People just don't make games like WC anymore

Are there any games nowadays that use a large amount of live action footage with actors? I don't really keep with games today, all I know that animated cutscenes like the GTA franchise uses seem to be popular.
 
Yeah I thought that the whole blowing up the Sol system thing was really pointless in regards to Freelancer's story.
 
Are there any games nowadays that use a large amount of live action footage with actors? I don't really keep with games today, all I know that animated cutscenes like the GTA franchise uses seem to be popular.

Pretty much only some of the recent Need for Speed games, and the Command and Conquer games use live action these days.
 
some of the recent Need for Speed games
Let me guess, sometimes you can't even tell anymore if it's live-action footage or 3D rendered? ;)

I'm assuming these videos do primarily show cars, not people :D
 
Let me guess, sometimes you can't even tell anymore if it's live-action footage or 3D rendered? ;)

I'm assuming these videos do primarily show cars, not people :D

No, it's actors with CG backrounds and some limited real sets like garages and apartments. Most Wanted, Carbon, and Undercover all have story based campaigns
 
Just read the first post and browsed through the answers so forgive me if I repeat something.

I wouldn't say they don't make games like this anymore - back then Wing Commander was revolutionary, in terms of graphics, narration, music maybe and non-linear story. Nowadays this is pretty common. You might say everything has been done and you can't invent the wheel again. They still make very good games (Mass Effect and Fallout 3 pop to my mind) but they can't be revolutionary.

What striked me when I recently played WC1 was how bug-free the game was. Back when there wasn't internet, you couldn't ship a half-finished game and just send out patch after patch to improve it. If some company sold a buggy game, they would have a hard time selling their next games (think Outpost by Sierra). So instead they thoroughly tested their games and made sure there weren't any crucial bugs (then of course the hardware and so~~~are was much more simple back then). I don't think WC1 or WC2 ever crashed on me or contained any serious bugs, none I would be aware of at least.

Other than that, I think it's just nostalgia that makes us think that that kind of games isn't made anymore. And maybe the fact that with everyone owning a PC nowadays, you can sell much more trash without worrying about the return on investment.
 
'tis true, the testing processes would have been a lot simpler given that the so~~~are was much smaller and simpler as well. I also like how a real effort was made into optimising programs in that era, both in terms of computational efficiency and disk space requirements, simply because CPU processing power and disk space were so much more expensive (relatively speaking) than it is now. Which is why no one really bothers to optimise too much any more - it's not cost effective and larger companies seem to lean towards pushing titles out earlier than later (budget constraints, delivery deadlines, and the like).

Some of the archived documents hint at how much effort was put into debugging WC3 and WC4, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Edit: oh dear... really, you're censoring f-t-w? I was writing soft-ware, not the acronym, you silly censor-bot. :p
 
Edit: oh dear... really, you're censoring f-t-w? I was writing soft-ware, not the acronym, you silly censor-bot. :p

Hehehe wow... I'll have to see if Kris can change that to only capitalized instances.
 
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