In light of the recent thread on who's pushing the industry forward, I thought I'd start a thread to see who just plain makes you happy and what it is they've done. Not something that necessarily is technologically significant or that is widely praised or recognized, just something that you personally found appealing. Feel free to suggest games or companies if you have a good example of something mentioned. Also, have you ever thought a dev/pub's effort was awesome for their fans even though you weren't interested in the game/genre itself? I thought this would be a nice aside from all the negative things we normally have to talk about.
Here's my examples:
-Game companies that collect several older (especially 2D) games on one disc or release them via a download service (PSN/XBL/ETC). This saves me the sometimes outrageous costs of finding old/rare games, especially cartridges. This also provies opportunities to get arcade-only games on a home or portable system, or to get games translated into my language.
-Companies that save games from being dropped in my market (Ubisoft - Armored Core For Answer) or from being dropped altogether.
-Companies that try to keep some of my favorite niche genres going (Interplay - Descent/Freespace and the space sim, seriously, when was the last time a space sim came out?) or who create new genres (Midway - Freaky Fliers was cool, and I wish there were more, or even any, air racing games).
-Companies that try to blend genres (Thousand Arms, This is Vegas) which might expand my interests a little and increases the level of creativity and interestingness in the industry.
-Companies give their characters/stories new games outside their stereotypical genre (The old Kunio series, the DOA series - Ninja Gaiden, Code Chronus, and XBV, despite its pervertedness, are nice extensions of the franchise).
My recurring theme is companies that are willing to make an investment to cater to the niche crowd instead of solely the mainstream (I like the mainstream too, but not all of my interests are widely shared).
Here's my examples:
-Game companies that collect several older (especially 2D) games on one disc or release them via a download service (PSN/XBL/ETC). This saves me the sometimes outrageous costs of finding old/rare games, especially cartridges. This also provies opportunities to get arcade-only games on a home or portable system, or to get games translated into my language.
-Companies that save games from being dropped in my market (Ubisoft - Armored Core For Answer) or from being dropped altogether.
-Companies that try to keep some of my favorite niche genres going (Interplay - Descent/Freespace and the space sim, seriously, when was the last time a space sim came out?) or who create new genres (Midway - Freaky Fliers was cool, and I wish there were more, or even any, air racing games).
-Companies that try to blend genres (Thousand Arms, This is Vegas) which might expand my interests a little and increases the level of creativity and interestingness in the industry.
-Companies give their characters/stories new games outside their stereotypical genre (The old Kunio series, the DOA series - Ninja Gaiden, Code Chronus, and XBV, despite its pervertedness, are nice extensions of the franchise).
My recurring theme is companies that are willing to make an investment to cater to the niche crowd instead of solely the mainstream (I like the mainstream too, but not all of my interests are widely shared).