Know Your Gaming Roots

[Lerxst]

Holy crap am I old?! Thanks Shamus for bringing this to my attention... not that the gray hair would have indicated that either.

You want old-school though? Where's Brøderbund (Galactic Empire, Prince of Persia and Myst), Trilobyte (7th Guest - the very first PC-CD ROM game and 11th Hour), Delphine Software (Another World, Flashback), Shiny Entertainment (Earthworm Jim I & II, MDK) Bullfrog (Populous, "Theme" Games) or the varied history of Sega would also have made an interesting read as well.

 

[DJShire]

Remember when Bungie made good FPSs?

 

[megs1120]

It's so good to know other old fogies remember these companies. Those crazy teenagers don't know what they missed.

 

[megs1120]

Remember when Bungie made good FPSs?

Oh, snap!

 

[AvsJoe]

RIP Westwood. I am forever grateful for what you gave me.

 

[wammnebu]

Umm...Maxis didn't die, the Sims 3? Spore? They're an EA subsidiary now, but they weren't wholly absorbed into EA, and Will Wright is still a pretty influential figure in gaming.

Oh? I know EA now own the SIM brand, but, you never see the Maxis logo anymore - and they don't seem to be into making simulators any more, really. It's no longer 'Right, what shall we simulate next?' and more 'How can we keep making money off simulating simulated people's lives into perpetuity?'

Not to mention Will Wright left to form the stupid fun club.

I was about to say that Shamus forgot the recently departed "Ensemble Studios" or "Totaly Games" of TIE Fighter fame, but there wouldnt be much to write about with them. Good article Mr Experienced Points, and thanks for remembering Microprose, Im going to go reinstall Call To Power now

 

[conflictofinterests]

Concerning Activision, two quotes come to mind.

Dear old Friedrich Nietzsche, font of quotable knowledge: "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster."

And more recently, Harvey Dent (Arron Eckhart) in the Dark Knight: "You die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain."

 

[phoenix352]

When i first read the title i thought it was "Know your gaming robots" so i was like
Then i re-read the title and realized its actually gaming roots not robots so i was like
After reading the article and finding out that Activision were good once i was like :O

OT: Great article i liked it, May i suggest making it into a series of articles telling the tales of other lost companies and developers we once knew and loved.

 

[Thorvan]

Low on cash after the lawsuit, they were bought up by an investment group run by... guess who. They filed chapter 11, renamed themselves again, restructured the company, moved the company, and then began buying up other companies.

The description there brings to mind the image of a parasitic organism (Kotick in this case) finding a wounded animal, infecting it, and then using the poor creature to spread itself to others.
Tell me I'm not the only one thinking this.

So, Kotick is a Xenomorph?

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Micropose and Looking Glass (remember, System Shock fanboy here)... Ahhh, those were the days. I have fond memories of Maxis and ID Software (SimCity and Doom respectively) as well.

 

[Chris Sandford]

RIP Westwood

*sniff*

^ that.

 

[Valiance]

Good read. Funny thing is that I own almost every game mentioned in their original state. I have like three copies of Master of Orion, including the release that came on floppies and had copy-protection of asking you names of starships (which you could only get from the manual (which of course I saved!)).

Anyway, I miss LGS for Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri almost as much as I miss them for System Shock and Thief. TN:SFC was another great "thinking-man's shooter." I'm not gonna do a review of it, but suffice to say that it was a squad-based tactical FPS in the future on planets/moons that were most definitely not Earth. The game had something ridiculous like 30 or 40 missions, customizable loadouts for each of your squad member's suits, different types of suits for different roles/advantages...Hang on, it's starting to sound like a single-player Tribes!

But really, Westwood and Microprose are probably my top missed developers. Glad that you were able to mention them in here.

I'm also of the belief that Interplay will come back with MDK3 and a new Earthworm Jim, and once those go viral, they finish the Fallout MMO and Descent 4. Yeah, one can hope.

Origin's a special case for me because of Wing Commander 3 and 4, probably the best integration of Cinematics into a game I've ever seen...

 

[RvLeshrac]

Remembering old development companies is well and good to a point; but I think it's important that many great developers started as hobbyists, not initially under the umbrella of a vast game-making company. Games built by a couple guys or just one person, what would today be an impossible feat, during the infancy of electronic entertainment. That's were the roots of gaming start: not with large studios and budgets and publishers, but with creative individuals who STARTED those companies.

There are *hundreds* of games produced each week by 1 and 2-man teams. They expand into studios.

Just like early game developers.

 

[ilion]

AH looking glass, its amazing that Thief for example, still has a great community. I have no doubt the spirit behind them will one day be reborn. Its a bit of a shame what happened to videogames, games like homeworld dont come out every day it seems..

 

[Niveama]

Can't believe that Shamus miss that a large number of the founding members of Westwood left when EA shut the studio and set up Petroglyph games.

And that they are developing the potentially awesome End of Nations MMORTS game.

A persistant game world RTS made by the people behind C&C, yes please.

 

[Le_Lisra]

Am I old because I knew most of this?

 

[lynxus]

Ruining Bullfrog is unforgivable! I want Dungeon Keeper 3!

 

[Hexenwolf]

Its hard to believe that Activision used to put out the most innovative, interesting, and fun games on the market.

I still play Pitfall from time to time...

Yeah, I still play Battlezone every now and then, it's sad to see how much they've lost.

It's disturbing to see how little they have actually produced since Kotick took over. All they have done is literally buy existing studios and put them on the sequel tredmil. They have done NO IP creation. NONE.

No, you're both wrong. What's sad, and disturbing, and quite frankly terrifying is how wildly successful that strategy was.

It might be absolutely appalling from a creative point of view, but from a fiscal point of view, they're all rich now. Insanely so.

 

[Capo Taco]

More interesting than the remake of X-com was the other game its creators made when they had lost the trademark rights: "Laser Squad Nemesis", very solid tactical gameplay and very interesting game mechanics, where each players plans 5 seconds ahead and then is acted out simultanously.

 

[Truehare]

and thief definitely wasn't the first stealth game. Try the original metal gear, which only opted for the stealth focus because of a combined hardware/software limitation that made having character collision a pain in the arse.

I came in here to mention Metal Gear, and I'm glad I got ninja'd.

OT: You know, despite them being still in business, I think you should have mentioned Lucasarts at some point. They're pretty much dead today, by my standards.