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100 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
Then suddenly you look down at your watch and realize its been 11 minutes since you first drove your car of that group of hipsters at the park and can only rewind to just after killing them...
DMG-TR-SCN is the code for the Swedish release of Tetris on the GameBoy.
Just in case you were wondering what the source image was.
From here:
Production
World of Warcraft (2004) - Team Lead
Diablo II (2000) - Producer
Diablo II (Collector's Edition) (2000) - Producer
StarCraft 64 (2000) - Producer
StarCraft (1998) - Associate Producer
Art/Graphics
- Star Reach (1994) - Art
Creative Services
World of Warcraft (2004) - Manual Development and Editing
Diablo II (2000) - Manual Design & Layout
Diablo II (Collector's Edition) (2000) - Manual Design & Layout
Thanks
- Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002) - Thanks to
Other
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (2003) - Bubble Boy Dunsel
Diablo II (2000) - Technical Strike Team
Diablo II (Collector's Edition) (2000) - Strike Team
StarCraft 64 (2000) - Starcraft 64 Strike Team
StarCraft: Brood War (1998) - Campaign Commandos
Mark Kern definitely has a nice resume there, but I've learned to not just judge a book by its cover (e.g. Raph Koster).
Optimization and Bug Fixes
TF2 is running on an old, old version of the source engine...the same engine designed to run Half Life 2. It's even stripped down a bit since it only needs to run a multiplayer game. TF2 was a masterpiece when it was first released, but at that time it was not designed for there to be swappable weapons and hats. Every single thing that was added since launch required some tweaking to the original source engine, and so what we have today is a buggy mess held together with spit and duct tape. The "floating items" happen at least once per game. Cosmetics turn invisible all the time. Players everywhere need to install configs just to get a playable framerate...on a seven year old game. Putting on any more than 3 hats would ignite the computers of half the players in the server. We're still using DirectX 7, 8 and 9 only. Hit registration is based on a lag-compensation system which, by default, assumes you have 2004-quality internet. And don't get me started on the 10-year-old level-editor, which is about as user-friendly as a space shuttle. I'm sure everyone else can chime in with their own issues.
Just regarding rendering alone, look at how much Portal 2, L4D2 and CS:GO can do. They're still running on the source engine, but on a much newer version of it. That's not to say TF2 needs to look that realistic, but imagine if we could have that level of rendering power for our engine. Rendering more than 3 cosmetics may not even be a problem.
Don't get me wrong, TF2 is a great game. But we need an engine update, not because of the things we could add, but because of the things we could fix.
> stamp anything and be really lenient
I'm sorry, but your children will go cold and hungry tonight
VATS is a kind of pause feature where you can select what target you want to shoot/hit, all targets are labeled and show a percentage of how likely you are to hit it.
His post is kind of a simulation of the VATS HUD and shows that there's a good chance of making it home/to the store but Florida is way out of his range.
EDIT: example of VATS http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/335302-fallout-3-windows-screenshot-the-v-a-t-s-in-action.jpg
Oh cool, lies!
Somehow his actual role as a Team Lead magically turned into Lead Developer and Associate Producer into Lead Producer. Now, these roles are important to game production but let's be real here: he was middle management.
No Naughty Dog post is complete without a link to their Genesis game - Rings of Power - with the hidden nudity code for their logo.
NSFW: http://www.mobygames.com/game/genesis/rings-of-power/hints/hintId,9975/
I think the thing I'm most annoyed by about this article is that they used a pic from Goldfinger, with Bond strapped to the laser table, instead of what was obviously being referenced, Bond's laser watch from Goldeneye.
I really miss the LucasArts style point-and-click adventure games.
Had expected them to rise again as point-and-click tablets became a huge thing, but apparently that didn't happen.
The game .kkrieger is only about 100 ~~bytes~~ kbytes.
EDIT: I ACCIDENTALLY A SINGE LETTER AND Y'ALL FLIPPED YOUR GOATS :D
What ever the game is, the main enemy must be Guppy with all the gear i gave him in Binding of Isaac. http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/526569-the-binding-of-isaac-windows-screenshot-game-over-screens.png
That cat is a god-like monster by now.
The original Prince of Persia was quite realistic even though it was a somewhat Arabian Nights type magical setting. You had several "lives" but mostly they represented wounds, and sudden death was also possible in cases where you fell to your death or were attacked and caught off guard. It's actually widely seen as what started realism in games. While Super Mario jumped several times his height, the Prince barely reached the platforms above his head with his hands when he jumped. He also ran and fought much more realistically than was possible in any other game at the time (and even today).
This maybe the stupidest thing il ever say. There's a puzzle with the love interests Chris and Laura where the way i completed it was to have Chris repeatedly bounce on Laura. It made a noise a rhythmic thumping, then the ceiling comes in and the thumping gets quicker and it goes on just that bit too long. Am i insane or was that two blocks fucking??
It looks like it was made specifically made for the console release. Simple, non-stylized, and blocky so it's easy to read from the couch. Blizzard did the same thing with their menus and fonts when porting Diablo 3 to the consoles. If there isn't an option to customize the HUD for PC, it will be really disappointing.
It went from a HUD for PC to a HUD for consoles
I smell a rat. Are you an employee of Blizzard?
You make it sound like the Schaefers were no-good money people with no sense on how to make a computer game. What are your sources that they were investment bankers?
Max and Erich Schaefer were designers and worked on the Diablo games, amongst others.
After Condor was bought out by Blizzard and become Blizzard North, the majority of the talent, including Bill Roper, left. Blizzard North is now closed down.
Nothing in Diablo 3 was produced by any of the previous talent that brought us D1, D2 and Lord of Destruction.
With regard to your smear on FATE, it was a pretty decent game. The lead designer of FATE went on to create Torchlight along with the Schaefers.
From what I've seen it was in the unfortunate position of being just three quarters of a generation behind, technology-wise (mostly due to its insanely long development time). If it went a little more retro, it might have been cool again. In terms of art direction and especially authentic architecture, it was really nicely done (for 2008). For example, this typical medieval village or this view of an epic battle on the walls of a Middle-East-ish city. It even had a proper day/night cycle with rather crisp shadows and whatnot. It also required there to be literally hundreds of fighters on the screen at the same time and there was a reasonable compromise in making some of the character models rather low res.
No one likes the graphics of Mount & Blade, I've come to accept that, but I always thought it got the medieval setting just right!
I'd say Dead space. Seeing as the first game came out nearly at the start of the 360/PS3 era, I didn't expect much graphically. How wrong was I. This game definitely has it's moments that wow you. Especially the space walks.
For you younguns who might not know, Rhys-Davies played a character in the old hit classic Wing Commander III.
Remember, basic reading ability is needed to fully enjoy this software. (Right under the Warning in the middle)
Oh, c'mon! the best was obviously 3rd grade adventures with Mathera. I still sing the songs.
Also, Math Munchers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_Raider:_Underworld
Outfit in-game. Cosplayer did a nice job IMO.
As a guy born in the 80s, fuckin hell, video games are starting to look incredible. Beats this.
These are graphics that blew my mind when I was a kid
I only had the C64 version and saw this at a friends house on the brand new Amiga 1000.
Later he showed me this and I had to have this magical supercomputer Amiga 500.
TIL I need to take mushrooms.
E: I forgot I had my first experience with them here.
> Everything looks like it could exist
Except for the holographic stop signs. Never could quite figure out how those were supposed to be an improvement.
Just imagine what it would be like to be a holographic stop sign repairman- working all day to maintain these super-complicated machines that don't do anything a painted piece of metal couldn't. Now that's existential cyberpunk despair for you.
I'm still impressed by the software and engine development during the span of the last generation. Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, game 11 both ran on the same machine. Sometimes people forget how important software design is when discussing game performance. A poorly optimized game like DayZ can make Titans seem underwhelming, and a tightly optimized engine can make 10 year old hardware come to life.
This is true of every game I've ever played in the last 20 years. They all looked good at the time somehow...brain filled in all the missing resolution, textures, objects, everything.
That's why Minecraft is so successful. Once you're into it, you're into it. Doesn't matter that Crysis 2 exists at the same time...you are immersed into that world and your brain is in detail filling mode.
Here's my favorite flight simulator game from when I was a little boy. If I hadn't just looked at this stupid screenshot for the sake of this post...I'd probably describe some pretty immersive experience where I dive bomb this sweet ass bridge to drop a few bombs on it and then kill a bunch of tanks after like a fucking boss. However.
Or here, while I'm ruining my memories, this was the most rad Space Shuttle simulator ever. My friends and I used to hang in my basement taking turns trying to land the Shuttle on its desert runway and do successful launches and shit. I have vivid memories of this. Of soaring towards the barren sandy wastes near Edward's AFB after being jettisoned off the back of the 747 carrier jet. Yeah...final approach motherfuckers.
I wrote an user review for this game 12 years ago. I summarized the whole thing as "The next generation RTS". You can read it here.
They didn't all leave, but based on these credits...
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/company-of-heroes/credits
The producer, art director and lead programmer left to form Smoking Gun Interactive.
The lead designer left to join Blizzard.
Both senior animators left.
All the designers left except Neil Jones-Rodway and Quinn Duffy.
All the senior programmers left except Ian Thomson and Remy Saville.
Etc.
(When I say "left", a lot of people were actually laid off.)
To answer no.1 Gary has been credited for:
* Crackdown 2 (2010), Microsoft Game Studios * Gridrunner Revolution (2009), Llamasoft Ltd. * Space Giraffe (2008), Llamasoft Ltd. * Crackdown (2007), Microsoft Game Studios * Hot Wheels: Stunt Track Challenge (2004), THQ Inc. * Serious Sam (2004), Global Star Software Inc. * Sudeki (2004), Microsoft Game Studios * MotoGP 2 (2003), THQ Inc. * MotoGP: Ultimate Racing Technology (2002), THQ Inc. * Robot Wars: Extreme Destruction (2002), BBC Multimedia * LEGO Racers (2001), Lego Media * Robot Wars: Arenas of Destruction (2001), BBC Multimedia * Saban's Power Rangers: Time Force (2001), THQ Inc. * SimCoaster (2001), Electronic Arts, Inc. * SpongeBob SquarePants: SuperSponge (2001), THQ Inc. * Sim Theme Park (2000), Electronic Arts, Inc. * Warriors of Might and Magic (2000), 3DO Company, The * Populous: The Beginning (1999), Electronic Arts, Inc. * Diablo (1998), Electronic Arts, Inc. * Extreme-G: XG2 (1998), Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. * NBA Hang Time (1996), Midway * Batman Forever (1995), Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. * Batman Forever (1995), Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. * FIFA Soccer 96 (1995), Electronic Arts, Inc. * Mortal Kombat II (1994), Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. * The Pagemaster (1994), Fox Interactive, Inc. * Stargate (1994), Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. * Mortal Kombat (1993), Arena Entertainment * T2: The Arcade Game (1993), LJN, Ltd. * Krusty's Fun House (1992), Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. * Loopz (1991), Audiogenic Software Ltd. * Delta (1987), Thalamus Ltd * Sanxion (1986), Thalamus Ltd
Edit: source
>Let's face it, CS is the blueprint for every modern shooter since 1999
I wonder if anybody still remembers the fact that Counter-Strike was originally a fan-made remake of the multiplayer mode of the first Rainbow Six game from 1998. This is where the basic premise of terrorists and counter-terrorists comes from. Hell, even the graphics of Counter-Strike were heavily inspired by the graphics and art style of Rainbow Six, not to mention one-shot kills, selecting weapon load-outs at the start of the round, etc.
It's very weird that no one seems to acknowledge or remember this fact. Even Wikipedia has nothing about it, like CS just came out of nowhere. But back then, this is where not only Counter-Strike itself came from, but where it got its first players -- from the clans and the online ladders of Rainbow Six. It was one of the first non-arcade hardcore shooters on the market, and for all you modern-day gamers who take your competitive multiplayer shooting seriously, your roots lie with Red Storm Entertainment's Rainbow Six.
Fun fact: The original designer of Rainbow Six now works as the Senior Director of Game Design at Activision and oversees production of the biggest FPS of them all, Call of Duty.
Rainbow Six, therefore, is the true blueprint of every modern shooter since 1998, and in more ways than one.
Roberta Williams of Kings Quest fame. And lest we forget Christy Marx who not only developed the cartoon Jem but designed Conquest of Camelot and its follow up Conquest of the Longbow: the Legend of Robin Hood - two of the best games Sierra ever made. And also from the same era (man, Sierra was really ahead of the curve at the time) Lori Ann Cole wrote and directed the first Quest for Glory.
These are some amazing games too, timeless classics even by today's standards. It almost seems like the industry regressed in the years in between now and then.
Not alone there. I mean...
You'd really have expected more improvement from fucking Tony Hawk 2 after this many years. The face still looks like they just pasted a JPG onto the body.
> AI RNG: This is for enemy behaviour. Things would get old fast if enemies behaved completely deterministically.
Hi, I'm a videogame AI engineer with a decade of experience, and just wanted to weigh in on this.
You would be surprised how little RNG is used for enemy decision making. Actually, things do not get "old fast" if enemies behave deterministically, they just get old fast if they always do the same thing. There is a very important difference here.
You absolutely can have enemies make decisions based on the roll of a dice, but this does nothing to telegraph to a player how to approach an encounter, and can be extremely frustrating. In very difficult encounters, you want the player to realise what they are doing right or wrong, and reinforce their actions. If random reactions happen in response to player action, the player can't learn, and they will continue banging their head against an impenetrable encounter instead of learning, and progressing.
Alternatively, you can have enemies make decisions based on the situation of the world. And this is the correct, and more fun, way to do it. The more variables that you can add in to an enemy's decision process, the more varied the combat will be. But keeping these as real world variables allows the player to understand and reason about what is happening.
Examples of decision making variables: count of allies, count of enemies, positioning of allies vs. enemies, weapon I'm holding, weapon enemy is holding, vehicle placement nearby, flank routes, visibility of encounter space, etc.
I have done extensive playtesting of RNG vs. non-RNG AI, and the non-RNG AI plays far, far better.
I love this kind of stuff. Btw., back in the day, the PC version of Prince of Persia in particular was impressive on its own in terms of the range of hardware it supported without any configuration. You could run it on a PC/XT with Hercules or CGA graphics and the PC speaker, and it would autodetect and support that. But you could equally well run the same executable on a more modern machine with VGA and a SoundBlaster card, and it would support that too (actually, it might have been AdLib sounds; not sure if there were any samples, but that's just an aside). EGA was supported too, by the way.
And (this not just concerning the PC) a lot of love went into making the game look good with each and every graphics hardware system it supported: http://www.mobygames.com/game/prince-of-persia/screenshots
I am self taught, before I was hired at EA I converted a game called Gemstone Warrior from the Apple ][ to the C64. A few months later I just happened to be leaving the Granville Street book company when Don Mattrick was walking in. We had met a couple times before. He was looking for someone to convert a game they were working on called Comics to the C64 and I was available so he hired me on the spot.
I was a video game programmer. I worked on multiple systems: C64, Atari 800XL, Apple ][, PC, Sega Genesis, PlayStation, Gamecube etc. The first programming was in assembler then we switch over to C and finally C++. There was also a bit of specialized DSP coding for sound and graphics chips along the way too.
When I started there was a huge demand for programmers and a major lack of them. Things started to turn around 2000 when there was an abundance of programmers. It is normal in the industry to work 12 to 14 hour days during the final month or two when you are finishing a product. What seems to be happening now is that people are expected to work those type of hours during the whole product cycle and not just at the end. Obviously not all companies are like that but it seems to me like it is happening more and more.
Mass Effect had a dialogue wheel
See here. This is actually the extra information a character will give, you can choose "return" to go back to 3 other choices that advance the plot.
I think the thing I'm most annoyed by about this comment is that they used a pic from Goldeneye64, with Bond's laser watch from Goldeneye64, instead of what was obviously being referenced, Bond's laser watch from the Goldeneye movie
>But there was never a time in Fallout 3 that players could expect to be absolutely floored by what they were seeing
*For the record, this is a PS3 screen shot so you can just imagine what it would look like on full settings on PC
I have this game! I'm pretty sure I know what you're talking about? I will go look for it and tell you!
Edit: Alright, I managed to google my way to it rather than call my mom at home to go look for it.
Is this it?
Doing a google search of his name turns up this.
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,8378/
So there is definitely a Michael Lawson who has worked on The Sims. However, as for verifying that the account is his I wouldn't know. The image in his Twitter header does have the same image as the one on Mobygames, and the Twitter account has been around since 2011.
If this is an impersonator, I'd be impressed with just how long they've done it.
She is a producer at Nintendo who works at the SPD division. One of their responsibilities is co-producing games with external developers. Yoshi's Wooly World is being developed by Good-Feel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Software_Planning_%26_Development
She's been there for ten years. Her first game released was Mario & Sonic at the Olympics. She also worked on Mario Party and Kirby's Epic Yarn (also Good-Feel): http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/by_genre/developerId,282804/
She knitted Yoshi dolls in her spare time and pitched the idea to have them made into Amiibos. To say that that's all she did while ignoring her main duties as producer for Nintendo is missing the point.
If you think Blizzard is an exception, here are the credits for Dragon Age: Origins, artists outnumber programmers about 2:1, not even counting voice actors. And yes there are many temp contracts, but it's not like they don't get paid.
Hi,
thanks for doing this ama guys. I have a few questions:
I'm very excited about Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition. There were two things that prevented me from replaying original BG. The first one was jumpy character animations (it was better in BG2, I think number of sprites was doubled). The second one was walking speed -- it took ages to move around (it was also fixed in BG2, as far as I remember). Will BGEE fix those issues? Speeding up the game a little would be the easiest way to fix both of them.
Do you have any plans of making BG3 (or some other original RPG game)? 3D engine? Kickstarter?
What do you know about Black Isle rebirth? Who's involved? I'd love to play Icewind Dale III! (IWD1 and IWD2 EEs would be great too.)
ps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Oster <-- we need to fix this guys! Here's some bio information. Could you add or correct something Trent? :)
I'm pretty sure he is (see "Also Known As"). I expect his name was fictionalized for the original article (as is, i think, standard practice at TDWTF).
He's actually just claiming that he came up with the term "Dynamic Entity Destruction", not that he came up with the concept of destructible objects.
A quick google search found this from June 2000: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic/_FZAB8Y-uq0 which supports his claim.
Another quick search found that the game Hexen (released in 1995) had destructible objects in it: http://www.mobygames.com/game/hexen-beyond-heretic
Basically, he made up a new term for an existing thing.
This looks like straight out of NFS II.
EDIT: Oh no, wait, it looks even worse than NFS II.
> has Kult: Heretic Kingdoms as an entry. None of the others seem to have it with the surprising exception of IMDB.
You mean this game?
A search for Kult brings up the above title; a quick Google search shows that it was called The Inquisition for North America.
Hmm, this sounds a lot like Midwinter II: Flames of Freedom. I haven't played it, but the original Midwinter had a subversion element and that whole sandbox vibe, too. MobyGames has a bunch of screenshots.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/full-tilt-pinball
That's what you're thinking of. It was a separate game, the Space Cadet table of which was later included on Windows. I have fond memories of Dragon's Keep, and the way the pirate voice says "Skullduggery."
This is probably just because it was one of my first experiences like this so it's way cooler in my memory.. but anyway: http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/193284-half-life-windows-screenshot-shot-an-osprey-helicopter-with.jpg
>be todd howard
>get mocked for wanting to make vidya gaems
>grow up to help make some of the most critically acclimated RPGs of all time
>whoslaughingnow.jpeg
>2015
>bout to drop magnum opus
>publisher throws launch party in LA
>disgonbegud.gif
>come to party
>see a bunch of normies being photographed as they walk in
>ignore them and head inside
>in the VIP area
>listening to peoples small talk
>no ones talking about the game
>this one bitch "When's fall out boy playing"
>ufuckinwotm8.tif
>realize this is nothing to these people
>i spent my live to get to this moment
>throwing parties for people who hold disdain for what i love
you seriously overrestimate how multiplat games looked on the last generation. this is how fallout 3 looked on ps3...
Just in case you're thinking someone may have moved the game around to a pricier sticker, the UPC on the sticker is 1463314772. A quick Google search of that number leads to this. Note the UPC at the bottom. Looks like that's actually how they've priced it.
EDIT: You're right, definitely could get a PS2 for cheaper. I see some on Amazon for around $35. Pretty silly.
Basically a Heroes of Might and Magic style game. They're all quite good.
There's still quite a few games set in Vietnam: http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/historical-conflict-vietnam-war-/offset,0/so,1d/
Here's for Korea: http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/historical-conflict-korean-war Looks like a shitload in 1990-2000, and then almost none.
This looks to be the most recent: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=theatre+of+war+3+korea
Diavolo and DIO. Or as I like to call it. With their stands working together, my enemies won't know what hit them. Neither will I.
There was a pack called Metal Slug PC Collection, developed by G1M2 (who also made console ports of many other SNK games), was released in 2009 and included Metal Slug 1-6 & X. Why not release this instead?
It's mostly just a bunch of personal attacks (don't get upset, mods, this is like videogame archaeology).
I couldn't resist doing some digging and found out that the "D*N" Dave is talking about apparently hasn't been credited on a videogame since and the "Dave" who wrote the first rant died of an asthma attack in 2001. :(
> David Pridie died of an asthma attack on January 12, 2001 at the age of 29. There is a memorial site dedicated to him at www.pridie.org
According to the credits, Shawn Swift was one of the people who worked on System Shock 2. I'm guessing that's him based on his username.
a few observations:
DS or Dip Shit as I like to refer to him, just posted a "post mortem" of sorts. One in which he links to CR's mobygames page
It shows Chris having credits on by my count 29 games.
DS doesn't link his own Mobygames page which shows he's shipped 3 games in his career.
DS says, > "Put him [CR] at the top of any project, and the potential for the project to fail, increases. This is not hyperbole, it’s a material fact. And it’s all right there in the industry history."
Honestly. I'm a smart individual. To be fair, DS isn't a bad writer. He's clever like Alex Jones of infowars. And that is exactly how he sounds.
one thing particularly stood out.
> "And so they are now running the demo on super computers with 16 cores, loads of memory etc. Again, not production release ready."
I think it was pretty clear from the very beginning, SC was going to run on the highest spec machines possible. It was going to take advantage of large amounts of RAM and as many cores as possible.
And finally a nugget from DS which I found particularly telling.
> "I don’t build dreams. I build games. I know these things."
"I know these things." is something which uneducated people spout when they assume something to be true, but haven't ever done the research.
> it's not uncommon to spend a night in a hotel whilst being fanned by women holding palm leaves.
Check out Mr. Big Ryo Spender. What's the matter? Can't rough it for one night?
Hah! Totally the opposite. When I first started working at Lucasfilm Games in 1982 (that's what it was called until 1990), I was employee #3. We were just starting, and the main reason I wanted to work at Lucasfilm was because I was a huge Star Wars fan. I thought working there was as close as I'd ever get to flying an X-Wing... so my first game, Rescue on Fractalus! was supposed to capture that feeling. I was devastated when I learned we could not do a Star Wars game. For most of the 80s, Lucasfilm had already sold the exclusive license for Star Wars games to other companies... guaranteed return with no risk.
So we had to give up dreams of Jedi fame and focus on our own original titles. We did get the option of doing a game based on the film, Labyrinth (I was the project leader/designer on that one), and later, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure. It wasn't until Rebel Assault in the early 1990s that we were allowed to touch the family jewels.
I remember being disappointed then, but in retrospect, I am so thankful that we didn't have Star Wars as a crutch. We had to come up with our own ideas, and had total freedom to do so. Maybe because we weren't doing Star Wars, George Lucas totally left us alone, so we could develop our own voice and style of games.
This became totally reversed in the late 90s, 2000s, and until LucasArts was purchased by Disney. Then all they were allowed to do was Star Wars titles.
Don Barnes worked in the industry for years, on titles like several of the Madden games, Kung Fu Panda, Transformers 2, and Black Ops. On January 26th, he intervened in what appears to have been a domestic dispute, trying to protect a woman from her attacker, and paid a horrible price. You can read more about it here:
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/jan/27/sheriffs-department-investigating-homicides-at/
Don's credits can be found here:
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,89176/
If you loved the games he made, or got some sort of enjoyment from them, or just want to help out a couple of kids who lost their father, please feel free to donate at the link above.
For those who think this might be a scam, the fund has been written up on Gamasutra, who contacted me at my Broodworks address before posting it:
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/32910/Colleagues_Set_Up_Fund_For_Slain_Game_Artist_Don_Barnes.php
Thank you.
EDIT: We are on our way to $5,000, which is wonderful to see. Many of the donations seem to be coming from people with no direct connection to Don or his family, so I assume some must be from Redditors. Your help is greatly appreciated by Don's friends, co-workers, and of course his family. Thank you.
EDIT #2: $5000 reached and passed! As some in this thread have demonstrated, it's not hard to find reasons not to help people. It's much harder to donate money, especially these days. The Redditors who have donated and/or signed the guestbook are so greatly appreciated by all of us.
EDIT #3: About $6300 as of this writing. Thank you, Reddit!
EDIT #4: $7200 and counting. I'm blown away by the generosity displayed.
EDIT #5: We've surpassed $10,000, an astounding amount. Thank you so much to all redditors who have donated.
It would be a large risk changing the menu however entirely however. The games been out and has a large enough following that changing the menu will be met with a lot of resistance because it will make people slower.
Look at this screenshot from the beta shop: http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/407355-league-of-legends-windows-screenshot-the-shop-at-your-base.jpg
Looks almost identical. The best they could do is slowly transition from the current store the a new one.
Is there anything in particular you'd like to know? I was one of the designers. I won't violate my NDA, but I'm happy to answer whatever questions I can.
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,457614/
You just reminded me of an awesome Starship Troopers game that no longer exists anywhere.
Starship Troopers: Battlespace
that game was so awesome.
All of the great things I remember about Battlefront2 are going...
Those huge assaults on the beaches of Kashyyyk, droids swarming in...
Spending hours with your friends on galactic conquest...
Sigh
> but then you get into this whole new (old?) world of "true" programming - worrying about registers and memory limitations and things.
I used to work for a company as a Commodore 64 programmer back in the 64's sunset years (89-91). I remember porting a game from IBM PC w/EGA graphics to the 64 that was basically a breakout style game where you hit targets with a ball. Original PC version targets were rendered as 16x16 pixel tiles, 8 colors. C64 version I had to render them using sprites, which were limited to 8x16 pixels, 4 colors (actually 3 colors 1 transparent value), the 8 direction being double-width pixels to give each pixel 2 bits for color value. One level was a bunch of ducks that when you you hit them would spin around, quack, and disappear. I remember stomping around the office shouting "I CAN'T RENDER A DUCK UNDER THESE CONDITIONS!" I eventually came up with a half-assed suggestion of duck shaped-ness that sufficed for the TV-screen quality graphics, but it took about five times as long as the level with billiard balls(link shows EGA 16x16 version, mine was even cruder).
In some ways the limitations made it harder than programming is now, but at the same time, the limitations lowered everyone's expectations, so nothing was as tediously loaded with ridiculous features like now. When you created something as simple as a passable 8x16 3 color duck, people were impressed.
Ok, so I looked up if it really was James Small, so I did a little digging and it turns out that he (the guy in the Rogue Warrior credits) works for a QA/Localization game company called Babel Media which totally has a Montreal and (surprise!) London branch, so the chances of this being THE James Small is greater than small.
and these are the games he worked on: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/by_year/developerId,251470/
(SPOILERS: They're not good games)
My thoughts exactly... Do I just look at this pic and casually click a different link? Or do I say: LOL noobs! THIS is the shit that elementary school was all about!
I honestly kinda wish Bloodborne stuck with the Gothic horror and focused on providing a more cohesive experience and story, while keeping more subtle 'hints' at a cosmic going on, rather than having it be so overt.
Lovecraft is at it's best, IMO, when it's subtle. early game in Bloodborne was fantastic for this and I really liked it. Then the game, suddenly, just drops it on you.
Let's be real, here. Kirby has been doing the 'surprise lovecraft' twist for years before Bloodborne. It goes from this to this.
Agreed, devs on consoles can really get a lot of performance/graphics gains once they get used to the hardware. Just look at CoD 2 vs Halo 4, both released on the xbox 360, one at launch, and one at the end of the consoles lifespan. Same exact hardware, but a much better grasp at how to get every bit of juice out of it.
> (former?) games producer
Not even, he was an associate producer (big difference from being a real producer) on one kinect game.
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,348154/
Have you played Empire recently?
Because in my opinion, this looks a lot better than this.
The huge battles in Rome 2 can definitely chug. The framerate is actually high, but the game slows down the AI and it makes the game really choppy-seeming. Usually only happens in battles involving 10,000+ men.
I hated the Rome 2 unit portraits too. Grab a unit card mod from the workshop, they are really well done.
Very interesting, visually striking! Reminds me a lot of the Spirits in the game Bastion. http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/529850-bastion-windows-screenshot-this-is-distillery-a-place-which.jpg
Being an old-school DOS game player, I learned about rusalki from Quest for Glory.
But yes, Oglaf sure has a talent for realistic sexification, doesn't she? ~~(It is 'he', right?)~~
Edit: Woops. She. Thanks for clearing that up. I did try to Google it for a bit, but couldn't find the answer. >_<
Betrayal at Krondor. I played it in 1993, when it came out; it was the first computer RPG I ever played and it was good. The story was amazing (it's written and set in the universe created by Raymond E. Feist, Midkemia).
The characters "felt" real to me in my young age, the gameplay was awesome (first person for exploring, 3rd person turn based tactical combat), it was a semi-sandbox game, in that you were allowed to reach your goal in more ways than one and it was a single, huge, open world, the storyline was deep and involving and the action was visceral (for that time). It is the game by which I compare all RPGs, and the game that made me an RPG fan.
The impact BaK had on me was immense, considering that my entire gaming experience by that time consisted almost solely of NES platformers (and a few arcade fighting games), it was like seeing a motion picture for the first time, after spending my whole life looking at still pictures...
The second game that changed my life was Conqueror: 1086 A.D. It was a great blend of multiple genres, quite unique to this day. At heart, it was a First Person Medieval Combat game, but it had elements of citybuilders and management games, RPG games, a rudimentary tactical engine for army-battles, tourneys and jousts, damsels which the player could woo and some nifty minor storylines going on between in-game characters. The main objective of the game was to either become the king of England, by usurping William, or to gain his favor by slaying a dragon which was terrorizing the lands.
Of course, as I got older, I started appreciating other games (Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment etc.), but none marked me as deeply as Betrayal at Krondor and Conqueror 1086 have done.
The first game I got programming credits on was Age of Empires, but I didn't do much work on it.
Most of my work was not credited or on cancelled projects: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,34096/
I feel like we're all (OP excluded) are entirely missing the point. The reason why amnesia and humanity are staples in the PMD series is because the player character is YOU. The backside of the box art for Blue and Red Rescue Team (the TRUE originals, not Explorers of T/D/S) specifically state this in large font:
"Introducing the newest Pokémon, YOU!"
I mean, sure, having a sort of spin-off of PMD where the protagonist is not you would be fine ("Quagsire Mystery Dungeon Hmmmm?") might be interesting, but the core of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series is and has always been this.
I miss the Factions login screen. :(
While I love the painterly style they went with for GW2, I'd really love to see something like that make a comeback for the character selection screen. I think we're due to at least a background change considering LA is nothing but a pile of rubble now.
Not to mention mobile games.
The big thing that has changed is the art. On the C64 or Atari, graphics were simplistic enough that programmers could also handle the visuals. After ~1985 that stopped being the case, and you really needed someone with art skills to design your graphics for you. That's when single-person teams became rarer and rarer, and it's still the biggest challenge in making a one-man game today; there aren't a lot of people who can design nice graphics and code a game, especially a 3D game. Most one-man game today have very very simplistic graphics, like Thomas Was Alone, Minecraft, etc.
Moonbase Commander
A turn-based strategy game with some neat twists. You start with your main Hub and must protect it at all costs. You send out new units by shooting them out from your Hub by setting direction and shot power. Almost like Worms, but top-down. These new units are connected to your Hub by cords.
There are towers that push back more of the fog of war, energy collectors to place on pools, anti-air units that will shoot rockets at anything the enemy shoots your way, domes to block projectiles from coming in, mini-hubs like you main one only its ok for them to be destroyed, and artillery hubs that can only shoot weapons but with twice the range.
So your base ends up becoming this massive spider web on the surface of this planet as you spread out to find resources and find your enemies main hub. You have a selection of weapons at your disposal, from heat seeking rockets, EMPs that disable everything in the area for a round, and even a Spike that will travel along the cords. That last one being my favorite because most player forget to protect their cords.
Its a fairly simple game but a ton of fun. Manually aiming and trying to set the right shot power to land things where you need them keeps you engaged. There is no "set and forget." The game went with a "kid friendly" look with advertising to match so people sort of ignored it. They missed out on a very fun title. If you can track down a copy I recommend it.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/moonbase-commander
Turns out it was made using SCUMM, same as old Lucas Arts adventure games. Crazy.
It'd be neat if a while after LotV is new they also gave us a new one featuring all 3 races. Like a modern version of this.
> probably the most comprehensive database of them all, Giant Bomb.
Actually Mobygames seems to have almost twice the games than Giant Bomb (GB mentions ~45k games, Mobygames mentions ~95K games). It is much older too and focused only on being a game database (like the site OP tries to make, except being around a couple of decades earlier).
This is not the first time the military has used games as a recruitment tool. One of the earliest uses of this tactic, that I can remember, was in 1995 with the game Return Fire. It was a top down war game where two teams were tasked with blowing up the other team's base. You were given control of a tank, jeep, rocket truck, and helicopter. when you paused the game you were met with this screen.
I felt it was wrong at the time, and I still do, but the game was fun as hell. I'm sure there were others that payed the game and did end up joining the military. Hopefully not due to playing Return Fire, but I'm certain that a percentage of people that played the game did end up calling that number.
Advertising for military recruitment in games is wrong, but so is recruiting in high schools. Neither one will stop anytime soon though, because they both work and no one will stand up and stop it.
You can't tell health from looking at someone shitlord! Her skin just has a natural set point of dull discolouration.
Edit: I've just realised, she looks like someone suffering from the grey death out of the first Deus Ex. http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/15448-deus-ex-windows-screenshot-two-bums-talk-about-the-plague-in.jpg
The original system shock wasn't in the dark engine. Shock1 dates to '94 and was a software engine (some screenshots there).
SPOILING A 15 YEAR OLD GAME: The last section of Shock2 where you're in Shodan's memories is the start to Shock1.
> It was the last game they designed for a mouse, and it shows.
I played the Xbox version of Morrowind first and I don't necessarily agree with that.
The UI was largely unchanged between the PC and Xbox versions - the only change they made was that they put all of the status windows on one screen on the PC version, whereas each info screen had their own button on the Xbox version.
The UI itself was scaled for (and looked great at) the low resolution of the Xbox version, and Bethesda didn't scale the UI at higher resolutions. I remember thinking to myself how lazy of a port the game was after seeing the UI of the PC version.
Craig Mullins did the concept art for Star Trek Legacy and his name is tagged on that image a number of times. also his style matches.
>women are intellectually far superior
>the ugly Arab clutches his umbrella-penis
and more!
3 pages of the '80s neonsogyny. MobyGames has them covers, like Barbarian.
What? That's exactly what I said. That SEGA Jurassic Park game is the one I said I remembered. The Lost World for Genesis is this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_World:_Jurassic_Park_(Sega_game)
It looked like this
Both Nukapedia and The Vault have Interplay listed as the publisher. 14 degrees was a division of Interplay that specialized in strategy games. Most list Interplay as the publisher. The box art has "14 Degrees East - A Division of Interplay" and the Interplay logo of "By gamers, for gamers" on it. Interesting that even though Nukapedia and The Vault have the same info as other sites like Moby games, and are both technically correct, you can somehow glean that one is garbage without even checking what they actually have on their pages.