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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
- 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 :)
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.
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);}
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
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
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?
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..
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.
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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1 _1.html
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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
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
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...
--
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...
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.
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!
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".
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...