BrynS
Mr Kat says...
Yeah, I'm actually quite surprised that there hasn't been a Wing Commander themed FPS yet.LeHah said:Considering the story-rich enviroment WC is in and the story-driven games like Half-Life, its a wonder why the two haven't combined.
On a similar note, I would have been quite surprised that there hasn't been a decent Stargate FPS yet, had I not recently heard about the upcoming (currently scheduled for Late 2005) Stargate game under development, Stargate SG1: The Alliance
EA owns all the WC IP and over the past 5 years or so, the PC market has been literally bombarded with FPS games, especially WW2 shooters, many of which were developed under EA studios. I would of thought that the success of titles like the various Jedi Knight games and Star Trek Elite Force would have spurred EA on exploit a similar franchise in its inventory, namely Wing Commander.
I'm sure we'd all agree that the WC universe is fairly well developed across various mediums relative to most franchises and it shouldn't struggle to fuel one or a series of FPS games, insofar as story(line) is concerned, whereas one could probably recount the entire backstory and plot of the whole Quake series, including the upcoming Quake 4, in about 300 words (or less)!
However, looking at the Quake series and games like FarCry, Serious Sam, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, et al, it would seem that in many instances, hardly any story and/or established characters will suffice, provided the title is well developed and excels in at least one area, i.e. bleading-edge engine (FarCry), long dormant gameplay experience (Serious Sam -- defeating hordes of monsters hasn't been as well simulated since Doom 1 & 2) etc. Indeed, as long as the gameplay and graphics are there, most gamers will lap it up no matter what game franchise is represented. A potential studio would just need to licence a decent engine, make sure the gameplay is fun and somewhat varied, insert the relevent WC setting, story and characters and provided that the studio is rather competent, they should have all the components for a great game.
EA could also have used a WC FPS to guage wider interest in the franchise and if successful, it would have managed to expand the franchise into other genres (i.e. FPS) as well, while probably kick-starting the space-sim and MMO avenues again.
Seven words: Wing Commander FPS, Raven Software, Unreal Engine3
Cheers,
BrynS