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America's Army is sponsored by Uncle Sam, and is therefore patriotic and American and all that (apologies if the poster is not in the US).

Failing that, there's always Lords of Conquest or Master of Orion 2 if you want to kick it old school.

...on the Amiga which was the first language I really got my teeth into. The original version of Worms and Worms: The Director's Cut were also made using using that language, so don't be put off these languages just because they're forms of Basic.

...on the Amiga which was the first language I really got my teeth into. The original version of Worms and Worms: The Director's Cut were also made using using that language, so don't be put off these languages just because they're forms of Basic.

You're right, it was a long time ago. For me it has to have been this one. Excellent futuristic hockey game.

Three recent trends lend credibility to the image of those modest studios (indies) developing games: 1) the fact that many such developers are are coming from industry proper; 2) the actual nomenclature "Indie" being a positive term; and 3) small studios' newfound ability to create games that are visually appealing.

First: An interesting but not-well-known fact is that many members of the indie gaming community come from a background of well-known companies. Take, for example, the Moonpod team, which had experience at Gremlin and Infogrames before starting out on their own. Monkeystone is headed by none other than id's John Romero. I would argue that games industry experience is not a prerequisite for the development of a good game; but the recent movement of folks from big gaming companies to their own studios makes independents more credible. Put simply: if folks who have worked on shipped, big-budget games are now part of the indie community, there must be something to the indie community.

Second: The actual term used for smaller studios (Independents or Indies) is an important one. You could call many of the products in this category "Shareware Games," but there's a horribly negative connotation to that term. "Indie Games" evokes the notion of a small, dedicated team of professionals crafting out something new and interesting. By contrast, the term "Shareware Games" evokes the notion of some dude in his basement churning out a buggy arcade clone that looks like it was written for the Intellivision. To parahrase someone, (I want to say Chris Barrie): A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but may be less appealing if it were called "sewage-weed." The adoption of the "Indie" label has helped legitimize games made by smaller studios.

Fifth (20 years from now, we'll be those old farts still making Python references to people born in twenty-oh-one): Independents can make games that look good. It may be because indies now have access to tools that would have made Pixar cry during its formative years. (Maya, for example, can be had for about $2k, and is even free for personal use.) It may also be because there's great talent now available. Either way, I think indie titles, taken as a whole, have become visually appealing. During the '90s, shareware titles had a bad reputation for being ugly, because they lagged so far behind the cutting-edge. These days, titles like Starscape, Dark Horizons: Lore, and Wik & The Fable of Souls are (IMO) looking pretty good. And, while indie titles may not be as spectacular as those developed by a major studio, (our own Inago Rage focuses on bright colors, but doesn't quite outdo Tron 2.0, for example), decent sales suggest that gamers like what Independents are doing.

However, given the dearth of posts in this thread, I still believe we have a long way to go. :) So, if you haven't already, check out the DIY and Game Tunnel coverage of the 81 IGF entrants. You may find that precious diamond in the rough.
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Obsidian is not a "relative newcomer." They've been around for over 6 years. Ok, so they changed their name, but by and large Obsidian consists of Black Isle refugees from Interplay. They've been making games nearly as long as Bioware, and have always had a very fruitful relationship with them. Bioware starts a franchise and engine, and Black Isle/Obsidian come along and do more of the same quality. I have no doubt KOTOR II will be the same way. I love how the reviews of KOTOR II keep referring to the "unproven" Obsidian. These guys made Planescape. Need I say any more?

You will also see a major enhancement to the Sage graphics engine we originally created for Command & Conquer Generals.

MobyGames.com used to carry it; it's well worth a try. Or perhaps the the Lucasarts online store.

By the way, LucasArts used to sell a bundle with DOTT, "Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis" and S&M, for something like $30 IIRC. Worth a search ;)

Sam and Max's delay may prove to be a boon. Adventure games have been declared officially "dead," with the poor sales of Grim Fandango, but I can't help but believe that its essence will return in some form. The first Sam and Max adventure was one of my all-time favorites, but I think that a sequel whose play is true to the original will do poorly. While production values are higher these days, and aesthetics have improved, adventure gameplay has not evolved as much as gamers demand.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that action gameplay has evolved much further; the gameplay differences between Wolfenstien 3D and Half Life 2 are greater than those between Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango.

Sam and Max deserve something that's different, and I'm willing to wait.
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Inago Rage - Fight, Fly, and Create

Sam and Max's delay may prove to be a boon. Adventure games have been declared officially "dead," with the poor sales of Grim Fandango, but I can't help but believe that its essence will return in some form. The first Sam and Max adventure was one of my all-time favorites, but I think that a sequel whose play is true to the original will do poorly. While production values are higher these days, and aesthetics have improved, adventure gameplay has not evolved as much as gamers demand.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that action gameplay has evolved much further; the gameplay differences between Wolfenstien 3D and Half Life 2 are greater than those between Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango.

Sam and Max deserve something that's different, and I'm willing to wait.
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Inago Rage - Fight, Fly, and Create

No Mars and no hellspawns.

Super virus.

I swear if a computer AI gone mad is thrown in, someone is getting kicked in the balls.

Besides, they should just make a System Shock movie. A real one and not a knock off like Virus was or Event Horizon tried to be.

Damn you, Jamie Lee, and you, Paul Anderson! Wait, wait. I take that back. She was awesome in True Lies.

No problem. Indy will be the one always one step ahead this time, since he already knows where it is.

You have obviously never heard of American McGee I'm afraid. American McGee is probably most famous around these parts for the "Alice" game causing a dispute between American Greetings and Penny Arcade. His take on Alice was .... interesting .... to say the least, touching much more on the insanity of the books that the Disney cartoon. I would say that his take on the Oz will be much closer to "Return to Oz" that "The Wizard..." - those flying monkey sstill give me nightmares...

INFOICRD 2001-05-24 IENG Chia Chin Lee ISFT Sound Forge 4.5

INFOICRD 2002-12-03 IENG Tracy W. Bush ISFT Sound Forge 4.5

INFOICRD 2001-05-24 IENG Chia Chin Lee ISFT Sound Forge 4.5

INFOICRD 2002-12-03 IENG Tracy W. Bush ISFT Sound Forge 4.5

True. Correlation doesn't equal causation. If you're thirty-five or forty and still in the business, chances are you have the resolve and skill to do well regardless. Good point.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people I count as friends who went into programming straight out of college and stuck with it for over a decade. I can count on two hands and toes the number I know that now work in something else. Lots of management, some sales, and one guy that decided to hang it all and help run a chain of theaters.

My background: I'm a gaming industry veteran, though not a programmer (sysadmin and musician). Credits are here. However, this makes me much more of an "interested outsider who worked for a computer game development company" than a game developer myself. I'm working with a small studio now that just recently release Void War, a 3D multiplayer space shooter that's catching on. We're hosting a trial version competition tonight; download the demo and check it out! 9:00 PM Mountain Time.

The earliest game I can think of with the "God's-Eye View" perspective is Zaxxon. I can't believe nobody's mentioned it yet.

• Helicopter (follows behind and way above selected car)
• Track cameras (view transfers from camera to camera along the track, each one following the selected car as it passes by)
• In car (same view as during gameplay)
• Choose your angle (similar to the helicopter, but you choose the angle relative to the car. You could even pause and change the angle in the middle of the replay)

MobyGames has a chronological list of games, alot with screenshorts.

Maybe his resume Moby Games profile would shed more light on what is going on? How about his projects list?

He's R&D at Sony, in other words.

"Developed single-pixel particle demonstration, covering physics based particle motion, use of alpha blending and optimized rendering of this type of particle using VU1 microcode on Playstation II
Developed demonstration of high-speed texture loading (10 megabytes per frame) and presented the technique at Playstation II developers conference and several smaller gatherings.
Developed application to do "zoom from orbit" going from a full-earth weather satellite photo down to a 1 meter resolution image of San Francisco in one continuous zoom. This included development of a new (so far as I know) technique for mapping corrected or uncorrected satellite photos onto a globe with a minimum of distortion.
Research on the consumer ease-of-use, economic and technical issues surrounding downloadable music and music subscription services.
Early testing of a number of Playstation II code libraries in development.
Participation in internal Sony groups dealing with networking and interoperation of Sony products.
Support of misc Sony developers.
One Patent pending"

He's also doing something with macs, though that might be unrelated to his work at Sony. He's also a nexistentialist and a commie.

Isn't google fun?

Anyway, I'm not trying to rain on your parade, Greg, I just hope this wraps up questions about who you are.

it's just "id" darn it

I've long held the Starglider series to be the first of a "new" generation of games, in that it made an enormous leap forward in immersion. It was one of the first games I'd ever seen for the Atari ST, and the first game I'd ever encountered with digitized music. ("What, you're not impressed? I nearly crapped myself when I saw this at the 1937 World's Fair!") It was also the first computer game I'd seen with such fluid 3D graphics.

The sequel improved on the original in many ways; not only was it more graphically rich, but the game universe was lavish with detail. In 1988, here was a game that allowed you to travel out to Jupiter to frolic with a school of dolphin-like critters that rode space-currents. While not important to the gameplay proper, it's elements like that that make a 1.44MB world seem both infinitely large and endlessly explorable. (Naturally, I'm also a fan of Elite.)
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Inago Rage - Bound between rooftoops and create your own 3D arenas in this indie-developed first person shooter. Coming Real Soon. Honest.

I've long held the Starglider series to be the first of a "new" generation of games, in that it made an enormous leap forward in immersion. It was one of the first games I'd ever seen for the Atari ST, and the first game I'd ever encountered with digitized music. ("What, you're not impressed? I nearly crapped myself when I saw this at the 1937 World's Fair!") It was also the first computer game I'd seen with such fluid 3D graphics.

The sequel improved on the original in many ways; not only was it more graphically rich, but the game universe was lavish with detail. In 1988, here was a game that allowed you to travel out to Jupiter to frolic with a school of dolphin-like critters that rode space-currents. While not important to the gameplay proper, it's elements like that that make a 1.44MB world seem both infinitely large and endlessly explorable. (Naturally, I'm also a fan of Elite.)
_____________________________________________
Inago Rage - Bound between rooftoops and create your own 3D arenas in this indie-developed first person shooter. Coming Real Soon. Honest.

MobyGames has a link to the C=64 version here. The Apple II version somewhere in the basement; very nice game, but never got much farther than the bamboo fields.

Ok, I'd say Ballblazer was my first FPS with multiplayer.

But for just plain 3d cube movements like the original Ultima, there was many of them (and the freaking wheel decoders) out. Bards Tales series, Might and Magic, list goes on.

Shame, just walked over to my c64, looking at all my disc's still in the cases. Lost my supersnapshot speedloader, cant find my old favorite game, or remember the name of it. An RPG, 4-5 disc, like Bards tale, but with an oriental theme, fire/earth/wind/water discs. Guess thats what happens when you don't touch the system in over 20 years...

-Know your roots...

Hot...!

http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/p,15/gameId,10 547/gameShotId,51562/

The game on other systems (including the original arcade) seems to have hotter girls.

It also shares at least one of the developers, Brian Fargo, in a lead role, so it is not completely hopeless that at least some of the spirit will shine through.

It also shares at least one of the developers, Brian Fargo, in a lead role, so it is not completely hopeless that at least some of the spirit will shine through.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/sheet/p,31/gameId,57 7/

Man, makes me want to grab an apple II emulator just to play it again.

Terry Brosius' phenomenal charactarization of SHODAN.

AMD is trying to tell consumers that a 64-bit architecture will make for a more enjoyable gaming experience. This reminds me of the marketing hype Intel was pushing about how MMX would make games that supported it oh so much better. As most PC gamers have learned by now, switching from last year's top-of-the-line processor to this year's top-of-the-line processor will gain you about 5%-10% frames per second. On the other hand, switching from last year's top-of-the-line graphics card to this year's top-of-the-line graphics card will gain you 50%-100% frames per second. The limiting factor in today's games isn't the CPU; it's the graphics card. The 64-bit transition will probably bring better performance gains than boosting the processor speed would, but still: all it gives you are higher framerates and faster loading times. Now this may allow for higher detail and visual quality for the 64-bit version at the same frame rate as a lower quality setting in the 32-bit version, but 64-bit gaming does not magically give you higher detail and visual quality on its own. Trying to get the point across with side-by-side screenshots is pointless. Real graphical processes like anti-aliasing, pixel shading, or ATI's Truform result in visible differences, but a performance increase is a performance increase. Konami didn't go from this to this by taking their Playstation code, sprinkling some 128-bit word size pixie dust and recompiling it for the Gamecube.

Everything I need to know about gaming I learned from Pac Man.

Actually, if you get into game making on some of the more primitive platforms out there, like SSI's Unlimited Adventures, or Inform, you'll see that the basic formula of just about all games, and most fiction is what I've distilled down to "Goal + Obstacle." You want something, but something prevents you from getting it.

Whether that something is all the pellets, and the obstacle is some floating ghosts, or that something is to destroy the ring of power and the obstacles are anything Sauron throws in your way, including orcs, Saruman, and The Mines of Moria, and even the weather, the basic idea is the same.

Also, the more you can obfuscate the simplistic nature of the formula, the better. Getting back to Tolkien, he did it by reversing the traditional goal - instead of getting something, you're destroying it. Even your most basic Three's Company plot had these basic elements, and the longer you can keep the goal away from the player/main character, the more satisfying it is once you finally get it.

I think any discussion of plot beyond this, unless it's an expansion of Goal + Obstacle, is overkill, or it shows that the author doesn't really understand what plotting is all about.

• Medal of Honor: Allied Assault by Electronic Arts
• Star Wars Battlefront by Lucasarts
• Asheron's Call by Microsoft
• Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay by Vivendi
• ...etc...

Damnit, if I'm gonna reboot my computer just to play a game, it's not gonna be freakin' Go. It's gonna be Microsoft Decathlon, which combined the fun of an IBM computer with the stability of a Microsoft OS.

Better run to the store and make up for lost time

Game and Watch Gallery
Game and Watch Gallery 2
Game and Watch Gallery 3
Game and Watch Gallery 4

Here's a page with the NES screenshots on them too add to my above comments.

Mr. Wright actually incorporated the very feature you seek in the latest iteration of Simcity. You can and base your success as a city planner based on their reflective thought bubbles.

Similarly, Maxis' Streets of Simcity lets you race around in your imported Simcity 2000 megalopolis!

As mentioned in the above article, Wright has a very good sense of gamers' needs. He knows people get tired of their games and ultimately try to hack them up and modify the experience. Interoperability between products is a brilliant way to make gamers happy and sell more of his products.

I need to go play some Legacy of Kain games now... since the series pretty much depends on all that "That was my plan all along" plot skewing.

Um... I didn't mean to say that LOK is anything like Star Wars I just meant... oh... nevermind, I'll just post this as anon. :)

Half-Life 1 back in '99 was doing echoes and reverb based on the size of the room, and even now in 2004, a game like Doom 3 still plays its sounds effects raw, like you're in a closet.

Half-Life's actually a lot simpler than that - in the single-player game, you control the DSP algorithm with the env_sound point entity. There are a bunch of presets, and park 'em either side of an entrance, for instance one with 'Cavern Large' and one with 'Tunnel Small', and as the player walks past their audio changes... There are only two channels processed (left and right) - if a sound plays, it gets shoved out through the DSP. You can't have some sound effects with one effect applied and others with another, it's an all-or-nothing trick.

Having said that, it can be incredibly effective, and since it's completely controlled by the mapper, you can choose effects to maximise the atmospheric effects. Who cares how big the room is, what's the most claustrophobic effect that can be applied for when the player's soemwhere they shouldn't be? And what's a much safer ambience for when they're away from danger?

Highly impressive, especially as it ran without problems in high-quality on my old P166MMX. Interestingly, the guy who wrote the DSP stuff, Kelly Bailey, also did all the music and sound effects for Half-Life. I've always felt that the audio systems in Id games were a bit of an afterthought, but Half-Life's is a major feature in the game, designed in part by the designer of what it would play...

Final Fantasy is a series of video games from Nintendo, from Final Fantasy I in 1987 up to the yet-to-be-released Final Fantasy XII. This site has a history of Final Fantasy I through X. Here's a site for Final Fantasy XII

And there I was thinking that Lode-runner (1983) was popular because of all the mod-levels you could create for it.

And for any info you can always go to mobygames

Poor guy - look what happened to him

they are at cgexpo which is absolutely cool. there it one more day left tomororrow. if you are in the bay area, i would recommend going. there is also a bunch of other cool stuff there like 8 bit weapon and a cool lego thing at the MobyGames booth. So much fun!!!

NHL Hockey is the earliest EA game I am aware of

I assume you mean "earliest EA sports game", since EA has been around for a long time, and was making games long before they made sports games. However, you're wrong on the sports game account, too. I believe Dr J and Larry Bird Go One on One was EA's first real sports game.

what? Typing of the Dead was the bomb!

Today, the only the electronic music most of us hear is the repetitive, simplistic beat of dance or industrial music piped into clubs and dubbed over with offensive lyrics and banter.

I think someone needs to check out ishkur's guide to electronic music. There is a pretty wide variation between the intricate beats of Drum 'n Base and the repetitive, simplistic beat of House. Of course, if you want more experimental electronica, look for IDM, Aka intelligent (unintelligible) dance music. None of these would be possible without using computers carefully as instruments, and none of them fit into mainstream musical categorization.

I must also argue with the idea that game artists haven't evolved the craft. Most games now feature dynamically adjusting music based at bare minimum on character states. They adjust for boss encounters without interrupting musical lines, and can dynamically increase or decrease instrumentation based upon on-screen action. While most game audio creators do focus on sounding like traditional recordings, this is probably because most are traditional recording artists these days.

Some of the best game soundtracks are traditional recordings. Final Fantasy, Xenogears, and Wipeout all spring to mind as great soundtracks involving "dumped-in" music. Even Street Sk8er, with it's off-kilter collection of grungy tunes, was a great listen.

That's not to say that the article doesn't have it's points. But to say that videogame composers should be at the forefront of experimentation just because they used to need to be is erroneous. Of course, if everyone were as original and good as The Fat Man (no lie, he's one of the greats) game audio would be far better off. But that combination of original sound and skill is rare in any medium... and The Fat Man's genius is not so easily replicated.

Game audio should be convincing, engaging without being detracting, and should heighten enjoyment the first time heard without getting annoying the 10th. It should dynamically change based upon the character's situation, and should contain an original artistic spark. Game audio shouldn't be the tunes you hear in your car... Nor should they be the buzzes and blips of yesteryear. While certain composers pioneer original genres (Tommy Tallerico springs to mind), this shouldn't be the defining feature.

All artists should be creative, game or no.

Today, the only the electronic music most of us hear is the repetitive, simplistic beat of dance or industrial music piped into clubs and dubbed over with offensive lyrics and banter.

I think someone needs to check out ishkur's guide to electronic music. There is a pretty wide variation between the intricate beats of Drum 'n Base and the repetitive, simplistic beat of House. Of course, if you want more experimental electronica, look for IDM, Aka intelligent (unintelligible) dance music. None of these would be possible without using computers carefully as instruments, and none of them fit into mainstream musical categorization.

I must also argue with the idea that game artists haven't evolved the craft. Most games now feature dynamically adjusting music based at bare minimum on character states. They adjust for boss encounters without interrupting musical lines, and can dynamically increase or decrease instrumentation based upon on-screen action. While most game audio creators do focus on sounding like traditional recordings, this is probably because most are traditional recording artists these days.

Some of the best game soundtracks are traditional recordings. Final Fantasy, Xenogears, and Wipeout all spring to mind as great soundtracks involving "dumped-in" music. Even Street Sk8er, with it's off-kilter collection of grungy tunes, was a great listen.

That's not to say that the article doesn't have it's points. But to say that videogame composers should be at the forefront of experimentation just because they used to need to be is erroneous. Of course, if everyone were as original and good as The Fat Man (no lie, he's one of the greats) game audio would be far better off. But that combination of original sound and skill is rare in any medium... and The Fat Man's genius is not so easily replicated.

Game audio should be convincing, engaging without being detracting, and should heighten enjoyment the first time heard without getting annoying the 10th. It should dynamically change based upon the character's situation, and should contain an original artistic spark. Game audio shouldn't be the tunes you hear in your car... Nor should they be the buzzes and blips of yesteryear. While certain composers pioneer original genres (Tommy Tallerico springs to mind), this shouldn't be the defining feature.

All artists should be creative, game or no.

Unsolicited advertising aside, when I first learned to type (back as a little kid, probably somewhere around 1st grade), I remember learning the keyboard as a series of word-pictures. I knew that "print" involved kind of a lasso picture on the keyboard as you hit the keys. Ditto with things like "goto" or "input." (Yes, I made my start with BASIC. Please, look away from my shame...) Anyone else find themselves learning this way? You know, seeing the words as chunks to type rather than parsing it as letters initially?

Jon is the legendary programmer of such classic PC games as Wolfenstein, Doom, Duke nukem 3d, Quake 1, 2, and 3, unreal, and the upcoming doom3.

Jon Carmack had nothing to do with Unreal or Duke Nukem. Those programming teams were lead by Tim Sweeney and Todd Replogle.

And such, he far from single handedly created teh world's violent computer games. There are even more violent computer games out there.