ORIGINAL: gunny
I know exactly where you are coming from Perturabo. Its not that we expect software companies to do anything for us specifically. But games like Syndicate, Fall-out, Jagged Alliance, UFO etc etc were classics and when you first hear a modern version is being released one has hope that the quality of entertainment, and the original concept with modern processing power is about to bring forth months of renewed entertainment that we experienced when the original title came out....with little hype but big pay-off I might add. Only to find out the game shares the original name only, but the original play concept is completely 100% ignored for a different modality altogether. Something is wrong somewhere.
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy - basically, the marketing guys promoting these cover shooters with regenerating health are creating an atmosphere where anything that isn't a cover shooter with regenerating health is wrong and outdated and since marketing works, many people have that idea implanted in them which leads to less chances for other games ever being made by any company having comparable resources to these of the end of 90s.
Nowadays it's no chance of game like Fallout being made. There's Age of Decadence in making but they don't have access to these sort of resources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc6gvAzuipU
Then, even simplified decline genres like RTS are declining even more and getting even more simplified.
It's basically because most of these AAA games nowadays are targeted at the lowest common denominator and what the lowest common denominator wants is to spend some time before the screen playing a Call of Duty clone corridor shooter with a cinematic story and to shoot each other in multi-player without much thinking.
Though, I have to say I was quite surprised about them turning Syndicate into a FPS. After all, they still have released Command & Conquer games as RTS, not FPS.
Syndicate was basically a game about 4 terminator guys walking around and shooting everything that moves. That was the basic appeal of the game. Nothing too sophisticated, just pure mayhem. If new Command & Conquer sold millions as a RTS, then why not Syndicate as a action game with a similar view?
Ironically,
Sean Cooper who apparently played a role of a lead designer in Syndicate went "indie" and started doing stuff like this:
http://www.games.seantcooper.com/
O_o
That said, we, wargamers are very lucky to still have veterans of the industry in our genre. AFAIK most of the veterans in cRPG genre moved on to make MMORPGs and casual games.
About something being wrong here...
The big business thinking permeates the gaming culture. For example gaming journalists and gamers using words like "franchise". It's a business term without relevance to gamers.
It's like saying: I love the Pizza Hut franchise or I'm going to a Pizza Hut franchise instead of I love the taste of their pizza or, I'm going to Pizza Hut restaurant.
It's pathological.
Then there are is the whole psychology thing behind marketing with old titles being picked up just for brand recognition. Sometimes I hate humanity for irrational stuff like that.
I was in two years advertisement technical school and to be honest, lessons in marketing and psychology were quite scary.
The basic idea is that the potential customer is an object that is manipulated using various psychological techniques and that no one is fully resistant to these techniques.
Then there's the whole black marketing stuff. Basically, defaming whole products and whole groups of people to sell another product.
For example manufacturers of shaving implements sponsor articles in men's/women's magazines that would write about how having body hair/beard/moustache is wrong and about how only "troglodytes", "Neanderthals", etc. have them. It's pure hate speech and I've encountered rabid hatred from readers of these magazines on internet forums where they were repeating the exact terms used in these sponsored articles. Yet somehow nothing is done about stuff like that despite that it leads to completely irrational hatred and discrimination (which is a basis for criminalizing hate speech when it's directed against some other groups) of some groups of people. And using hate speech for profit is probably the lowest of the low.
So, these people get conditioned for example enjoying the sight of someone having pieces of metal sticking out of their body (stuff promoted by these magazines) but to feel disgust to someone having a full beard (because no one spends money on promoting the idea of liking these looks - why? Because it's impossible to sell product for that. Actually, I've seen one site promoting the natural "afro" hair and defending it from defamation. But it still wasn't purely for idea but also for selling products designed for this kind of hair).
Yeah, so there's the black marketing about the games that we're playing. They are not only "outdated" and existed just because "there was no technology for making them as a FP cover shooter" but also "no one produces them" because "no one would buy them".
ORIGINAL: gunny
What's next, Close Combat FPS? I'm sure there is money to be made selling that license.
Already done. I played the first mission and I quit when I realised they expect me to die again and again until I'll go through the mission well.It's basically a corridor shooter and you have a ton of hitpoints and can use medi-kits - something between Doom and Modern Warfare. You go through a single "corridor" and face fixed challenges. The upside is that unlike in Operation Flashpoint, the team members seem to have some semblance of intelligence and there are some actions that you can order like room clearing, covering fire, etc. I really missed stuff like that when playing OFP. Though, it's quite possible that it's all scripted on the levels.
Anyway, one thing that puts me off from playing campaigns in these military shooters is the one advantage of the US forces that somehow they forget to represent campaigns. Namely, excellent training. These shooters just drop the player in without even a developed ability to shoot straight not to mention any tactics. So, a completely green player is sent to do a job of a soldier which obviously results in lots of re-loading and with loosing any semblance of realism.
Atomic Games were recently developing a new military shooter called
Six Days in Fallujah that would wipe the floor with all the wannabe "military shooters" like Call of Duty and Modern Warfare (with dynamically destructive terrain, real ballistics and stuff like that), but the press got extremely butthurt and they had to can it. Ironically, if the wiki says truth, they were asked to make it by some Marines that were earlier cooperating with them on military sim which took part in the battle.
Apparently they made a multi-player shooter based on its engine called Breach. But it failed due to lots bugs (it always seems to happen when they try something really, really cool).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zgkP9ckIq0
Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, just look at the terrain destruction it's just like that thing that X-Com had 20 years ago and the "modern" AAA XCOM doesn't have!
ORIGINAL: sterckxe
ORIGINAL: Perturabo
I can't wait for someone to dig up the Steel Panthers license and making a cover shooter out of it.
It's obvious that if Gary Grigsby would have 3D technology, he'd make Steel Panthers as a cover shooter, right?
I'd buy that game [;)]
It would be a generic cover shooter, not any simulation, though. No ballistics simulation, no destructible terrain, campaign that is basically going through one corridor and doing some scripted shooting gallery and gimmicky multi-player.
EDIT:
Woohoo! Just as I have predicted:
Designer Rickard Johansson talked this up - "hopefully co-op is a great nod towards the old gang" - but argued that the old Syndicate formula had had its day. "I don't want people to stop playing the old games, but time has moved on."
http://www.oxm.co.uk/33611/why-the-synd ... g-history/