Gary Whitta Doesn't Like Wing Commander!

LOAF, I see your point, but the AI is so goddamned stupid in Dune II that it all boils down to a) building a wall of missile turrets, b) building some tanks and some missile launchers, c) moving the missile launchers close enough to the enemy's mis. turrets that you can shoot it but far enough that it can't shoot you. d) repeat until there are no more mis. turrets. e) mop the base up.
It was a REALLY great game, but the interface and tactical possibilities of more recent games (or less ancient ones :) make it kinda too outdated to play. CIV2 has fared a lot better, though, for instance.

And sincerely, No platform is better suited for legacy gaming than the pc. With DOSBox and some tips from foruns, it is possible to run a good deal of ye olde games, even stuff from almost any old console. My NES clone and my Atari 2600 have long died, but I can play games from these systems in my pc. Only I find Atari 2600 games to boring beoyond belief... it is just a simple gameplay premise repeated ad infinitum. The 8 bit NES generation is a LOT more enjoyable... And the 16bit one simply rocks.... I believe that there is some sort of sweetspot for games. For pcs, few years were better than 1994. Bur of course, there are great stuff from all generations. I think that a game like Baldur's Gate is a lot more fun and immersive than the golden box games, which were also good.

Ramblings aside, My point is that all ages of gaming had their great titles, and that, even though a good deal of older games is pretty great, there were lot's of crappy ones too.
 
the AI is so goddamned stupid in Dune II that it all boils down to a) building a wall of missile turrets, b) building some tanks and some missile launchers, c) moving the missile launchers close enough to the enemy's mis. turrets that you can shoot it but far enough that it can't shoot you. d) repeat until there are no more mis. turrets. e) mop the base up.
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I don't know about Dune II, but I used to make up for C&C's AI failings by playing against a friend over the modem. Playing against the AI in no way prepares you for the deviousness of a human being. :)
 
Retro gaming is a lot of fun, just dusting of the old nes and snes (or if your very lucky your old C64 or spectrum) and playing your old favourites can easily swallow up a couple of evenings.
 
1994-1996 was really the golden age of PC gaming. We saw kickass titles like WC3, WC4, the Crusader series, X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter, Mech2, Descent 2 (one of the most underrated games of all time, and IMO one of the best multiplayer online games of all time), Lords of the Realm 2 (wonderful strategy game), Civ 2, etc...

For consoles on the other hand I would say it came earlier but died around the same time. I'd say 1988 was the start of the true greats, dying in 1996 with the release of Bahamut Lagoon. Megaman X3, Zelda: LTTP, and others had already come and gone, but Square had its last hurrah to go before the SNES, and the true greats of gaming, bit the dust. Around the same time we also had Tales of Phantasia (Square), Star Ocean (Enix), FF7(Square), Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Konami), etc - so we did have some badassery at the end. :)

Yes, there were good games after that but the market was no longer being bombarded by them.
 
See, that is what I don't understand... So games like Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, and so many others are crap? I don't really care for WHEN was a game released, but just for HOW good it is. And some games age better than others. I'm sure the guys who played space wars in 1960 somthing whinned about how crappy games were in 1982.
 
In fifteen years the same games he praise now will get the same bad review... Each game must be analysed in its context, and WC1 was the best at its time, and still highly enjoyable today.
 
Aron Figaro said:
1994-1996 was really the golden age of PC gaming. We saw kickass titles like [...] Civ 2, etc...
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IMHO, Civ 2 is crap. :p Definitely loses out to both Civ 1 and Civ 3 for me.
 
CivII is easily the best in the series. CivIII held very little water.
 
Why burn Civ3? It's Civ2 with better graphics, a little more variety, and unique units.

(and what's the dif between Civ1 and Civ2? I never had the chance to play the original.)
 
Civ3's corruption or whatever it's called annoyed the hell out of me. Basically made conquering another continent nigh impossible.
 
That's why I read Computer Gaming World instead (a magazine where the editors respect the classics; most of its "hall of fame" games being classics, in fact, including two or three of the original Wing Commander games).
 
CIV3 made no sense on a modern civ because corruption was lower near the capital. Now think: are capitals the cities with least corruption?
 
Chernikov said:
Why burn Civ3? It's Civ2 with better graphics, a little more variety, and unique units.
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CivIII had incredibly intrusive graphics, strange layouts and changed some of the rules I had gotten so use to from the previous entry. To hell with it.
 
LeHah said:
CivIII had incredibly intrusive graphics, strange layouts and changed some of the rules I had gotten so use to from the previous entry. To hell with it.
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I agree with LeHah. This will be the only time I make such a statement,

-Rance-
 
I just moved my lazy browser around the net a bit and looked up Gary Whitta's homepage . Amazing - the guy not only casts himself as "journalist" (see quote), but also as screenwriter and author:
GARY WHITTA is a journalist, author and screenwriter of more than 14 years' experience. He has launched and acted as Editor-in-Chief for several major national consumer publications, including the world's biggest-selling computer gaming magazine PC Gamer (both UK and US editions), Total Football, Total Movie, and Next Generation. He still writes the regular "Backspace" column for PC Gamer every month.
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So he may have been Chief Ed of Total Football, Total Movie, Total Boredom, and Total Complete Exhaustive, but his other projects are really of note.
Author? One civil war novel, woohoo. And two unpublisched ones, a C&C and a Starcraft novella.
Screenwriter? He actually has stuff that is in pre-production (as all my stuff is and ever will be, too), and he's including things like a ST Voyager script ("It always struck me as somewhat of a pedestrian, formulaic show. Perversely, this is perhaps why I wanted to write for it.."), a Tomb Raider and Undying script, some Dickens ("Oliver - Charles Dickens goes sci-fi? I swear I'm not making this up."), and amazingly, a script for a movie version of Paradroid.

I'd have forgiven and forgotten about him after a while, but Paradroid is one of my treasured memories of the past, and this just makes me laugh. Quote:
INT. U.C.C. CHICAGO, ‘C’ DECK CORRIDOR
The PROBE DROID floats down the corridor, continuing its scan, when a SERIES 511 BATTLE DROID rounds the corner. It doesn’t notice the probe, which glides right past. But then a piece of the damaged ceiling gives way and a MESS OF CABLES drops onto the probe’s head. It becomes disoriented and BUMPS INTO THE WALL.
The noise alerts the Battle Droid, which turns back around. Unable to lock onto a target, it opens fire with ALL its weapons, and THE PROBE IS BLOWN TO PIECES.

INT. U.C.F. CONSTELLATION, MISSION CONTROL
On the bank of computer monitors, all the probe’s systems suddenly FLATLINE.
TECHNICIAN
We lost the probe!
ADMIRAL ZELL
What the hell happened?
TECHNICIAN
I don’t know. It’s just... gone.
ADMIRAL ZELL
Did it finish its scan?
TECHNICIAN
No, sir. From the data we have, we can project the droid patrol routes for... eighty-eight per cent of the ship.
DELACEY
This is insane. We can’t assume those droids are just randomly patrolling after what Arvin told us!
ADMIRAL ZELL
This situation ain’t gonna get any better, son. Either we go in now, or we don’t go in at all.
(to Malloy)
Proceed, Colonel.
COLONEL MALLOY
It’s about time.
Malloy heads off to assemble his squad. Admiral Zell produces a CIGAR specially modified for him, puts it between his metallic teeth, lights it with a ZIPPO LIGHTER built into his thumb, and takes a puff. He removes it from his mouth and looks at it with disgust.
ADMIRAL ZELL
Shit. I don’t care what they say, I can’t taste these damn things no more.
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Great stuff. Great stuff.
 
He does a pretty good job of obfuscating the fact that none of his credits are professional work. When he uses the word *for* he actually means *about*. For instance, he explains that his Voyager script was something "I wrote back in 1999 for the show's final season". To me, that implies that it was, you know, actually purchased by the show for its final season. No, it's just a fan script he wrote in 1999 *during* the show's final season.

While Amazon sells two hundred books about the Civil War called A House Divided, none of them are by Gary Whitte.

I haven't read PC Gamer since they decided that if *one* joke about Coconut Monkey was funny that ten thousand jokes repeated in rapid fire fashion throughout the magazine each month would be nearly *twice* as funny... but if this article is a reasonable example of Mr. Whitta's role, then his title would be better listed as Professional Space Filler.
 
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