Favourite Developers of Yesteryear

[Lucem712]

We all have our favourite devs and publishers now, but we're not here to talk about that!

We're here to talk about our favourite developers that have either closed down, been eaten up by a publisher or just lost their heart somewhere along the way.

To kick it off, my favourite developer of yesteryear is 'Bullfrog'. Quality titles such as 'Populous', 'Theme Hospital', 'Theme Park', 'Syndicate' and so on. Unfortunately it was acquired by EA in 1995 and has since been completely adsorbed into another dev.

 

[Rawne1980]

Square ... before Square Enix.

When Final Fantasy was still good (FF-X aside).

Then we get the abomination that is FF-XIII. I wept, I wept like a man who had lost a testicle in a card game and had it removed with a pair of nail clippers.

 

[distortedreality]

Team 17

Sensible Software

 

[Tartarga]

Pandemic Studios was a favorite of mine, I was a big fan of the Mercanaries games. I especially liked Mercanaires 2, or as Yahtzee would call it, Airstrikes 2: Hooray for Airstrikes.

 

[Neverhoodian]

LucasArts. They made some of the best Star Wars games of all time back in the day (X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, X-Wing Alliance). Now I hardly know them anymore:

Westwood was phenomenal with the C&C franchise

Seconded. Red Alert 1 and 2 were some of my favorite RTS games when I was growing up. I'm still pissed about what happened after EA took over.

 

[Folji]

LucasArts' game department before they got unhealthily committed to Star Wars and LEGO, and New World Computing. The factions and towns in Heroes of Might and Magic 3 were great, why did they have to twist them so badly in the fourth game?

And second on Bullfrog. They were awesome.

 

[The Madman]

Troika and Looking Glass Studios. So damned much potential, so damned many great games. If this were a just a honourable world both would still be around and making modern masterpieces today.

 

[Squidbulb]

LucasArts. They made some of the best Star Wars games of all time back in the day (X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, X-Wing Alliance). Now I hardly know them anymore:

Westwood was phenomenal with the C&C franchise

Seconded. Red Alert 1 and 2 were some of my favorite RTS games when I was growing up. I'm still pissed about what happened after EA took over.

That video is awesome.

Also, I'd like to add the older Naughty Dog, Insomniac and Sucker Punch. Sucker Punch still does good stuff, but I'm not a fan of Uncharted or the new Ratchet & Clank games.

 

[Lucem712]

LucasArts. They made some of the best Star Wars games of all time back in the day (X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, X-Wing Alliance). Now I hardly know them anymore:

Westwood was phenomenal with the C&C franchise

Seconded. Red Alert 1 and 2 were some of my favorite RTS games when I was growing up. I'm still pissed about what happened after EA took over.

Wow...that video....I'm not even a star-wars fan and I feel like my childhood has been raped.

 

[Scrustle]

EA Canada/Black Box before... I don't even know what happened. I guess EA just wore them out. They made the NFS series before (and after) it went downhill, the SSX series and the Skate series. At least SSX has made a decent comeback.

 

[Palfreyfish]

Pandemic, up until that shitty LOTR game which was shit. Star Wars Battlefront 1 and 2 are still great games. And I'd also like to put forward Free Radical for the Timesplitters series which is also fucking amazing.

 

[DustyDrB]

Rare.

Might want to add more to that to avoid a low content warning. But I agree with you. They made some great 3D platformers.

 

[Solo-Wing]

Square ... before Square Enix.

When Final Fantasy was still good (FF-X aside).

Then we get the abomination that is FF-XIII. I wept, I wept like a man who had lost a testicle in a card game and had it removed with a pair of nail clippers.

Actually FFX was made by the original Square. But shortly after was when they became SquareEnix.

OT: Yes SquareSoft indeed. Also Rare.

 

[Rawne1980]

Square ... before Square Enix.

When Final Fantasy was still good (FF-X aside).

Then we get the abomination that is FF-XIII. I wept, I wept like a man who had lost a testicle in a card game and had it removed with a pair of nail clippers.

Actually FFX was made by the original Square. But shortly after was when they became SquareEnix.

OT: Yes SquareSoft indeed. Also Rare.

I know, that's why I put "when Final Fantasy was good (FF-X aside)".

Aside meaning not included.

I know it was Square but it wasn't good so i'm not including that in my view of Final Fantasy being good under Square.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Bullfrog. Populus: The Beginning was one of the first pc games I played that didn't involve cards.

Pandemic Studios was a favorite of mine, I was a big fan of the Mercanaries games. I especially liked Mercanaires 2, or as Yahtzee would call it, Airstrikes 2: Hooray for Airstrikes.

This my favourie sandbox games of all time. May EA be forever sodomised by Beelzubub himself.

 

[DoPo]

Troika and Looking Glass Studios. So damned much potential, so damned many great games. If this were a just a honourable world both would still be around and making modern masterpieces today.

No-o-o. Ninja'd.

Troika were awesome. Too bad for them, really too bad. And they did make games people enjoyed (despite the bugs). And looking Glass...oh, poor them. I really enjoyed them.

Bullfrog, I don't mourn as much, but I still mourn them. I played DK 2 just an hour ago. Bye bye, Horny

I also liked 3DO very much. It was a real shame they went under. Ubisoft is not too bad with their IP...but for one, they aren't the same, and second, it's Ubisoft. Also there aren't any Might and Magic games.

 

[Strain42]

Troika for giving me Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.

Also I admit that I was once a SquareSOFT fan before they became SquareEnix

Other than that I think I've been pretty lucky.

 

[Xanthious]

Seeing as Im an old time Amiga fanboy I have to say Interplay. Man I miss my old Amiga . . . .

 

[deathbydeath]

Bioware. I'm honestly surprised that that hasn't been said yet.
In other news, Black Isle, Ion Storm (the one that made DX1 and some bits of DX2), the portion of Valve that makes Half-Life games, and GSC Game World? (I'm not entirely sure if Stalker 2's gonna come out)

In additional news, I wish Max Payne 3 was being made by Remedy, or at the very least, Sam Lake