You're right, I had forgotten about those (I thought that JK had a great story). And I think that the FPS has somewhat evolved from the zero-plotline games such as Wolfenstein, Doom, & Quake. Still, as much as I enjoyed Doom, I wouldn't pay for a new, souped up Doom (same levels, monsters, et al) that just had 3DFX graphics.
Righteous Fire... that's it?!
- Thread starter Saturnyne
- Start date
He may be referring to the original Castle Wolfenstein, from the early 1980's. It was a 2-D game, sort of like Bezerk (which few of you probably know about (Some days I feel soooo old
), only you could pick up different weapons, liquor and bratwurst along the way. There are some screenshots at this link. http://jollyrogers.com/cw.html
Heh.
Its been rather amusing to watch the amount of difference that character in a game will make. You have, for example, the original Quake and Duke Nukem 3d. Both came out at roughly the same time, but I suspect more people have fond memories of Duke than Quake. Quake had the superior engine, but Duke had Duke. No one cared much about the main character in Quake (except, of course, for the fact that the game was over if he died), but everyone knew who Duke was.
Without him, the game wouldn't have done nearly as well.
Some of the more recent ones...
The Dark Forces games have been mentioned already. BTW, Jedi Knight 2 should be out sometime soon. And its for the PC, not the XBox.
Half-Life's big thing was its environment. Most of it was still 'pull switch A, look for the unlocked door', except that it involved closing valve A, which was attached to a high pressure pipe, that would cause the nearby wall to collapse when the pipe exploded.
Shogo - A first person shooter with a real branching storyline (okay - only one possible junction). Who'da thunk it? And some fun lines.
"So... You seeing anyone?"
"Actually, I'm dating your sister."
Aliens vs. Predator 2 - This one has a consistent storyline, told through cut scenes, overheard conversations, radio messages, etc... The trick is that to get the entire story, you have to play all three single player campaigns. You'll play one campaign, and get a good chunk of the story, but various holes are left in place. Play another campaign, and you'll learn something further.
Its been rather amusing to watch the amount of difference that character in a game will make. You have, for example, the original Quake and Duke Nukem 3d. Both came out at roughly the same time, but I suspect more people have fond memories of Duke than Quake. Quake had the superior engine, but Duke had Duke. No one cared much about the main character in Quake (except, of course, for the fact that the game was over if he died), but everyone knew who Duke was.
Without him, the game wouldn't have done nearly as well.
Some of the more recent ones...
The Dark Forces games have been mentioned already. BTW, Jedi Knight 2 should be out sometime soon. And its for the PC, not the XBox.
Half-Life's big thing was its environment. Most of it was still 'pull switch A, look for the unlocked door', except that it involved closing valve A, which was attached to a high pressure pipe, that would cause the nearby wall to collapse when the pipe exploded.
Shogo - A first person shooter with a real branching storyline (okay - only one possible junction). Who'da thunk it? And some fun lines.
"So... You seeing anyone?"
"Actually, I'm dating your sister."
Aliens vs. Predator 2 - This one has a consistent storyline, told through cut scenes, overheard conversations, radio messages, etc... The trick is that to get the entire story, you have to play all three single player campaigns. You'll play one campaign, and get a good chunk of the story, but various holes are left in place. Play another campaign, and you'll learn something further.
Mekt-Hakkikt
Mpanty's bane
I found the Star wars FPS (Dark Forces and jedi Knight) to quite cool, too. Sadly, I never played MOTS but I'd love to use the force "shovel". That's the coolest force (besides Force gripping maybe).
JK2?
JK2?
Eder
Mr. Standoff
MotS is great, too. I loved the storyline, (especially the final battle), and some of the new stuff really added something to the game, instead of being just more of the same... like the sniper scope for the Stormtrooper rifle and the saber throw force power.
IMO, in the FPS department, MotS is still the king (probably because I think of Operation Flashpoint more as a "war" game than as a FPS).... but hopefully that'll change when JK2 comes out. Raven is yet to disappoint me in any of their games, so I'm quite optimistic about this one, too.
--Eder
IMO, in the FPS department, MotS is still the king (probably because I think of Operation Flashpoint more as a "war" game than as a FPS
).... but hopefully that'll change when JK2 comes out. Raven is yet to disappoint me in any of their games, so I'm quite optimistic about this one, too.--Eder
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Yep. JK2 is a PC follow up to, obviously, JK. But there is a star wars game - Obi-wan - that is coming out for x-box. I'm not sure if it's a shooter but from what I've seen you run around and get to hack things with your light sabre and use force powers to fling droids and stuff.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Originally posted by Shane
He may be referring to the original Castle Wolfenstein, from the early 1980's. It was a 2-D game, sort of like Bezerk (which few of you probably know about (Some days I feel soooo old
http://jollyrogers.com/cw.html
Hehe, I remember that for my Apple ][ many many years ago... anybody remember Space Vikings? It was kind of like Privateer.
Yeah, I think it was made by Sublogic, who did work with Microsoft on their early flight sims, iirc. Another early privateer-like game, set on the highways of the future was Auto Duel. Which happened to be made by, of all people Origin. I think Richard Garriott played a big role in it's development. It was in the later 80's though.
I've noticed that old games are following the trend of old movies. Some of them are vanishing (granted some would say they probably aren't worth saving,) but there is an effort to save them with things like MAME. Some games get redone like Frogger, Castle Wolfesntein, etc., and a lot of younger gamers have no idea there was an original game. And most of us old timers say, yeah your graphics are pretty and your sounds are fancy, but they just don't spark the same kind of emotion the old 2-D game did. In the last year or so, I've figured that is what may happen with the Wing Commander franchise. The Zork games, for example, are radically different from their text adventure look, but they set them in the same universe, just forward in time a bit.
I think Richard Garriott played a big role in it's development. It was in the later 80's though. I've noticed that old games are following the trend of old movies. Some of them are vanishing (granted some would say they probably aren't worth saving,) but there is an effort to save them with things like MAME. Some games get redone like Frogger, Castle Wolfesntein, etc., and a lot of younger gamers have no idea there was an original game. And most of us old timers say, yeah your graphics are pretty and your sounds are fancy, but they just don't spark the same kind of emotion the old 2-D game did. In the last year or so, I've figured that is what may happen with the Wing Commander franchise. The Zork games, for example, are radically different from their text adventure look, but they set them in the same universe, just forward in time a bit.
Well, don't downplay the fact that the WC franchise has had an amazing run. I cannot think of any other game series that has spawned over 12 games, a cartoon series, and a movie (whatever your opinion of it may be
).Personally, while I really enjoyed WC4 and consider it one of the best in the series if not THE best, I was surprised that Roberts did not make it a launching point for another miniseries. Kind of like the WC1/WC2/WC3 progression. As it turns out, I'm glad he didn't since we may never have seen the conclusion.
Originally posted by Marcml30
Well, don't downplay the fact that the WC franchise has had an amazing run. I cannot think of any other game series that has spawned over 12 games, a cartoon series, and a movie (whatever your opinion of it may be
Final Fantasy?
Final Fantasy X is not the tenth game, as there have been others that aren't included in the current numbering system.
Megaman got more than one cartoon, although I'm not sure if it ever had a movie.
But those are Japanese, and they seem to have a slightly different attitude about this sort of thing.
And if you want to look at it the other way (series/movie spawns cartoon, games), you could probably find a dozen Star Trek games, as well.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Any country that obsessed with Ultima cannot be understood.
That brings up a good question, one that's been bugging me for years. I played Final Fantasy 1 on the old Nintendo system (circa 1990). It was basically a fantasy adventure game (swords, spells, et al) and I've had a hard time seeing how it evolved into what we see now. Is there supposed to be any kind of connection btw the original and today's version? At least with the WC game series they are all relatively easily connected to one another - sometimes too loosely but still connectable.
Movies/TV have a much broader market visibility than computer games. It's much more impressive IMO that a game series can move into the cartoon/movie realm than the other way around. They seem to make games out of any moderately successful TV/movie - The Survivor Game - what more can I say?
The original (not the later ones, though) Final Fantasy on the Game Boy was actually the first game in the Sekken Densetsu series. The sequel to that game was released in the US as 'The Secret of Mana' on the SNES. Sekken Densetsu 3 was never released in the US (although ROMs and the unofficial translations needed to understand the game can be found on the internet), although from what little I've heard, its supposed to be quite good. The fourth game was The Legend of Mana, which was released on the Playstation, and is a very odd game plotwise.
The other Gameboy Final Fantasy games (2 or 3 of them) are apparently the original Saga Frontier games. Amazingly enough, Final Fantasy seems to be the only series that Square produces that has absolutely no storyline relationship between the games in the series.
True. But few of those shows have kicked out more than a handful of games. To the best of my knowledge, Star Trek is the only one to breach the dozen mark (Star Wars might have done so, though. Of course, Star Wars never had an animated series.). Of course, considering the poor caliber of many of those games, it probably has more to do with the popularity of Star Trek than anything else.
Droids was just awful. Not as bad as the Holiday special, but taht isn't saying much. Mario Bros. is another case of the games selling well, a decent run of a TV Cartoon and a less than amazing movie box office.
As for games how many game franchises are there like WC, that is they started as a PC game, spawned a bunch of other games, made it onto TV and the big screen and some books? Or even just the number of PC games (if you count the add-ons seperately or even if you don't) that started out without some outside name, like Star Wars. I guess there is Ultima, the games set in the "Zork" universe, a bunch of sports games where a new verison comes out each year (not sure if that should count.) There are a bunch of games I can think of that are about to approach or reached their thrid major relase (not counting add-ons), things like Warcraft, Civ, etc. When you look at it that way the WC accomplishments are pretty impressive.
As for games how many game franchises are there like WC, that is they started as a PC game, spawned a bunch of other games, made it onto TV and the big screen and some books? Or even just the number of PC games (if you count the add-ons seperately or even if you don't) that started out without some outside name, like Star Wars. I guess there is Ultima, the games set in the "Zork" universe, a bunch of sports games where a new verison comes out each year (not sure if that should count.) There are a bunch of games I can think of that are about to approach or reached their thrid major relase (not counting add-ons), things like Warcraft, Civ, etc. When you look at it that way the WC accomplishments are pretty impressive.
About the only things that have been able to rack up impressive numbers of games released that started as games for home computers are Zork and the Old School RPG brands.
There have been 8 Zorks (not including the Enchanter series - Enchanter is arguably Zork 4),
9 Wizardries (Nemesis, which is arguably not a Wizardry game, pushes it up by one),
11 Might and Magic games (including two action games and three Heroes of M&M, not including the add-ons, stand-alone Shadow of Death, or the 4(?) Heroes Chronicles games),
13 Ultimas (including Ultima 7.5, 2 World of Ultimas and UO, not including the consoles, of which I know there were at least a couple, and not including the two add-ons)
I have no clue how many Gold Box AD&D games SSI put out back in the day, but there were a lot (and no add-ons).
I'm a little hesitant to include add-ons in those totals despite the fact that they were apparently used in the initial post. Even without the add-ons, WC racks up an impressive 11 games (including SOP, both Privateers, and SWC, but not including console ports of the PC games).
That puts WC ahead of Zork and Wizardry. With add-ons, I think it still loses out to Ultima (Both Ultima 7 games had an add-on, and I think there have been four for UO, although I could be wrong - total of 19. Plus, there are the console games.).
Might and Magic gets boosted to 18 with add-ons.
WC has a total of 17 with add-ons, not including speech packs, KS, or 'Deluxe Editions'.
To the best of my knowledge, none of these other games have made it onto the big screen, although there have been book series (Might and Magic, Zork, Ultima - IF you count the books for the now discontinued UO2).
Incidentally, with add-ons, Command & Conquer jumps from 4 games to 10.
Did I miss anything?
Is there another big series that got its start on the PC?
There have been 8 Zorks (not including the Enchanter series - Enchanter is arguably Zork 4),
9 Wizardries (Nemesis, which is arguably not a Wizardry game, pushes it up by one),
11 Might and Magic games (including two action games and three Heroes of M&M, not including the add-ons, stand-alone Shadow of Death, or the 4(?) Heroes Chronicles games),
13 Ultimas (including Ultima 7.5, 2 World of Ultimas and UO, not including the consoles, of which I know there were at least a couple, and not including the two add-ons)
I have no clue how many Gold Box AD&D games SSI put out back in the day, but there were a lot (and no add-ons).
I'm a little hesitant to include add-ons in those totals despite the fact that they were apparently used in the initial post. Even without the add-ons, WC racks up an impressive 11 games (including SOP, both Privateers, and SWC, but not including console ports of the PC games).
That puts WC ahead of Zork and Wizardry. With add-ons, I think it still loses out to Ultima (Both Ultima 7 games had an add-on, and I think there have been four for UO, although I could be wrong - total of 19. Plus, there are the console games.).
Might and Magic gets boosted to 18 with add-ons.
WC has a total of 17 with add-ons, not including speech packs, KS, or 'Deluxe Editions'.
To the best of my knowledge, none of these other games have made it onto the big screen, although there have been book series (Might and Magic, Zork, Ultima - IF you count the books for the now discontinued UO2).
Incidentally, with add-ons, Command & Conquer jumps from 4 games to 10.
Did I miss anything?
Is there another big series that got its start on the PC?