I was thinking about how I remember Maxis fondly, and I got to wondering what other people’s experiences were like!
Is your favorite still around? Are they still the same, or did they “change directions under new management?”
Electronic Arts :(
Yeah… Gotta wonder what the original founders would say if you could tell them what they’d become.
I remember going to EA games on a field trip for school and even back then the corporate feeling was strong. I remember this panel about developer freedom and not a single student was interested. Granted, nobody from my school was on track to do any kind of game development
(early 8-bit era)
Westwood studios. Command and conquer tiberian sun was my very first computer game, which I loved dearly (and still have on my computer since it’s freeware now and has been fan patched for modern systems)
Well and then came EA.
@GregorGizeh @Telorand you can get it free now?? I had given it up for dead…
Yup, it’s Freeware since a few years now and has even spawned a brilliant standalone mod using its engine. Here is the link:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/tiberian-sun-client/
And if you want to check out the mod I mentioned, it’s called twisted insurrection. It delivers on many things that were lacking in the original, and has an extensive OST with some pieces by frank klepacki himself (made a lot of the music used in the original series). You can check out some trailers on YouTube. Mod Link:
sierra ❤️
also bill pogue
Haha, that’s exactly the kind of game I want to make but with graphics and a little less dry. Didn’t even know about that one. Also I should probably actually figure out how to start that once I’m settled in here. It’s amazing how much planning and thought goes into getting one truck across the country. It’s like Oregon trail but you die of stupidity, yours or others, rather than dysentery.
Lucas Arts
Are they still around? /j
Yep, some classic point and click games, like Full Throttle. It’s from games like that that I learned Mark Hamill is an amazing voice actor.
Sierra On-Line
King’s Quest is still one of my favorite series ever and the one they put out a few years ago was a great retelling. I cried at the end.
That’s how I feel about Cyan and their Myst series!
Microprose. Silent Service II and Special Forces were so good
C’mon can’t leave X-COM out.
And Roller Coaster Tycoon! (although it was technically under Hasbro at that point)
That was the weird Atari/Infrogames time period right?
Yeah. They got sold once around 1996 and then again to Hasbro in 1998 after they were failing IIRC. So they were kind of an amalgamation of a bunch of different companies
C’mon, can’t leave master of Orion out
Maxis was the one that came to mind for me, too! I played everything of theirs that I could get my hands on. Still playing The Sims after all these years!
Will Wright is a genius, and deservedly so, but just did some reading on what he’s been up to, and I’m not sure if this new venture will fly.
https://www.axios.com/2022/10/20/will-wright-voxverse-gala-gallium-blockchain
Sounds like SecondLife (another of his creations) with NFTs, or the various failed attempts at a Metaverse, except rich crypto-whales get to be the Lords, and the rest of us are the surfs. Then again, maybe there’s some aspect to it I don’t understand.
Valve.
Not new management, but they definitely changed direction. From Portal 2 to Half-Life Alyx was a dark age of live service titles and hardware. Fortunately, it seems like they’re finally getting back to their old selves?
Alyx was supposedly their re-entry into releasing games (hopeful that HLX is good), the Steam Deck caused them to go back and fix several of their titles (plus do the huge Half-Life update we just got), and while they’re not exactly making their games as open as they used to, they’re letting the community handle things like TF2 events and L4D2 patches.
So, I dunno, cautiously optimistic for their future. At least as long as Gabe is running the company.
Yep, buying a Steam Deck this Christmas. Not played one, myself, but I have been a Steam Controller user for years, and they seem to have nailed their latest offerings.
There was definitely a period in there when they felt very anticompetitive (apathy-competitive?), though.
I just bought the Steam Deck. Its amazing. More and more games keep becoming Deck Compatible and the community has uploaded so many controller configurations.
Linux is a gaming OS now and its wild
I love the Deck and Controller, just a heads up that the Deck “feels” slightly different from the Steam Controller. I’ve had a hard time adjusting to the trackpad on Deck and still haven’t quite gotten it figured out. It may just be a practice thing. Basically the way I’d describe it is it’s like the rotation setting for the Steam Controller is never quite right and the slightly smaller trackpad and different positioning maybe affects whatever muscle memory I’m trying to use or something.
As an example, I made the top community config for Monster Hunter Rise, but on Steam Deck it just isn’t quite the same and I needed to pretty heavily adjust the settings for the mouse input, even still I can’t quite get it right.
However that said, it doesn’t actually matter too much, the Steam Deck overall is awesome and I’d take it any day of the week. Luckily, Bluetooth w/ the Steam Controller feels exactly the same as it did on PC w/ dongle and it’s sooo nice.
Thanks for the heads up! I’m going to be getting a dock, because I will be playing it with family, and my only Bluetooth controller is the SC. 😅
When I eventually pick up MH:R, I’ll be sure to check out your config, too!
Sounds like you’re all set to go then!
And if you do I hope you enjoy it! I’ve spent a long time in the MH series and so to finally have mouse input alongside the control input… Phenomenal…
Infocom.
Zork, Hitchhiker’s Guide, Leather Goddesses of Phobos.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here. >Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS. >
Westwood I had fun with Red Alert 1 & 2 for a long time. Super casual player though.
Sierra entertainment! I was a big fan of the kings quest games, and Sierra online was my first experience with online gaming.
I was super into Sierra as a publisher. They seemed to back some of the highest quality games no one knew about. Ground Control, Gunman Chronicles, Homeworld, Aliens vs Predators 2, Empire Earth, Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza, and of course Half-Life. They published some quality games.
Don’t forget the SWAT series. Really loved the third game and always played the ‘Children of Terrone’ map on lan parties
The SWAT series was amazing but now I just look back at it as copaganda.
I loved the Quest games! They were my first real introduction to the English language. Simple phrases like
Open Doorandfeed chickenswere a great way to build my basic vocabulary. I kept pestering my dad for translations until he got fed up and taught me how to use a dictionary :)I have so many great memories playing those games, on my own and together with my dad. It really was a bonding experience.
Interplay, Microprobe, Sierra On-Line, Bullfrog, Dynamix, Origin, all long gone.
Activision is still around, but it’s something completely different. Same with Atari (although theres a nostalgia brand now, so maybe back).
Of them all, I think is have to say I’m most nostalgic for Sierra On-Line, although Origin gives them a run for most nostalgic.
Westwood fits into that list.
Dynamix’ Earthsiege was such a magical thing back then. So were Bullfrog’s Syndicate, Theme Hospital and Dungeon Keeper. Many, many years ago when Peter Molyneux was not a dumbass but gave us gems like Populous and Black&White.
The list of games that EA has destroyed is long.
I loved Earthsiege! IIRC I got the game with an expansion card (STI Lightning 128?), and it really was fun playing with my first flight stick, a CH Products flight stick.
I worked for Interplay back in the 90s. It was pretty great for me, launching my IT career. Working in QA did temporarily ruin my ability to play games for fun though.
Squaresoft, Bioware, and Bethesda are three companies whose logos I once considered a seal of quality. None of the three really exist anymore, although there are new much larger companies using their names.
Bethesda game studios is the same studio as always, just under Microsoft
Origin “We create worlds”. They definitely did with the Wing Commander series. Played a lot of WC 3, 4 as well as Privateer.
I don’t think anyone mentioned Lionhead Studios. Black and White was fun. Sadly it’s in copyright limbo if I’m not mistaken.
Also played a lot of Civilization 1 from Microprose back in the day.
My favourite games from childhood were the Ultima series (3 onward).
Never tried any of the Ultima series. :p
Never finished most of the Ultima Games. Started U4 again a few years ago. Tried picking it back up, and I’ve misplaced that damn balloon again.
Westwood Studios, Sierra Online
I never played the classic “Quest” games that Sierra made, but they published a bunch of really good ones from other developers, too.
I remember their logo coming up before each of the Half-Life, SWAT, Tribes, and F.E.A.R. games. I was always like, “dang, someone there knows how to pick 'em.”
