games are all of truly high quality, or is it true that they make as many crap games as the USA does, but they don't bother to ship the crap games over here?

    I'm thinking they make just as many crap games as us. I used to think all Brit TV was good because we only see the good stuff here in USA, but I really don't think that's the case. :)

  • Has all creativity died in the gaming industry?

    No. Look at Seaman or The Sims or Crazy Taxi for good examples of original vision. Okay, they are exceptions. There are a couple of reasons such thinking is at a low point:

    1. Games cost 2+ million US dollars to make, just on the developer's end. It's pretty difficult to convince a company that they blow big money in marketing for a game that's completely unproven. Will Wright had a devil of a time getting The Sims made, and he's in charge.

    2. Most game designers today are products of the video game era. That is, they have been heavily influenced by hit titles for the PlayStation, Super Nintendo, and so on. As a result, RPGs tend to be modeled after Final Fantasy or Secret of Mana, racing games tend to be modeled after The Need for Speed or Wipeout, shooters tend to be modeled after Quake, and so on. In effect, game designers have played too many games and it is affecting their thinking.

    Linux provides a big opportunity for the next generation of game designers, but sadly we haven't seen much to get excited about. Indies don't have to work on endless versions of old arcade games or remakes of Commodore 64 titles, but that's all we're seeing.
  • Hmmm... Red Faction is using the Lithtech Engine, I believe...better for blowing up walls. And No One Lives Forever is not a James Bond games, but a Bond-like game, based on 60's spy stuff. I'm not sure it runs quake 3 either. The Quake 3 engine bond game is named The World Is Not Enough (doi). At least, this was true the last time I checked.

    "You should never have your best trousers on when you turn out to fight for freedom and truth."
  • What has ECTS ever claimed to be? The European Computer Trade Show?

    It is about 'shiny things, flashing lights, loud noises, lies, and small women with large breasts' - btw I'm surprised you didn't mention alcohol - because it's about marketing product.

    It's about networking, and looking better than everyone else. It is shallow, but at the same time entertaining. That said, I have never spent more than two hours walking around the show and looking at stuff - unless I'm looking for new products to sell or scantily clad dancing women - because I can't think of many things more dull.

    It's also a chance for small development teams from all over the world to come to a place where, once a year, most of the industry is gathered together and willing to see product. This, however, isn't a contributing factor to a publisher's or distributor's decision to go there.

    From a gamers point of view there wasn't much of substance this year, or last year. Hopefully next year, and the change of venue to the Docklands, will be better.

    Yours, someone who enjoys ECTS and similar events for what they are and has done for some time.

  • "It seems that games companies now focus more on 'how to bring in the cash' than 'how to entertain the public'." - that's capitalism for you! Money does of course drive the industry.

    IMO Marketing and Shareholders are now, unfortunately, the two most important contributing factors in deciding which games a company will publish or distribute, and remember we're in this to make money - not to provide a public service.

    Sure, we take risks but as publishers we have to be extremely confident of success. It takes a lot of money and a lot of time to develop today's games and if we aren't sure we'll get a return from that investment then that game will be buried.

    From a marketing point of view, if a game is too off-the-wall or unmarketable in another way it's not going to sell. The game must have media coverage and we have to get distributors interested in it - if not the public won't have a chance to buy it.

    A decade ago it was a different story. One guy could code a decent game in his bedroom well within a year and make his fortunate. Five years ago you'd need a couple of coders and artists to do it within a year. Now a blockbuster game needs two to five years and a team of twenty.

    There's nothing inherently wrong with sequels, as long as the publisher makes money and people enjoy them. Take Championship Manager, for example - it's a database as well ffs - a top ten hit every time in the UK!

    And my background? I'm 'lucky' enough to evaluate game designs, 'near-finished' and released product - and let me tell you, you're lucky you don't see 99% of them.
  • Phantasy Star Online: A tradional console RPG, but 4 player online cooperative play.
    Four? Heh. I saw Sega's movie from the demo disc handed out at the show yesterday, and it contained the number 6,000,000,000, along with voice saying "six billion people" or something. I don't know the exact market penetration of the Dreamcast, but... ;)
  • It has it's own engine sporting a novel thing called Geo-Mod. Capable of real-time arbitrary geometry modification.
    In other words: the ability to blast holes through walls with your rocket launcher. This is definately a game to look out for.

    A penny for your thoughts.
  • If you have a Dreamcast, try out Jet Set Radio [min.net]. Totally new, and fun.

  • I hear a lot of this type of discussion these days - "The games are all the same", or "I wish something new and different would come out". This is where the opensource movement is lacking, and where these dissatisfied gamers can put their code where their mouth is.
    Open source has not had a strong history of games, but all the parts are available to put together a new game, even a new genre! We in the open source community may require device drivers, but games are an important factor in moving Linux and other open source platforms into mainstream use.
    Broadening the genres currently available, and innovating with new designs is part of the open source philosophy, and should be equally applicable to games programming.
    Commercial success is not an issue here, so artists are free to create and try new ideas without the overhanging threat of failure (meaning loss of job or income).
    That anyway, is IMHO.

    Happy coding! :)
  • I second that. It's the best game I've played in a long time, and I grew up with the sort of games that have been mentioned as being innovative earlier.

  • Red Faction does *not* use the Q3 Engine (Score:3)

    by coj ( 20757 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @02:59AM (#799432) Homepage
    It uses an all-new engine developed by Volition. One of the major new features of this engine is what they're calling "real-time, arbitrary geometry modification" -- essentially being able to blow anything up. This allows you to do things like bring down a ceiling on your enemies, pop a hole in a wall when the door is locked, etc.

    You can get more info on Red Faction here:

    http://www.redfaction.com/

    -Ed

  • Re:Games? Seen it, heard it -Unfortunatly- (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is that the long rumoured sequel to Jet Set Willy?
  • ...as interesting. This is what the rest of the world REALLY thinks of the USA (at times.) Sometimes its shocking to belive, but you people can be very self-centered and blind to what is happening outside your own borders.

    Unfortunatly for the USA, that post made some very valid, if not troll-like points.

    You Yanks really do piss off the rest of the planet sometimes...

    /me watches as he loses karma for expressing himself...
  • Call me a stupid American if you will, but I've never heard of Magic & Mayhem or Creatures 1, 2 & 3 (and I didn't care much for X-COM, personally).

    But I did appeciate Syndicate and Grand Theft Auto. Who says only US companies make violent games?
  • Currently released games: Baldur's Gate, Planescape:Torment, Icewind Dale (and those are just the rpg's.). Baldur's Gate two comes out in less than a month. Neverwinter Nights comes out in under a year, probably. All are the epitomy of what role-playing games should be. There are truly fine games, if you would stop and look for a second. And don't say that these games didn't sell, Baldur's Gate sold VERY well, was named RPG of the Year (as was Torment, a year later), and BG2 will most likely outstrip BG and PS:T in sales and critical acclaim.

    Moller
  • AFAIK, not much of note happened at ECTS this year.. no real unveiling of games, except the surprise announcement of Daytona 2 for the Dreamcast and _maybe_ the new trailer for Metal Gear Solid 2...

    The real gaming news today is of course the launch of Sega Sports' NFL2K1 and Sega's online gaming network, SegaNet!
  • Hmmm... Red Faction is using the Lithtech Engine, I believe

    you believe wrong. Red Faction has an in-house engine. No One Lives Forever, however, uses the LithTech engine.

    A penny for your thoughts.

  • One to definitely add to the list of good British games: Independence War. Its old, but amazingly well-done.


    -RickHunter

  • PC Gamer doesn't seem that afraid to give good reviews to innovative games. They review a lot of the "X with Y from Z" style of games, and they generally give them very low scores. The only one that they didn't do that for was Starcraft (I'm a Total Annihilation fan, FYI). Of course, my opinion of several of the games they did give high scores to is somewhat different, but they're still pretty good...


    -RickHunter
  • the person who posted story was incorrect about another thing. 'No One Lives Forever' is NOT a James Bond game. In fact, the main character is female. Most of the settings/environments for this game were pulled from several 60s spy novels. None of the novel mentioned by the developer were written by Ian Flemming, the creator of James Bond.
  • Or could it just be that not everyone knows what the hell ECTS is unless someone explains it? I didn't -- and I am european. Self centered Americans may be annoing, but Europeans with low self esteem are just as bad (if not worse). Whine whine whine...

    --

  • Excuse me, perhaps you can wish to live in an idealized, violence free Eden, but I'm all to aware of my animal roots, and if humanity weren't the meanest, nastiest, violencest sort of critter, we wouldn't be ruling the roost like we do.

    Actually, mice have it licked over humans. Both in number as well as in bio mass. Or cockroaches. Or flies. Not to mention insects as a whole. (Also it's "most violent", but then I'm not a native speaker)

    We evolved (ooh, there's that word again) fighting tooth and nail for our life over millions of years, to try to turn that off overnight evolutionarily speaking) is almost as trying to turn a life bearing woman into a warrior.

    Incidentally, we also evolved a higher brain, but turning that off overnight apparently only comes too easy. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a good FPS from time to time, but I'd rather also see games that require a little bit more thought.

    American's make the best computer games.

    ...after Japanese. ^_- I'm neutral as how they compare with European ones, though.

  • from BadTech [badtech.com] were there.

    (first P?)

  • Oh I see (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07, 2000 @02:02AM (#799445)
    We're not allowed to have our own fscking shows now, they're just clones of yours? What about the fact that most of the PC dev community comes from the UK? Are they just doing 'European versions of Quake'?

    You yanks really piss me off some times..
  • There's also a very good reportage from ECTS here [sandlab.org]. It's only in italian but screenshots don't need much explainations.

    ZCool
    Sandlab.org [sandlab.org] - News dal mondo che cambia

  • No One Lives Forever is NOT a James Bond-based game. It is a spy shooter set in the 1960's. It has several things in common with bond, such as a british secret agent as the protagonist (to quote the developers, "The female James Bond"), but it is Monolith software's own creation.

  • Other sites: (Score:3)

    by AbbyNormal ( 216235 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @01:55AM (#799448) Homepage


    Official Site: http://ects.oit.net/2001/ [oit.net]

    ZDnet UK news: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/spec ials/1999/08/ects/ [zdnet.co.uk]



  • Red Faction does not use the Q3a engine. Instead they are using their own in house engine. According to sharky's article which you mention they use the Geo-Mod engine.
  • I thought that Red Faction used the internally developed GeoMod engine [redfaction.com]...

  • At these sites:

    A pity I missed this one, it's always nice to know what companies are planning to do, and a large percentage of game development goes on in Europe.

  • I for one lament the slow decline in the quality and originality of computer games. Once upon a time you could buy games which were genuinely a joy to play, but todays games seem to be all flash and no substance. I don't want to be overwhelmed by a half-hour live action introduction, I want to kill some time doing something enjoyable.

    All we see today are an endless succession of technically accomplished first-person shooters, each with more graphical prowess than the last. Whilst this may be fine for Americans in love with their right to shoot people, some of us would rather play a game that involved us in something other than violence and hate.

    Has all creativity died in the gaming industry?

  • links links (Score:4)

    by gedanken ( 24390 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @02:14AM (#799453)
    various write ups and what not...

    http://www.gamesdomain.com/news/3036.html

    http://video.gamespot.co.uk/ects2000/

    http://www.diabloii.net/expansion/ects-2000-1.sh tml

    http://www.stomped.com/published/jcal968167198_1 _1.html

    http://www.gamecenter.com/News/Item/0,3,0-4710,0 0.html

    http://www.mgon.com/articles.phtml?id=31931&lang uage=en

    http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/r eviews/2272/1/

    enjoy :)
  • Contrary to the submission, Red Faction does not use the Quake 3 engine. It uses its own in-house engine designed specifically for the game. The main advantage of Volition's engine is that Red Faction is the first game (AFAIK) to support real-time geometry modification...i.e. if someone's on the other side of a wall, you take some explosives (read: rocket launcher) and blow a hole through the wall. It should (hopefully) make for an interesting way to avoid the linear paths of most FPS games and allow people to truly choose their own path through a much more extensively modeled world.

    Angron

  • Blame publishers, not devlopers (Score:4)

    by codemonkey_uk ( 105775 ) on Thursday September 07, 2000 @03:26AM (#799456) Homepage
    I've written this before, quite a while back, and I can't find the link, so I'll repeat myself.

    Games developers, and individuals are designing new inovitive games, but publishers won't fund the development of anything that their market drones don't understand. Its simple, unless you can pitch an idea in 30 second "its like X but with Y from Z" style your lost.

    Of course, the publishers would blaim the consumers - if they won't buy it we won't sell it. And they might be right. Don't ask why developers arn't making inovitive games, ask why the public aren't buying inovitive games.

    Also, there is the factor that an origanal game takes longer to make, and is therefore more expensive, and higher risk. With 10% of the games taking 90% of the sales, thats not a risk many publishers are prepaired to take.

    Or perhaps its the magazines faults. Reviewers are afraid to give good reviews to 'different' games, incase they get their reputation tarnished by a flop. Dito vice-versa with mainstream games. Reviewers don't want to pan a game and then see it become a huge hit. How humiliating. Editors want mainstream reviews to sell to joe public. Tell 'em what they wanna here. Quake 7 is great, so go buy it, then we can sell you the walkthrough. (And buy the way, Id, buy some advertising space - We've given you a great review!)

    But then weve gone it a circle, and basically, its the publics fault again. So I ask you - when did you last buy an origanal, inovative game?

    Thad

  • from the Grauniad Online [guardianunlimited.co.uk]. Unfortunately, it's by Jack Schofield - he's only just stopped promoting Atari so it'll be a few months yet before he gives up on Microsoft.
  • I'd agree that yes there has been a rash of quake/hl/unreal copies... But after attending both E3 and ECTS i've seen enough to convince me that there are still some original concepts and alot of talent out there. Take for example, Black and White, which in my opinion will be the ultimate game, Z:2 from the bitmap brothers, Rune from Human Head, Sacrifice from Shiny and B:17 from wayward, which will bring life to flight sims once again.

    Those are just a few examples of upcomming mainstream games that get away from the usual C&C RTS style, or quake FPS style that has recently been the trend.

    Another exceptional game that has recently redefined the RTS is Ground Control, from Swedish developers Massive. Taking an RTS and changing the way you would traditionally play.

    Even the FPS red faction is attempting to innvoate in the FPS field, with AI that compensates for the terrain you can blow apart. There are also the team baed FPS's, that are alot more then point and shoot (tribes, Counter-Strike, Halo)

    Creativity is alive and kicking.

  • No originality in games?

    Look to Sega, young man:

    Seaman: OK, an extension of the Tamagochi idea in some ways, but pushed so far into the weird, you have to give it kudos. Voice recognition, for the first time on a console, too.

    Crazy Taxi: a car game that's not just about racing, and is actually *fun*. Novel! (see also Driver, although that's not Sega)

    Samba De Amigo: A Maraca-'em-up, say no more

    Jet [Set|Grind] Radio: roller-skate around a city painting graffiti and evading the law, in Anime-style cell shaded graphics

    Phantasy Star Online: A tradional console RPG, but 4 player online cooperative play.

    Sadly, it appears innovation doesn't sell that well. The mainstream press and the buying public are not getting as excited about Dreamcast and its games as they are about X-Box and PS2 -- with their less than inspiring collection of games (I'm excited about PS2 Fantavision, but I need at least 2 more interesting games on release before I buy the console).

    Nothing new there, I guess. Innovation doesn't sell too well in other media either -- witness the horde of indistinguishable sitcoms on TV...
    --
  • yup - spot on. Enough of this America America Uber Alles cobblers.

    It's odd that a medium that's meant to be global and universal and set to create some Global Village and other suchlike bollocks is populated by people who think that because all the sites they read are in English, the whole thing is based around them.

    E-business people are the worst: The world does not revolve around San Jose. Most people don't even know the way to San Jose. But that doesn't stop valleydwellers talking about Europe as "that place a year behind us."
    For all their smarts they are rather ignorant.

    Can we have a bit more of a global outlook, people?
  • I have her on video, She didn't even look like she was enjoying it. Once i have it off the tape an on my system It will be posted on http://www.mgon.com
  • Could it be that most consumers are used to the "old" games by now and are looking for something different?

    I mean, if they came out with Combat or Yar's Revenge, most people wouldn't buy them - except as a 9.95 CD of classic games from WalMart. There has to be something new and exciting to draw new buyers at the moment, and unless there is another paradigm shift towards a new kind of game - e.g. when Wolfenstein 3D came out it spawned dozens of 1st person shooters, then we are bound to get the same things hashed all over again.

    Then again, I am reminded of a comment I heard the other day that reminded me of the early 20th century - "Everything that needs to be invented, has been already".

    So, where are all the creative geniuses inventing new types of games? We have had 2D games forever, from side scrollers to table formats (e.g. Pac Man). Now that 3D acceleration is more common, how about some creative use of 3 dimensions? I can think of: 3D sim of Office -- you are sitting in a cube and must smash roaches as your 1st person busily codes up _____ (web pages at first, then C++ programs, finally assembly on a transmeta CPU). Or how about 3D off the wall sports -- boomerang throwing, windsurfing, killer yo-yoing.

    :-)

  • ZDnet UK news: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/specials/1999/08/ects/
    I think that's news from ECTS 1999, not ECTS 2000

    --
    Jonathan Hunt
  • Kornelia, the world #1 female Quake player, was at ECTS, gathering one of the most consistent crowds.
    It was dead funny watching the line of spotty kids lining up to have a go.
    I've never seen a pro player in action before, but basically it's like this:
    Frag! Frag! Frag! Frag! Frag! Frag! Frag!
    7-0 to Kornelia!
    On Monday I think she was fragged 4 times all day. No-one fragged her twice.
    She needs to get out more...
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Whilst this may be fine for Americans in love with their right to shoot people, some of us would rather play a game that involved us in something other than violence and hate.

    Excuse me, perhaps you can wish to live in an idealized, violence free Eden, but I'm all to aware of my animal roots, and if humanity weren't the meanest, nastiest, violencest sort of critter, we wouldn't be ruling the roost like we do.

    A good fps is cathartic, it reminds me of a time when life was worth living, being too slow to defend yourself was a cause for death, and there was more to life than just cubicles and computers. We evolved (ooh, there's that word again) fighting tooth and nail for our life over millions of years, to try to turn that off overnight (evolutionarily speaking) is almost as trying to turn a life bearing woman into a warrior.

    By your anti-American slant, I'm assuming you're a Brit. Well, what kind of fascination, wonderful games have come out of the UK, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Crumpets III D, Bow to the King? Face it, just like every other facet of the computer world, American's make the best computer games.

    Count me as a proud, American, gun-owning poster.
  • The Game Cube was shown however only to select people. It was shown 1 day before E3 opened up and was shown behind close doors. IGN has a whole writeup on the Game Cube at http://cube.ign.com [ign.com].
    The Game Cube blows away the first generation Playstation 2 games. The Game Cube and Controller were only shown and was not allowed to be played with. Nintendo has alot of stuff it showed for power yet it still has alot of stuff to pull out of it's hat. Even the controller is a new design taking the best of numerous controllers. The controller is suppose to "melt in your hand" from it being so comfortable but very few people (mostly inhouse developers) have actually held it.
  • Is he still working in the industry? I'd add Team17 to your list too just for producing Worms (thank you Andy Davidson) Not forgetting Black & White It's got to be one of the more original games to be produced lately and its a UK baby too! p.s. If you worked on X-Com I salute you, UFO is still one of the most playable turn based strategy games yet.
  • I can assert from experience, as both an exibitior, and a visitor, that the ECTS is nothing but shiny things, flashing lights, loud noises, lies, and small women with large brests.

    So there is something to see, if thats what you want to see, but its not what it claims to be, and the show has absolutly no connection with the real world. Yours, A cynical, jaded, developer,

    Thad

  • They were handing out copies of Mandrake 7.1 and do doing some nice Demos. They even followed up some questions i asked.

    Hi

    I have some answers for the questions you asked at ECTS.

    1. DMA-100 : Should be supported in version 7.2. Currently buggy, but works most of the time.
    2. Touch Screens : Should work via the mouse/keyboard port. If that's not how it connects to the machine, please send the screen's model/brand info, and we'll look into it more.

    Hope that helps!

  • Well, look at what games are really selling. It doesn't encourage innovation from publishers to see most of the games that received good appreciation for their innovative approach ending as commercial failures.
    Look what happened to Looking Glass, maybe Eidos is to blame there but how come Thief I & II didn't sell more when most of the reviewers considered it very good games (I did too).
    Let's see if Black & White sells _enough_ to be worth 4 years of devellopment.
    Anyway my most anticipated game is Anarchy Online...
  • Games developers, and individuals are designing new inovitive games, but publishers won't fund the development of anything that their market drones don't understand

    I agree and also slightly disagree ;). True; there has to be a market for a certain (type off) game otherwise you'll be throwing out money. On the other hand; you can make more money out of a completely new sort off game then making a re-run. Reruns get boring; and if everyone is doing it people will hardly notice you. Question remains; who has to persuade the publisher? :) Anyway, I agree with you there.

    But then weve gone it a circle, and basically, its the publics fault again. So I ask you - when did you last buy an origanal, inovative game?

    Check my original story; a few months back I got Shogun, total war. Which uses a completely new concept.

  • By your anti-American slant, I'm assuming you're a Brit. Well, what kind of fascination, wonderful games have come out of the UK, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Crumpets III D, Bow to the King? Face it, just like every other facet of the computer world, American's make the best computer games.

    (takes the bait)

    Well, it doesn't take a Briton to flame the Americans - Canadians also do a great job of it. But I've just spent a very pleasant month in the USA, so you'll get no Yank-bashing from me today.

    In my humble opinion, the very best games come out of Japan. However, since you ask, here's a few games from Britain (many of them from Warwickshire, by the way, they were probably written within 20 miles of the seat I'm typing from right now):
    • Tomb Raider
    • Xenon 2
    • Micro Machines 1,2,3 and Micro Maniacs
    • Colin McRea Rally
    • Black & White
    • Dungeon Keeper
    • Republic (if you're out of touch, don't worry, you'll be hearing more about Republic very soon)
    • Lemmings
    • Grand Theft Auto
    • Goldeneye
    • Banjo Kazooie
    • Perfect Dark
    • Speedball 1 and 2
    • Theme Park
    • Um, Dizzy
    • The Pro Pinball series
    • Metropolis Street Racer
    • Elite
    • Revs
    • ... and many, many more.


    Seriously, Britain is a hotbed of games development, if only you pop your head out of the tiny world of FPSs for a moment.
    --
  • here's a link for all you people bitching about how the new N-cube (or gamecube, or whatever the hell it's called) will not support DVD movie playback. according to this article:

    the new nintendo console will support DVD movie playback [ign.com]

    so stop complaining



    -

  • I'm afraid I don't see any lack of innovative games. I've been playing Deus Ex with wild abandon, loving the degree of interactivity. Stars! Supernova is approaching release, which should please a vast number of strategy fans. Black and White (which was sinfully omitted in the article) promises to be one of the most innovative games *ever* was demoed at ECTS.

    There are a plethora of games coming out concentrating on team based gaming and massive multiplayer gaming. A subsection of society is re-aligning itself to become more in tune with gaming, from lan parties to the ubiquitous "guilds/clans".

    If all you're seeing is bloody FPS genre games, then I suggest you take a closer look at gaming. There's far more out there than just gory shooters.
  • "Don't ask why developers arn't making inovitive games, ask why the public aren't buying inovitive games."

    They bought The Sims. That was innovative.

    -Vercingetorix

  • jheinen [slashdot.org] wrote:
    They bought The Sims. That was innovative.
    Bah. The Sims is a dull clone of cretures [creatures.co.uk] crossed with Activision's Little Computer People [lemon64.com]

    Thad

  • Well, not too much, but I've always thought that /. has editors, not "cut'n'pastors" (and their comments should also be grammatically correct)
  • Now that games are ontopic I wonder how you guys feel about the going ons lately. I've been playing & buying games for quite some time now and I'm visiting my local computer store quite regulary to see if something new & nice came out. Unfortunatly it seems that game developers are unable to come up with anything new lately. Every game which you can buy nowadays seems based, or is a follow up, of games types which have been invented for quite some time now. It seems that games companies now focus more on "how to bring in the cash" then "how to entertain the public". One of the best examples are, IMHO offcourse, Eidos, ID software and Westwood.

    Eidos, to begin with, made some pretty lame and crap games (talking real innovation they did prior to TR1 is gone so it seems. In a way thats quite unfortunate.

    ID software & Westwoord... ID set the perfect standard for shoot 'm ups. If it wasn't for ID we never got games like Quake and even Unreal / Unreal Tournament. They set a perfect standard (Wolfenstein, Spear, Doom, Quake) and this concept got perfectly copied by others (Unreal, Half Life, etc.). But sometimes it allmost seems that all these others aren't capable of doing anything else!! Take a look at Command & Conquer, also one of my favorites. Now we finally got the last (?) chapter Tiberian Sun. But meanwhile; take a closer look at what the rest did with the whole C&C concept? Starcraft comes to mind as well as a lot of other games.

    But even despite the fact that some 'copies / clones / etc.' are even better then the original; what did these game companies really contribute? IMHO absolutely nothing; they just started a search for more money. Due to the simple fact that they didn't have to invent the wheel, that has allready been done for 'm, they could easily move on where the original game had to stop (you can't keep developing a game forever).

    And now we seem trapped in a games market where companies have lost the knowledge on how to innovate alltogether. The last real new idea which I encountered was "Shogun, the art of War". A game focused on fudal Japan. Even though my story is based on the PC market I'm sure this is the case for other platforms as well. I guess the only thing we can do is to wait and see if anything new will come up...

  • Well, what kind of fascination, wonderful games have come out of the UK, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Crumpets III D, Bow to the King? Face it, just like every other facet of the computer world, American's make the best computer games.

    Most great games for 8-bit and 16-bit machines came from the UK. These games from the golden age of computing, the type of games which Dan Hayes laments the passing of, were the ancestors of the bland first person shooters we see today.

    Many great games of yesteryear were created in the UK. You have obviously forgotten that classics such as "Manic Miner" on the Spectrum (one of the first great computer games), Lemmmings and Populous all originated in the UK. These were games where gameplay was more important than flashy graphics. It seems more than a coincidence that the decline of quality gameplay in games has coincided with the emergence of the USA as the major producer of games.

  • There's a technology demo (www.nononelivesforever.com) of about 110 MB with 3 playable levels and a tutorial. There's still some glitches in it but it looks really cool. The sixties style with its bright colours is quite refreshing after the endless quake clones with stupid monsters.

    The gameplay seems pretty straightforward but is quite fun. Also Cate (the game character) is a good excuse to retire Lara Croft.

  • Could it be that most consumers are used to the "old" games by now and are looking for something different?

    Something different eh? Please explain how Doom, Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3, Heretic etc. etc. are "different". They're the same game with different weapons, different levels and different graphics. The core concepts are all identical.

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