I was playing some Enclave tonight (picked it up in a recent GOG sale based solely on the listed developer) and I decided that despite the fact that I quite enjoyed Escape from Butcher Bay and The Darkness (eventually), Enclave is now my favourite Starbreeze Studios game. It's just so much fun and has that great late 90s - early 2000s level design (OK, that might not be a thing, but I find that levels from games from that period often have a very different feel to today's games... they tend to be more open and more asymmetric).
Anyway, it also happens to be Starbreeze's first game (at least under that name). My theory, based on absolutely nothing, is that sometimes developers get more of a chance to make the game they want to make on their first try... before a publisher comes along and corrupts them with their views on "what will sell".
So I'd like to know what debut games from developers you think were great, and you get bonus points if you think it was better than anything else they've ever released.
Other random examples off the top of my head:
- According to something I read somewhere on Destructoid (I think a weekend modder's guide), no one who worked on Baldur's Gate for Bioware had ever worked on a computer game before. So that'd make that a big-time first for all of them. (It's my favourite game of theirs I'd say, but I haven't yet played BG2, which is almost unanimously considered to be the better game.)
- Relic Entertainment's first game was Homeworld, in my opinion the greatest RTS game ever created.
- Bohemia Interactive's first game, Operation Flashpoint, is easily my favourite war game. I must admit I haven't played ARMA 2 yet though.
Anyway, it also happens to be Starbreeze's first game (at least under that name). My theory, based on absolutely nothing, is that sometimes developers get more of a chance to make the game they want to make on their first try... before a publisher comes along and corrupts them with their views on "what will sell".
So I'd like to know what debut games from developers you think were great, and you get bonus points if you think it was better than anything else they've ever released.
Other random examples off the top of my head:
- According to something I read somewhere on Destructoid (I think a weekend modder's guide), no one who worked on Baldur's Gate for Bioware had ever worked on a computer game before. So that'd make that a big-time first for all of them. (It's my favourite game of theirs I'd say, but I haven't yet played BG2, which is almost unanimously considered to be the better game.)
- Relic Entertainment's first game was Homeworld, in my opinion the greatest RTS game ever created.
- Bohemia Interactive's first game, Operation Flashpoint, is easily my favourite war game. I must admit I haven't played ARMA 2 yet though.
