Battlezone 3

[Avatar]

Hmmm, the first one I saw was in Italian and had a firefight between human and Covenant forces on a square spiral ramp.  After that the trailer came out showing the human forces attacking some Covenant in an installation.  That was the one with "I'm just saying for somewhere nobody's been in 1000 years there's an awful lot of open doors..."  then they're ambushed on that same square spiral ramp.

The action moves outside where a soldier manages to grab a Banshee and get away, but is shot down. As he's laying there the Master Chief shows up and kills the Elite, then is told by the soldier on the ground something like "You do exist, we'd hoped...".

Dialog from memory, which isn't as sharp as it used to be... 

The point I was making is that some games pull together into a cohesive world, and that world strikes a chord with the players.  HALO is one, BZ is another.  For me Ultima was another such world but it fell apart as Origin did...  players change, focus moves, that sort of thing.

Very hard to pull the magic together, harder still to keep it together and/or improve upon it.

-Av-

[Nielk1]

Just took a look. It was a 1999 trailer for a Mac game called Halo. I think BZ2 actually has it beat as it seems a bit HL1ish. That might be the limits from 1999 and it might be the Mac limits from 1999, not sure, only own 1 Mac and I have not tried it yet.

[GSH]

Overmind wrote:

I, honestly, am not sure I would trust Pandemic to do a BZ3 anyway, especially considering who their owners are and the fact they have not made a PC game in some time now (all console stuff now)

Correction: we've made plenty recently. Star Wars: Battlefront 1 & 2 (which I worked on) had PC versions. Mercenaries 2 (also worked on) has a PC version, and Mercs2 started hitting retailers on August 31st. Lord of the Rings: Conquest (releasing this fall) has a PC version. Sure, not every title we've released has had a PC version -- mainly the ones out of our Australian office: Destroy All Humans 1 & 2 and Army Men RTS before that. But, to say we've not made PC games is incorrect.

And from what I remember, the console (PS2, original XBox) versions of SW:Battlefront 1 & 2 far out-sold the PC version. It's the same throughout the games industry in general -- console version's sales of the same game are far higher. That's about the ONLY thing that matters to the business side of the games industry -- they don't care about how you might feel about a game, system, or the like. Only cold, hard, cash makes a difference to them. And, because consumer's cash predominantly spent on console games, so does development time and attention. (Yes, World of Warcraft generates a TON of cash for Blizzard, but it's one of the few PC games that does. So, more PC games might be moving towards a subscription model when possible.)

-- GSH

[Dianoga4]

Is this the video you were thinking of OM? It's in the description but I have this old CD from a gaming magazine from 1999 that had this video on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96-6uHB4L2w

Dia

[OvermindDL1]

-- GSH

I made a long post but it turned into a rant (available here for those that feel up for such a thing).  Basically though, the games you listed are game types that are saturated in the PC market, there are far too many of those types, thus of course sales are going to be lower (it is hard to sell food to people who have a banquet in front of them).  The PC market has shown to be much larger then all the consoles together, and there are far more sells of all PC games then there are sells of all console games with much more money being passed around, most of the PC market has gone online, the retail store is but a sliver now in the PC market, but online the market is booming with such a variety of games that consoles could not hope to currently compare with, as such, there is a lot more money going around in the PC market as well, just not in things that have been saturated for the last twenty years.  If companies really did market research and wanted to make money, screw game vision, they would make game types have have a huge community that is known for buying new stuff and switching between games often.... I think I just described the casual game market...

Even if a game is done very well, it can still do wonderfully in an overly saturated market, take the Valve line of games, their profits from just the HL2 series (3 games, PC only at the time when I saw the report) is stated to be much higher then the profits from the Halo series (3 games, considering just the consoles only, the PC versions did not sell well, oversaturated).  That is another thing, most console games sell well for about a week, then any profit after that is usually so minuscule most companies do not even consider it when thinking of the profit a game will make, whereas HL2 (a rather old game now) is still selling rather large amounts of units per month (and the money coursing through Steam, which they do not release the amounts of, is no doubt a great amount, especially since they add multiple games a week to it).

Too bad most people do not think, the world would be much better off if they did.  I know so many people where if they are forced to think can actually think things through well, they just... do not (people who refuse to think, I personally think they refuse to live, as such... idiots).

Is this the video you were thinking of OM? It's in the description but I have this old CD from a gaming magazine from 1999 that had this video on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96-6uHB4L2w

Dia

Actually this is the last trailer released before the engine was scrapped and remade for the xBox.  It was a third-person shooter, was very well received, and basically just trashed when Microsoft bought them out.  Yours looked earlier.  Even before that one though it used to be an RTS.
Here is the history of halo:  http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=RN9vO_gRzoI
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[Avatar]

Console games are like pop music, they enjoy their few weeks or months in the sun and then are somewhat forgotten.  Consoles themselves are more of a 'living room' type gaming experience, or played with a crowd, as opposed to PC games where the crowd is online...

And of course consoles are becoming more like PC's and vice versa...  in that consoles are able to save games, access the internet, use DVD content, and download new chapters/levels/characters.  PC's are becoming more mainstream for clueless game players with options like Steam and WOW where updates are automatically applied and matches found without them needing to do anything other than start the game.

Which brings us to OM's point that many many players don't want to think...   they want to hit an ON button, grab a joystick, and go to town.  It's related to non-thinking games outselling thinking games, or twitchers ruining any game that moves toward more thinking and less twitching...

That attitude is WHY the gaming world is so saturated with the same old stuff over and over, with only technological advances and nothing new in gameplay or such...  companies that do come out with something new and fresh risk running smack into the wall of indifference and the momentum of most players...

Luckily the future of gaming includes all varieties and platforms...  you'll see consoles, hand-helds, PC's...  you'll see DVD's, online distribution, cartridges...   subscription, lease, purchase... there's room for all of them and more.  There's also more options for modders each year, and engines that are more friendly, and better tools...  that's why I think in the future some of the most popular games will come from groups of non-professionals using engines created by professionals. 

edit:   Yes!  That's the trailer I remember...  "Your destruction is the will of the Gods, and we are their instruments..."     Although I don't remember HALO ever being listed as being developed for the Mac...  guess I'll have to watch that history. 

(ah, they were joking that the E3 trailer was rendered by a post-production house on Macs in a 3D package...)

-Av-

[OvermindDL1]

Ah Hah.  Just thought of how I think of Consoles.

I do not hate consoles, I think they are a good idea actually, but rather I see the way they *could* work, rather then they way they *do* work, and most of the work they could do they are capable of doing, but, and this is the key, are artificially limited in what they can do (like the mouse/keyboard thing).

If any of you know about the Jung/Myer-Briggs/Keirsey personality types, I am an INTJ (google just "INTJ" to find info on how I think, it is very accurate, quite surprisingly accurate actually; had to take a test for a job) through and through, and a couple big descriptions of that type is that they must always understand something (fully understand, they do not have to pursue it to the end, but must fully understand it either way), value clarity and efficiency, etc... (I am thinking of making a topic here, I am really getting curious on what types this community primarily is made up of).  As such, diminishing the capabilities of a system like that is tantamount to cutting off both of your arms, sure you will still be able to do stuff and get around, but you cannot really do much of anything 'well' beyond running.

Avatar, the people you described at the end are basically the Indie devs (which a lot of those games end up on Steam), they make games for the purpose of fun, not money, and as such they are willing to take tremendous risks in game design.  Oddly enough, the casual game market (games marketed to non-gamers) seem to be focused more on intelligence rather then twitch, I have just noticed this... I must research...


Personally, and this is the INTJ in me speaking, I think that people should be able to show a minimum amount of intellect before they are allowed to do anything, else, if this world is as it is now, they should be 'herded' somewhere, or if the world was populated by just INTJ's (there is an INTJ forum out there, they talked about this subject once and this is the consensuses) then without a certain minimum amount of intellect (and intellect can be shown in many ways, all would have to be tested, INTJ's are very thorough and would make sure it is perfect before implementation, and do note, knowledge is not intellect, the intellegence is the ability for someone to reason through something, not what they know, that is why your I.Q. should not change throughout your life, but your knowledge does) the people should just not be allowed to live (INTJ's are very logical, to the point of being morbid at times, but *always* with the intent to make things "better" overall, morality usually does not factor into an INTJ's decision).  It was actually a quite interesting topic, basically if the world was made up of just INTJ's, things would be very different, menial jobs (janitorial and such, what INTJ's hate doing) would not be done be a single person their whole life, but rathe everyone would have to donate some specific time every so often to do it, most jobs would not exist (things like commercials do not impact a pure INTJ's buying habits, actually it has a tendency to cause the INTJ to stay away from stated product, so those jobs first of all would not exist, most clothing stores and such would not, etc...), technology would be at a vastly higher level as well as being user-friendly (part of the thing of INTJ's is an intense urge to make everything 'better', if there is some step to some process that we can get rid of somehow, we will figure out how to do it and implement it), clothing would probably not be worn in any place where the weather dictates it would not have to be worn (clothing is generally seen is a waste of time and money in many cases to an INTJ, only currently used due to the current social stigmas attached to it, if those stigmas never existed, then likely would fashionable clothing not have existed either, waste of time, money, and resources), among many other things, was a very long thread.

Oh, and one thing about INTJ's, a common phrase is "A group of INTJ's is an argument" is very correct, not because we do not like how the other thinks, but rather we love coming up with different ways of thinking and doing things, and the best way for us to do that generally involves arguing, even by taking up the point we disagree with, just because we learn a great deal about something.  I have 2 friends that are INTJ's (for note, INTJ is the most rare type, making up less then 1% of the population) and anytime we are together for more then ten minutes, we will invariably start arguing, but we can keep at it for hours, never tiring, never stopping until everything, every issue is logically resolved (and we do it about the most weird things, a few nights ago it was about widescreens 16:9 vs. standard 4:3 screens, last month was an especially enjoyable one about the 4D grid-like pattern of the universe according to standard quantum mechanics).  Although if we start working on a project together we just fly through it, conversing and matching everything up perfectly.  I really do wish everyone was of an INTJ type, the world would be so much more efficient and enjoyable.  Guess I should make another topic...

EDIT:  Avatar, Halo was originally supposed to be for both Mac and PC for its release in 1999.  Who knows, it might have beat Half-Life if Microsoft did not kill it.
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[Nielk1]

I'm INTJ.

[CivBase]

Wow, you guys don't like consols much do yah?

Personaly, I think consols are awsome for FPS and RPG based games... not much else, but I do play a lot of those.  I think Battlezone II would actualy be a good candidate for the consols because of it's simple build/control system, yet excessively stratiegic gameplay (well, at least for it's time).  I keep wishing they'll bring BZ1 to the Xbox Live Marketplace, but all they got is the cruddy old arcade game for BZ, no RTS component (worst $10 I've ever spent).

That trailor is cool, as I am a Halo nut.  I find it odd that everywhere I go, someone is talking about Halo lol.  However, it's graphics do have major flaws as well as the voicing.  The Chief sounded like a robot and the Covy elites sounded more like flood than shanghelie.  The reason Halo ended up on Windows only was because Bungie signed a contract with Microsoft so that they could only make games for Microsoft only.  That contract just recently was destroyed, but Bingie is still tight with Microsoft and will likely not be making games for the Mac anytime soon.  I can't say the same for Ensamble Studios though, who are making Halo Wars (an RTS version of Halo).  Too bad they said that they would not be making a computer version... ever.  Yes, it was orriginaly created as an RTS, but as the storyline thickend, was switched to FPS.  That's why the vehicles and units on each side match up so well.
And Overmind, I'd like to correct you.  This is the evolution of Halo.

Anywho, I do like consol games.  I have Xbox Live, so the internet thing doesn't really make a difference.  I think both PC and Consol have their ups and downs.  Basicly:
Consol is for FPS and RPG
PC is for RTS and Economy-based Games (like Roller Coster Tycoon)
And Wii is for fat slobs who don't wanna invest $3.50 in a hula-hoop

[OvermindDL1]

As stated, not that I do not like them, I do not like how they are artificially restricted (as stated, they are completely capable of more, as-is).

And how can you possibly think a gamepad is in any way decent for any kind of fps controls (depends on the rpg, things like modern ones like Oblivian, or ARPG's like Diablo, no, FF style, yea).  Gamepad's have slower reaction times, fewer buttons, unable to hit some buttons without taking your thumb off an axis or two (that is just brain-dead design there), etc...  Mice are faster, more responsive (relative axis; gamepads have absolute axis, good for flight-sims, bad for fps'), mine has 7 buttons (tempted to get a 9 button one) that all fingers can hit easily and simultaneously if necessary, the keyboard has plenty of buttons and the usual "fps" position for right-handed people they are nicely placed, easy to reach, etc...  I logically see no reason how a gamepad would be better for an fps.  A gamepad would be very good for flight-sims, space-sims (I have tried it in Freespace2, was pretty decent), but not for anything that requires varying movements from very small to very massive (which a mouse excels at, especially ones like mine where the dpi can change on the fly).  I am not even that great at FPS games, but I can twirl around 180 degrees and have the shoot point be on a persons head an less then 150ms (I've been timed, that one friend I mentioned earlier could do it in 60ms), that is just not possible with a gamepad.

I am not sure BZ controls would be good on a gamepad as they sit, too many menu's to go through where you can just tap a couple things quickly to access on a keyboard, would have to use some wierd d-pad thing for it to work half-decent, but that involves taking your thumb off an axis control.

Humorous video, although I said history, not evolution.

I also did not say there was anything inherently wrong with console games.  Take Halo3, the 360 is capable of a mouse/keyboard, the game could easily support it (and will if/when/is it comes to Windows), it is just a case of Microsoft being bastards and specifically not allowing it.

And I (and many people I know) highly disagree with you saying fps is for consoles, just, so... very much not true, and I could start with a rant about why but I think this post is getting long enough.  Feel free to poke/prod me into making such a post though if you do not mind the ire from others around here.

EDIT:  And the Wiimote is awesome, you do not need a Wii for it, just get a good bluetooth hub for your computer and it is great for controlling various things.
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[CivBase]

As stated, not that I do not like them, I do not like how they are artificially restricted (as stated, they are completely capable of more, as-is).

And how can you possibly think a gamepad is in any way decent for any kind of fps controls (depends on the rpg, things like modern ones like Oblivian, or ARPG's like Diablo, no, FF style, yea).  Gamepad's have slower reaction times, fewer buttons, unable to hit some buttons without taking your thumb off an axis or two (that is just brain-dead design there), etc...

Cuz it's more comfortable and realistic for those situations than a computer.  And you don't need a ton of buttons to run an FPS or RPG.  I have COD, Halo, Oblivion, Bad Company, Battlefront, ect and they all work great on a controler.
And mice are hardly faster.

[TheJamsh]

i think mice are faster and more accurate.

im a PC games person, but i cant deny that consoles have their uses. its nice to just put in a disc and play a game straight away with no compatibility issues etc viruses any of that crap.

each has advantages and disadvantages

[Avatar]

Wow...  I get to ramble a bit here...

I once did the online testing for personality types but don't remember what I ended up as.  I was impressed as by my own thinking it nailed me.  I have the results in My Docs, I'll check and see what it said.

I also shudder at the thought of a world run by INTJ types...      The problem with them is that they don't know what they don't know...  classic 'engineer' type, always trying to make things 'better' when 'better' is SUCH a relative concept.     They should never go unsupervised and never have positions of real power.     

Mouse/Keyboard is more versatile, and I can pwn my console friends in HALO when they play me on a LAN.
Controller is more 'living room' and my console friends can pwn me when we play HALO on a console.
It's all in what you're used to, and what you've worked at becoming good at.  I personally hate them for any complex game but they have their places, especially when there's no flat surface around...

From the game side you often can't or soon won't be able to tell which players are on consoles and which are on PC's.  (or phones, for that matter)...

From the Publisher side if you can sell something as both console and pc without too much fear of piracy, added expense of development and distribution, then you're making more money and all is good.  It's only those games that don't 'devolve' well to a couple of controls that are intrinsically impossible to move to console (like that space game with 100 keys to target something in different ways).

Good thread...  (mental note to put a watch on OM & his friends...) 

-Av-

[Axeminister]

Definately mouse/keyboard is faster when it comes to controlling the reticle. I like the console for when company comes over, but that's about it. My Xbox gets little use, some Mortal Kombat: Armeggedon, Halo 2 and Flatout 2 time here and there. But I have always liked pc better for more options and faster gameplay. The Xbox 360 is basicly a computer so I don't know why they can't make them come standard with mouse/keyboard configuration or at least the option. Then wouldn't have to worry about piracy, all mods could be submitted to servers for easy download at your own risk just like on the pc. Forums could be viewed from the console while using the browser support. Compatability issues would be forgotten.

[Dianoga4]

I have a couple of Sega Dreamcasts and the mouse and keyboard to go with them. It is too bad more consoles don't have the option because playing Quake3 on the Dreamcast with a keyboard and mouse works great and that's an old system.

I like consoles and have a few different ones but I always find myself on my computer more. I think consoles have their place but I'll probably always love my computer more.

Dia