Games Dev Appreciation Station

[Tommy_Dizzle]

Looking back at Valve, its not suprosing that they're my favourite game devs of all time. Their ability to create a sensational single player story is unmatched, and every single player game they've ever made would be in my top 10 of all time. With the announcement of Portal 2, I can sense alot of excitement in me, something that doesnt really happen when it comes to new releases (i like not getting my hopes up).
This said, Valve are the kings of single player. They may also be the kings of MP (CSS, TF2 and L4D2 are unnaturally great), but their SP titles stand out the most.
Who's your favourite games developer, and why?

 

[Jandau]

Bioware. They consistently provide the best western RPGs on the market and have been doing so for the past decade. Be it old-school tactical RPGs (from Baldur's Gate to Dragon Age) or genre-mixing RPGs (Jade Empire, Mass Effect), they always deliver high-quality writing and stories, together with interesting characters and solid gameplay. The Bioware name is pretty much the seal of quality in my book, and a guarantee that I am going to enjoy the game.

 

[axle 19]

Bioware. They consistently provide the best western RPGs on the market and have been doing so for the past decade. Be it old-school tactical RPGs (from Baldur's Gate to Dragon Age) or genre-mixing RPGs (Jade Empire, Mass Effect), they always deliver high-quality writing and stories, together with interesting characters and solid gameplay. The Bioware name is pretty much the seal of quality in my book, and a guarantee that I am going to enjoy the game.

Agree with Furburt, no I dont have to say anything.

Insomniac for the Ratchet and Clank Series
Free Radical for Timesplitters
Bethesda for MorrowinD, Oblivion, and Fallout
Blizzard for Starcraft and Warcraft 3

 

[somersetsaxon]

Bethesda's development studios

Ignoring some of the dross they've published, their creative studio has put out my favourite two games of this console generation.

If you're looking further back then I'll second Free Radical. I had many an afternoon fly by on Timesplitters 2 multiplayer.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Treasure.

Give them their fucking due damn it.

Valve and Bioware get all the love.

Treasure.

Valve is good at polish, terrible at depth of gameplay. And "meh" at storytelling. HL2 was not, I repeat, was not, a "revolution" in story telling. They're still great, though.

Gameplay of Valve:

Shoot this. And that. And a portal gun. And spies. And sentries.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

Any developer who took their time to make a great polished game. without the need of DLC crap and such.

 

[Tommy_Dizzle]

valve are terrible at depth.

Shoot this. And that. And a portal gun. And spies. And sentries.

right, so their community based cryptic messages arent an exciting way to reveal small pieces of a story are just side projects?
You have to look at it like this; every SP game valve has made is somehow connected, and that's depth if you ask me. As for the tf2 references, I'm mostly thankful for their single player stuff. Their multiplayer games are mostly based on playing characters that are already in a story (that you never really know), so there's not much to tell. Although i still get a kick out of their cryptic updates.

As for Bioware, they made Neverwinter Nights, so im rather thankful for that.

OH, and before i forget, i really love how valve are always fighting for their games to have completely free updates and DLC for the 360, and the PC ones are always free. That's customer care right there.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

valve are terrible at depth.

Shoot this. And that. And a portal gun. And spies. And sentries.

right, so their community based cryptic messages arent an exciting way to reveal small pieces of a story are just side projects?

Hell no. Those are fun. I just don't participate in them. They are a great developer...But really, really, really suck at depth of GAMEPLAY.

Left 4 Dead. Shoot zombies.

Half Life. Shoot zombies/combine.

Portal. Okay, that wasn't all Valve's work.

TF2. Have a blast shooting people. Or let your sentry do it.

 

[Barry Bragg]

Bioware, most definitely. I haven't played a game by them that wasn't at least good if not absolutely great. Mass Effect, Jade Empire, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, and Dragon Age are all amazing and define the rpg genre in my opinion.

 

[pantsoffdanceoff]

I appreciate Atlus, especially their ability not to make it on to march madness despite consistently making some really fucking awesome JRPGs.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Rockstar, Ubisoft, Insomniac, and Bioware (GTA series, Assassins creed, Ratchet and clank, and mass effect respectivly)

 

[ultrachicken]

Bungie
I've personally enjoyed every game that they made and I played.

Bethesda
To this day, I still play fallout 3 and oblivion from time to time. I don't actually have morrowind, but that's because I can't run it.

 

[darth jacen]

Bioware. They consistently provide the best western RPGs on the market and have been doing so for the past decade. Be it old-school tactical RPGs (from Baldur's Gate to Dragon Age) or genre-mixing RPGs (Jade Empire, Mass Effect), they always deliver high-quality writing and stories, together with interesting characters and solid gameplay. The Bioware name is pretty much the seal of quality in my book, and a guarantee that I am going to enjoy the game.

This, though as others have said I also love Bethesda and Valve. Quality control is never a question when I see any of these three devs on the box. All I can say is "Where is my wallet! Daddy's got 10-60 hours to kill"

 

[EzraPound]

Gunpei Yokoi's Nintendo R&D1 has been amazingly consistent, measured over time -- they're responsible for all of the the 2D Metroid and Kid Icarus games, Ice Climber, Excitebike, Duck Hunt, the Super Mario & Wario Land series', and Mario Paint. Oh, and they also made a slew of Game & Watch titles, and are currently working on a new 2D Metroid for Wii.

Speaking of Nintendo, Rareware was an incredible collaborator before the bottom fell out of the company -- Battletoads, Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Country, Blast Corps., GoldenEye, and Conker are all theirs -- and Intelligent Systems has always been reliable, having spearheaded the Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, and Paper Mario series', and engaged in a number of other projects including programming (not designing) Super Metroid.

 

[veloper]

Blizzard for lasting support and polish

Bioware for trying to geek it out