Thing is the really "innovative" days of computer games are over. Back in the 80's to mid 90's we got some awesome stuff and much of it was something new everytime. About the time of Win95 is when it started and of course 3D video cards. Then the innovation stopped and just repeats of the same began and for 10 years it's been this way with little to nothing really new and innovating that made you ewwww an ahhhhh and rush to the store to buy it as soon as it was ready. Well not for me anyway. For 12-13 and probably several 20ish year olds this stuff is like that to them. I was 24 thereabouts when computer gaming on the pc hit and I couldn't wait for the next game I lived by SSI games most entirely until "Sid Meiers Railroad Tycoon and Civilization". Gawd then I wanted every game to be like them. But, we didn't get many lookalike or copycats of those two great ones. Master of Magic was the closest I think.
At least I can die knowing I lived in the best of times in computer gaming, the pioneer days when great games were made and innovation was at its highest.
Hrmmm now where is my "Geopolitique disks and Germany 85"??
I lived in a time of Laminated maps and real honest to goodness hard bound MANUALS!!
I think some developers/publishers have been watching too much Star Trek and think hard bound manualess games are something that the vast majority enjoy nowadays. Sorry I'm not one of them. I also think they've lost their minds if they think online purchasing is outweighing brick n mortar purchases by consumers. Little too far advanced I think, Star Trek days ain't here yet.
Let me just type you something I read in an editoral by Johnny Wilson:
"Quote"
I am beginning to see a pattern emerge. I first began to notice this while visiting a game company that had previously led the industry with innovative technology and products. But on this trip, most of what they were showing me fell into two "ME TOO" catagories; first person perspective 3D-shooters and real time strategy games. At that point I was aware of the 24 real-time strategy games and 10 first-person shooters already in development. Yet, I grinned and bore it through their presentation.
Why are publishers willing to pour MILLIONS of dollars into "ME TOO" products when they won't take even small risks on INNOVATIVE games?"
"Unquote"
Know when he wrote this???
1997 !!!!!! lol this was almost 10 years ago now that he noticed and saw this trend. It's even worse today it seems. Must be 100's of rts and near that first person shooters. All nearly alike all same basic gameplay. Nothing has changed much but guess what??? THE GRAPHICS!!!
I personally don't like shelling out $50 bucks after $50 bucks for a graphics facelift or some little tweaks and changes to the program at full retail price. This is how I will feel about all of the Talonsoft series that Matrixgames puts out unless their pricing changes to that of a reasonable expansion or update. These aren't going to be NEW and INNOVATING releases. They are going to be patched up plain and simple and made to work on WinXP. I don't see that as something that should cost the consumer $50 or $40 closer to $24.95 sounds more reasonable to me.
But, that's just me. They will price them as they see fit. I just will be one of the ones not buying them thas all.
For me it just seems the games I want from Matrixgames have been under lock n key for far too long. EIA, Guns of August, Combat Leader (which they scrapped if you've been keeping up with it), I was interested in that Battles of Napoleon until I read they have massacred the origional game design for something totally different. "Battles of Napoleon" was one of the greatest games of the 80's. Never understood why developers want to butcher up a remake and really turn it into something that is going to be crap instead. This "command decision" crap that keeps moving to the forefront instead of "hands-on let me play all the GD pieces". If I want to watch a "movie" I'll buy or rent a movie. When I play a game I want to play the WHOLE game, not just make some lines in the sand and then watch the animations and then get some graphical display or popup screen of what happened while I couldn't do a dam thing.
Too many are taking the strategy out of wargames these days. Putting in too much candy coated animations and letting the AI play the damn game instead of us. Mad Minutes two games come to mind here and the HTTR/COTA series. I was born pushing counters around the map, rolling dice, looking at combat results tables, reading the rules in manuals, I got to play the WHOLE game not just a portion of it. Hell they've already taken away rolling the dice, looking at combat results tables away from us and what manuals??? lol All we have left is "pushing the counters around the computer screen" and hell they want to take that away from us also.
Oh well enough ranting thing is "nobody cares what anyone else thinks anyways". I sometimes wonder why we even do this myself.
I do it killing time while my dialup is downloading the umpteenth video card patch from Nvidia at 40+mb. Man I dread the day when regular patches become 100+mb monsters. lol