I try to avoid nostalgic waxing about old games, but this Wired list of top 10 Amiga games does melt my heart.
If you ask me, the vast majority of old games are horrifically bad. For example, everybody loves Elite, yet who could be bothered playing Elite today?
But Lemmings, oooh:
What? No “Wings of Fury”? How dare you spread such vile propaganda? :-)
To save the innocent among your readers:
Ooops – I wasn’t allowed to insert pictures. Here’s a link to a Flash version instead: http://www.rastaduck.org/games/WingsOfFury/WingsOfFury.html
Good to see Dephine studio’s Another World represented (but no Flashback?); Psygnosis’ Shadow of the Beast too, still playing it now just for that soundtrack.
No Settlers 1/2 though? No Theme Park? I’d like to see the rationale which determines Speedball 1/2 to be ‘more influential’. Not one point and click adventure here too, though a case seems to be made for aesthetic over gameplay — surely Alone in the Dark, [I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream], Dark Seed, and such are precursors to the survival horror game (thinking aesthetically). Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis?
And what about the Amiga’s ‘controversial’ games. The peripheral market share it had could be exploited with more adult and macabre titles:
Pit Fighter?
X-COM [for f**ks sake?!]
Gods?
Chaos Engine?
Walker?
Surely the tone of these are more influential on the dynamic of audiovisual and gameplay in contemporary games design?
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‘If you ask me, the vast majority of old games are horrifically bad. For example, everybody loves Elite, yet who could be bothered playing Elite today?’
> I’d love to see this point fully articulated.
About Elite: I have many fond memories of Elite, but they all revolve around the sense of scale in the universe.
In terms of actual playing, the problem is that there just isn’t that much to do: You can trade a few things, read the auto-generated text, get a few find-the-ship missions, upgrade a bit, but it quickly becomes repetitive. The universe is huge, but it’s pretty empty.
And the basic battle mechanic is very frustrating, just an endless circling while trying to come up behind the opponent – while looking at the 3d radar.
Lemmings was truly a revolutionary game, and still more playable and fun than most ‘God Games’ produced since.
The trouble with Elite was it was too realistic.
If such a universe existed, I’m sure it would be just as tedious surfing a star with fuel scoops (yawn), or spending 5 minutes honing in on a promising radar blip only to discover that it’s really an asteroid. The Thargoids (and especially the Tharglets) were interesting though, and it’s perhaps the first game which included the concept of ‘legal status’. You could end up a “fugitive” if you accidentally shot at a Viper, or scooped up some narcotics! Very sweet idea.
It’s interesting to note how many Elite clones have failed to be completed, or failed in the marketplace. Maybe it’s just a boring game idea after all?
I loved the realism of Elite, but the combat mechanic was annoying. I found this to be even worse in the later sequels, Frontier and whatever the other one was called. They improved on the scale-of-universe goodness tremendously only to beat you over the head with an instant kill as soon as you ventured out and were spotted by any sort of enemy. (At least that’s what I remember about it many years after the fact.)