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Europe's Version of E3
soapy writes "Europe's biggest computer gaming trade show, ECTS, took place in London this week. There's a pretty good show report that summerizes all the games coming out later next year such as Violition's Red Faction by Volition which uses the Quake 3 engine and No One Lives Forever, that James Bond first person shooter. There's also some details on some the console stuff going on such as Nintendo's Gameboy Advance, The Sony PlayStation2 and the PSOne. " If you're got more links, post 'em below.
Thad
Thad
http://www.mgon.com/reviews. phtml?id=30044&language=en
- From cube.ign.com
ECTS Wrapup
PC and Console news
- From ZDNet's GameSpot
ECTS Final Wrap-Up
- From psx.ign.com
Nothing major at pocket.ign.com (Game Boy Advance), xbox.ign.com, or dreamcast.ign.com. Maybe I'm too tired and missing them... ;)
Hope some of this is somewhat useful :)
http://www.angelfire.com/tv/micromaniacs/ects/
--
Jonathan Hunt
Unfortunately, today's video "games" train our children to be professional killers. These games are so realistic, the military uses adaptions of them for their OWN training simulations! With the cadre of pro-violence and anti-Christian games released every day, it is not a suprise we see our society in the state it lies.
http://www.truechristiansunite.com Home of the 1st TRUE Christian AI -- Hal!!!
I don't think you can say one country is better when it comes to games.
Japan: a lot of the early arcade classics came from Japan- Space Invaders, Galaxian, Galaga, Xevious, all those other classic Taito, Namco, Konami, Nintendo games. In recent times, most (but by no means all) of the good games for the Japanese consoles have come from Japanese developers.
Americans: Just like Japan, a lot of the truly classic arcade games came from USA. Joust, Robotron, Asteroids, Tempest, etc. All those early arcade games from Atari, Williams, etc. And let's not forget pinball, OK? :-) In recent years, a lot of top-notch computer games have come from America ranging from the classic Infocom and Sierra adventures to FPS games like Wolf3D, Doom, Quake, etc.
Brits: The Brits have played a somewhat smaller role, but have contributed a LOT of great games that the posters before me have already listed at great length. Bullfrog Studios, etc. I've never been a fan of Psygnosis games buth ey, whatever floats your boat.
Of course, other great games have come from ther countries too like Canada and France and others. In the end, I think the lion's share of great games and technology have come from Japan and USA but like I say the Brits are no slouches either. Per capita, they're definitely holding their own over there. :-)
Now here's the question. We don't see a lot of Brit games over here, but the ones we do see tend to be high quality. Does that mean that Brit games are all of truly high quality, or is it true that they make as many crap games as the USA does, but they don't bother to ship the crap games over here?
I'm thinking they make just as many crap games as us. I used to think all Brit TV was good because we only see the good stuff here in USA, but I really don't think that's the case. :)
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Has all creativity died in the gaming industry?
No. Look at Seaman or The Sims or Crazy Taxi for good examples of original vision. Okay, they are exceptions. There are a couple of reasons such thinking is at a low point:
1. Games cost 2+ million US dollars to make, just on the developer's end. It's pretty difficult to convince a company that they blow big money in marketing for a game that's completely unproven. Will Wright had a devil of a time getting The Sims made, and he's in charge.
2. Most game designers today are products of the video game era. That is, they have been heavily influenced by hit titles for the PlayStation, Super Nintendo, and so on. As a result, RPGs tend to be modeled after Final Fantasy or Secret of Mana, racing games tend to be modeled after The Need for Speed or Wipeout, shooters tend to be modeled after Quake, and so on. In effect, game designers have played too many games and it is affecting their thinking.
Linux provides a big opportunity for the next generation of game designers, but sadly we haven't seen much to get excited about. Indies don't have to work on endless versions of old arcade games or remakes of Commodore 64 titles, but that's all we're seeing.
Hmmm... Red Faction is using the Lithtech Engine, I believe...better for blowing up walls. And No One Lives Forever is not a James Bond games, but a Bond-like game, based on 60's spy stuff. I'm not sure it runs quake 3 either. The Quake 3 engine bond game is named The World Is Not Enough (doi). At least, this was true the last time I checked.
"You should never have your best trousers on when you turn out to fight for freedom and truth."
"You should never have your best trousers on when you turn out to fight for freedom and truth."
-Henrik Ib
What has ECTS ever claimed to be? The European Computer Trade Show?
It is about 'shiny things, flashing lights, loud noises, lies, and small women with large breasts' - btw I'm surprised you didn't mention alcohol - because it's about marketing product.
It's about networking, and looking better than everyone else. It is shallow, but at the same time entertaining. That said, I have never spent more than two hours walking around the show and looking at stuff - unless I'm looking for new products to sell or scantily clad dancing women - because I can't think of many things more dull.
It's also a chance for small development teams from all over the world to come to a place where, once a year, most of the industry is gathered together and willing to see product. This, however, isn't a contributing factor to a publisher's or distributor's decision to go there.
From a gamers point of view there wasn't much of substance this year, or last year. Hopefully next year, and the change of venue to the Docklands, will be better.
Yours, someone who enjoys ECTS and similar events for what they are and has done for some time.
"It seems that games companies now focus more on 'how to bring in the cash' than 'how to entertain the public'." - that's capitalism for you! Money does of course drive the industry.
IMO Marketing and Shareholders are now, unfortunately, the two most important contributing factors in deciding which games a company will publish or distribute, and remember we're in this to make money - not to provide a public service.
Sure, we take risks but as publishers we have to be extremely confident of success. It takes a lot of money and a lot of time to develop today's games and if we aren't sure we'll get a return from that investment then that game will be buried.
From a marketing point of view, if a game is too off-the-wall or unmarketable in another way it's not going to sell. The game must have media coverage and we have to get distributors interested in it - if not the public won't have a chance to buy it.
A decade ago it was a different story. One guy could code a decent game in his bedroom well within a year and make his fortunate. Five years ago you'd need a couple of coders and artists to do it within a year. Now a blockbuster game needs two to five years and a team of twenty.
There's nothing inherently wrong with sequels, as long as the publisher makes money and people enjoy them. Take Championship Manager, for example - it's a database as well ffs - a top ten hit every time in the UK!
And my background? I'm 'lucky' enough to evaluate game designs, 'near-finished' and released product - and let me tell you, you're lucky you don't see 99% of them.
Phantasy Star Online: A tradional console RPG, but 4 player online cooperative play. ;)
Four? Heh. I saw Sega's movie from the demo disc handed out at the show yesterday, and it contained the number 6,000,000,000, along with voice saying "six billion people" or something. I don't know the exact market penetration of the Dreamcast, but...
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
It has it's own engine sporting a novel thing called Geo-Mod. Capable of real-time arbitrary geometry modification.
In other words: the ability to blast holes through walls with your rocket launcher. This is definately a game to look out for.
A penny for your thoughts.
A witty
If you have a Dreamcast, try out Jet Set Radio. Totally new, and fun.
I hear a lot of this type of discussion these days - "The games are all the same", or "I wish something new and different would come out". This is where the opensource movement is lacking, and where these dissatisfied gamers can put their code where their mouth is.
Happy coding!Open source has not had a strong history of games, but all the parts are available to put together a new game, even a new genre! We in the open source community may require device drivers, but games are an important factor in moving Linux and other open source platforms into mainstream use.
Broadening the genres currently available, and innovating with new designs is part of the open source philosophy, and should be equally applicable to games programming.
Commercial success is not an issue here, so artists are free to create and try new ideas without the overhanging threat of failure (meaning loss of job or income).
That anyway, is IMHO.
-- Matt Ryall
I second that. It's the best game I've played in a long time, and I grew up with the sort of games that have been mentioned as being innovative earlier.
It uses an all-new engine developed by Volition. One of the major new features of this engine is what they're calling "real-time, arbitrary geometry modification" -- essentially being able to blow anything up. This allows you to do things like bring down a ceiling on your enemies, pop a hole in a wall when the door is locked, etc.
You can get more info on Red Faction here:
http://www.redfaction.com/
-Ed
Is that the long rumoured sequel to Jet Set Willy?
...as interesting. This is what the rest of the world REALLY thinks of the USA (at times.) Sometimes its shocking to belive, but you people can be very self-centered and blind to what is happening outside your own borders.
Unfortunatly for the USA, that post made some very valid, if not troll-like points.
You Yanks really do piss off the rest of the planet sometimes...
/me watches as he loses karma for expressing himself...
Call me a stupid American if you will, but I've never heard of Magic & Mayhem or Creatures 1, 2 & 3 (and I didn't care much for X-COM, personally).
But I did appeciate Syndicate and Grand Theft Auto. Who says only US companies make violent games?
Currently released games: Baldur's Gate, Planescape:Torment, Icewind Dale (and those are just the rpg's.). Baldur's Gate two comes out in less than a month. Neverwinter Nights comes out in under a year, probably. All are the epitomy of what role-playing games should be. There are truly fine games, if you would stop and look for a second. And don't say that these games didn't sell, Baldur's Gate sold VERY well, was named RPG of the Year (as was Torment, a year later), and BG2 will most likely outstrip BG and PS:T in sales and critical acclaim.
Moller
AFAIK, not much of note happened at ECTS this year.. no real unveiling of games, except the surprise announcement of Daytona 2 for the Dreamcast and _maybe_ the new trailer for Metal Gear Solid 2...
The real gaming news today is of course the launch of Sega Sports' NFL2K1 and Sega's online gaming network, SegaNet!
http://www.s4biturbo.com/
One to definitely add to the list of good British games: Independence War. Its old, but amazingly well-done.
-RickHunter
PC Gamer doesn't seem that afraid to give good reviews to innovative games. They review a lot of the "X with Y from Z" style of games, and they generally give them very low scores. The only one that they didn't do that for was Starcraft (I'm a Total Annihilation fan, FYI). Of course, my opinion of several of the games they did give high scores to is somewhat different, but they're still pretty good...
-RickHunter
the person who posted story was incorrect about another thing. 'No One Lives Forever' is NOT a James Bond game. In fact, the main character is female. Most of the settings/environments for this game were pulled from several 60s spy novels. None of the novel mentioned by the developer were written by Ian Flemming, the creator of James Bond.
Its a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field...
--
Excuse me, perhaps you can wish to live in an idealized, violence free Eden, but I'm all to aware of my animal roots, and if humanity weren't the meanest, nastiest, violencest sort of critter, we wouldn't be ruling the roost like we do.
Actually, mice have it licked over humans. Both in number as well as in bio mass. Or cockroaches. Or flies. Not to mention insects as a whole. (Also it's "most violent", but then I'm not a native speaker)
We evolved (ooh, there's that word again) fighting tooth and nail for our life over millions of years, to try to turn that off overnight evolutionarily speaking) is almost as trying to turn a life bearing woman into a warrior.
Incidentally, we also evolved a higher brain, but turning that off overnight apparently only comes too easy. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a good FPS from time to time, but I'd rather also see games that require a little bit more thought.
American's make the best computer games.
...after Japanese. ^_- I'm neutral as how they compare with European ones, though.
from BadTech were there.
(first P?)
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
We're not allowed to have our own fscking shows now, they're just clones of yours? What about the fact that most of the PC dev community comes from the UK? Are they just doing 'European versions of Quake'?
You yanks really piss me off some times..
There's also a very good reportage from ECTS here. It's only in italian but screenshots don't need much explainations.
ZCool
Sandlab.org - News dal mondo che cambia
No One Lives Forever is NOT a James Bond-based game. It is a spy shooter set in the 1960's. It has several things in common with bond, such as a british secret agent as the protagonist (to quote the developers, "The female James Bond"), but it is Monolith software's own creation.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
Official Site: http://ects.oit.net/2001/
ZDnet UK news: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/spec ials/1999/08/ects/
Sig it.
Red Faction does not use the Q3a engine. Instead they are using their own in house engine. According to sharky's article which you mention they use the Geo-Mod engine.
I thought that Red Faction used the internally developed GeoMod engine...
At these sites:
A pity I missed this one, it's always nice to know what companies are planning to do, and a large percentage of game development goes on in Europe.
I for one lament the slow decline in the quality and originality of computer games. Once upon a time you could buy games which were genuinely a joy to play, but todays games seem to be all flash and no substance. I don't want to be overwhelmed by a half-hour live action introduction, I want to kill some time doing something enjoyable.
All we see today are an endless succession of technically accomplished first-person shooters, each with more graphical prowess than the last. Whilst this may be fine for Americans in love with their right to shoot people, some of us would rather play a game that involved us in something other than violence and hate.
Has all creativity died in the gaming industry?
various write ups and what not...
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:)
http://www.gamesdomain.com/news/3036.html
http://video.gamespot.co.uk/ects2000/
http://www.diabloii.net/expansion/ects-2000-1.s
http://www.stomped.com/published/jcal968167198_
http://www.gamecenter.com/News/Item/0,3,0-4710,
http://www.mgon.com/articles.phtml?id=31931&lan
http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/
enjoy
Angron
Games developers, and individuals are designing new inovitive games, but publishers won't fund the development of anything that their market drones don't understand. Its simple, unless you can pitch an idea in 30 second "its like X but with Y from Z" style your lost.
Of course, the publishers would blaim the consumers - if they won't buy it we won't sell it. And they might be right. Don't ask why developers arn't making inovitive games, ask why the public aren't buying inovitive games.
Also, there is the factor that an origanal game takes longer to make, and is therefore more expensive, and higher risk. With 10% of the games taking 90% of the sales, thats not a risk many publishers are prepaired to take.
Or perhaps its the magazines faults. Reviewers are afraid to give good reviews to 'different' games, incase they get their reputation tarnished by a flop. Dito vice-versa with mainstream games. Reviewers don't want to pan a game and then see it become a huge hit. How humiliating. Editors want mainstream reviews to sell to joe public. Tell 'em what they wanna here. Quake 7 is great, so go buy it, then we can sell you the walkthrough. (And buy the way, Id, buy some advertising space - We've given you a great review!)
But then weve gone it a circle, and basically, its the publics fault again. So I ask you - when did you last buy an origanal, inovative game?
Thad
Thad
from the Grauniad Online. Unfortunately, it's by Jack Schofield - he's only just stopped promoting Atari so it'll be a few months yet before he gives up on Microsoft.
No originality in games?
Look to Sega, young man:
Seaman: OK, an extension of the Tamagochi idea in some ways, but pushed so far into the weird, you have to give it kudos. Voice recognition, for the first time on a console, too.
Crazy Taxi: a car game that's not just about racing, and is actually *fun*. Novel! (see also Driver, although that's not Sega)
Samba De Amigo: A Maraca-'em-up, say no more
Jet [Set|Grind] Radio: roller-skate around a city painting graffiti and evading the law, in Anime-style cell shaded graphics
Phantasy Star Online: A tradional console RPG, but 4 player online cooperative play.
Sadly, it appears innovation doesn't sell that well. The mainstream press and the buying public are not getting as excited about Dreamcast and its games as they are about X-Box and PS2 -- with their less than inspiring collection of games (I'm excited about PS2 Fantavision, but I need at least 2 more interesting games on release before I buy the console).
Nothing new there, I guess. Innovation doesn't sell too well in other media either -- witness the horde of indistinguishable sitcoms on TV...
--
I have her on video, She didn't even look like she was enjoying it. Once i have it off the tape an on my system It will be posted on http://www.mgon.com
Kornelia, the world #1 female Quake player, was at ECTS, gathering one of the most consistent crowds.
It was dead funny watching the line of spotty kids lining up to have a go.
I've never seen a pro player in action before, but basically it's like this:
Frag! Frag! Frag! Frag! Frag! Frag! Frag!
7-0 to Kornelia!
On Monday I think she was fragged 4 times all day. No-one fragged her twice.
She needs to get out more...
The story/music is more important than the graphics. The engine for this games sucks but it's still my favorate.
Whilst this may be fine for Americans in love with their right to shoot people, some of us would rather play a game that involved us in something other than violence and hate.
Excuse me, perhaps you can wish to live in an idealized, violence free Eden, but I'm all to aware of my animal roots, and if humanity weren't the meanest, nastiest, violencest sort of critter, we wouldn't be ruling the roost like we do.
A good fps is cathartic, it reminds me of a time when life was worth living, being too slow to defend yourself was a cause for death, and there was more to life than just cubicles and computers. We evolved (ooh, there's that word again) fighting tooth and nail for our life over millions of years, to try to turn that off overnight (evolutionarily speaking) is almost as trying to turn a life bearing woman into a warrior.
By your anti-American slant, I'm assuming you're a Brit. Well, what kind of fascination, wonderful games have come out of the UK, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Crumpets III D, Bow to the King? Face it, just like every other facet of the computer world, American's make the best computer games.
Count me as a proud, American, gun-owning poster.
ZDNET UK: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/ 35/ns-17700.html
Sig it.
The Game Cube was shown however only to select people. It was shown 1 day before E3 opened up and was shown behind close doors. IGN has a whole writeup on the Game Cube at http://cube.ign.com.
The Game Cube blows away the first generation Playstation 2 games. The Game Cube and Controller were only shown and was not allowed to be played with. Nintendo has alot of stuff it showed for power yet it still has alot of stuff to pull out of it's hat. Even the controller is a new design taking the best of numerous controllers. The controller is suppose to "melt in your hand" from it being so comfortable but very few people (mostly inhouse developers) have actually held it.
Is he still working in the industry? I'd add Team17 to your list too just for producing Worms (thank you Andy Davidson) Not forgetting Black & White It's got to be one of the more original games to be produced lately and its a UK baby too! p.s. If you worked on X-Com I salute you, UFO is still one of the most playable turn based strategy games yet.
So there is something to see, if thats what you want to see, but its not what it claims to be, and the show has absolutly no connection with the real world. Yours, A cynical, jaded, developer,
Thad
Thad
Hi
I have some answers for the questions you asked at ECTS.
1. DMA-100 : Should be supported in version 7.2. Currently buggy, but works most of the time.
2. Touch Screens : Should work via the mouse/keyboard port. If that's not how it connects to the machine, please send the screen's model/brand info, and we'll look into it more.
Hope that helps!
Well, look at what games are really selling. It doesn't encourage innovation from publishers to see most of the games that received good appreciation for their innovative approach ending as commercial failures.
Look what happened to Looking Glass, maybe Eidos is to blame there but how come Thief I & II didn't sell more when most of the reviewers considered it very good games (I did too).
Let's see if Black & White sells _enough_ to be worth 4 years of devellopment.
Anyway my most anticipated game is Anarchy Online...
the new nintendo console will support DVD movie playback
so stop complaining
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This Post has been brought to you by the letter "E".
Well, not too much, but I've always thought that /. has editors, not "cut'n'pastors" (and their comments should also be grammatically correct)
Real life is overrated.
Eidos, to begin with, made some pretty lame and crap games (talking real innovation they did prior to TR1 is gone so it seems. In a way thats quite unfortunate.
ID software & Westwoord... ID set the perfect standard for shoot 'm ups. If it wasn't for ID we never got games like Quake and even Unreal / Unreal Tournament. They set a perfect standard (Wolfenstein, Spear, Doom, Quake) and this concept got perfectly copied by others (Unreal, Half Life, etc.). But sometimes it allmost seems that all these others aren't capable of doing anything else!! Take a look at Command & Conquer, also one of my favorites. Now we finally got the last (?) chapter Tiberian Sun. But meanwhile; take a closer look at what the rest did with the whole C&C concept? Starcraft comes to mind as well as a lot of other games.
But even despite the fact that some 'copies / clones / etc.' are even better then the original; what did these game companies really contribute? IMHO absolutely nothing; they just started a search for more money. Due to the simple fact that they didn't have to invent the wheel, that has allready been done for 'm, they could easily move on where the original game had to stop (you can't keep developing a game forever).
And now we seem trapped in a games market where companies have lost the knowledge on how to innovate alltogether. The last real new idea which I encountered was "Shogun, the art of War". A game focused on fudal Japan. Even though my story is based on the PC market I'm sure this is the case for other platforms as well. I guess the only thing we can do is to wait and see if anything new will come up...