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John Romero Back In The Game
Gamespot reports that John Romero, the well known former id software designer, has opened his own development studio for the first time in several years. From the article: "Romero and Midway parted ways after just two years. He had been hired, along with former Ion Storm colleague Tom Hall, in October, 2003. His departure in July of this year was amicable on the surface, but chatter among industry wags suggested the Midway brass weren't entirely impressed with the work Romero and his team produced. At the time of his departure, Romero and Hall were working on the still-unreleased action role-playing game Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows."
There was a time I thought Romero was interesting: before I actually learned anything about him and just knew he was part of ID. Talk about letting a little success go to your head... he's like a warning label for the entire concept of ego overtaking your rational thought processes.
Sig under construction since 1998.
Gauntlet, above all other action RPGish hack-and-slash things, deserves a great update. While Romero may or may not have been capable of it, I don't know if Midway can be trusted to do what's best for the series. Remember, they released the awesome Midway Arcade Treasures with a phoned-in interface and multiple sound bugs, waking up to the public's interest in it only when it *actually sold*.
What follows is, in my not-so-humble opinion, what the Gauntlet series needs to remain interesting and relevant in its next incarnation.
* Get rid of some of the sameness that filled the later areas of Legends and Dark Legacy. Hack slash hack slash hack slash. Despite the variety in environment, most of the areas were simply differently-shaped tubes through which the players flowed.
* Get the hell rid of the lame collection quests from the home versions of those two games; one in the whole game (runestones) is enough. It's Gauntlet, not Banjo-Kazooie! All home versions of the game other than the Dreamcast one ruined the bonus rounds by having them grant only character unlock credits unstead of gold.
* Put back in all the great gimmicks and concepts from Gauntlet II, with some additional clever multiplayer concepts. (GII was the game that gave us the IT Monster.) I've got some ideas for this, give me a call! (The author of this comment then waits by phone anxiously for several months, then walks away, sad, dejected, but wiser.)
* Deepen the character development with some hard choices, but don't make it too complicated. This is Gauntlet, not Morrowind. At the same time, it's not Final Fantasy either, so there's no need to putz about with weapon and armor inventories or attempts to put in a "real" story. Gauntlet needs to be kept pure; it's still possible for a hack-and-slash game to do well, if it focuses on what hack-and-slash does best: quick thinking, on-the-fly strategizing, and action action action.
* Keep the monster count up, and put back in strategic ways of taking out generators early. The key skills of classic Gauntlet players are the ability to shoot generators just as they come on screen (before they have a chance to produce bullet-soaking enemies), and the quick scouting trip to take out generators before they can produce too much. Both of these tactics are possible in L and GL, but not as useful. Aiming is harder because of the 3D nature of the game (even with auto-aim), and
* And most importantly, LEAVE IN TIMED HEALTH LOSS! The fact that, at home, there was no penalty for waiting around waiting for your turbo meter to fill, directly harmed the game. Notice: ALL the (real) home versions of the original Gauntlet and Gauntlet II have timed health loss, while all the home versions of Legends and Dark Legacy had no such thing.
It's easy to forget these days just how groundbreaking the original Gauntlets were, and they're still fondly remembered by many people. And damn it, they're still fun to play now, even the home versions of the arcade updates. Midway is sitting on a gold mine here if they can avoid dropping the ball. (Chances of Midway dropping the ball, especially now that original creator Ed Logg is no longer with them: 85%.)