Romero's New Gig

Eurogamer is reporting on John Romero's newest endeavor, a studio designing a Massive game. Slipgate Ironworks is currently hiring, to work on ... a game. From the article: "The site doesn't offer many clues to the game's nature (although it does reveal that it will include weapons. And animation. And light!), but we do know from Romero's public comments that it will be ready 'when it's done' and isn't down for a 2007 release as some reports have speculated." I'm sure it will be up to the standards of Mr. Romero's numerous other good works.

Re:Already losing interest.

[PaulMorel]

"I doubt any good combat-based game can be made anymore"

Flamebait?

I mean, that's a pretty broad generalization. That's basically saying that "only puzzle games will be any good from here on out".

Riiiight.

Personally, I think there is plenty of innovation left in combat games. I mean, the Wii sword fighting game seems to be a step in a new direction.

I can't be the only one...

[iamjoltman]

Surely, I'm not the only one here who automatically equates Romero with George A. Romero, right? You know, the director of the Living Dead films.

other good works?

[Eil]

Not to be abusive, abrasive, or hostile in any way, but Romero hasn't had any "good works" since he left id and not even id has been able to equal the greatness of the titles of that era.

Re:When it's done

[billcopc]

Not like DNF, more like Daikatana. It *WILL* be released, just by that time nobody will care anymore. On that note, does anybody care right now ? Didn't think so.

Romero failed miserably at Ion Storm, and apparently had some fun in the cell-phone gaming industry.. remember this guy was fired from id Software after Quake 1 was out. Romero is a higher-profile, attention whoring fella, but Carmack is the real brains and that's why id Software still cranks out blockbuster engines while Romero's endeavors hardly cause a ripple in the time-space continuum.

Re:Already losing interest.

[Vo0k]

For this you will have to wait a few years longer. Shooters are not quite dead but in a crisis. There is a lot to do in them yet, but the hardware isn't nearly up to it yet.

Gravity gun wasn't really a weapon. I mean, how often were you using it as a weapon when you had a choice? Even in Ravenholm which was designed with gravity gun in mind, a shotgun was much better. Gravity gun was a great tool that allowed for lots of fun in the game, but usage as a weapon was just its minor perk. Bullet time is another non-weapon perk, a combat support element played into ground in recent years. Multiple vehicles are okay in multiplayer, but in single player they are not only old (Amiga - Armourgeddon?), they also suck without decent competitive enemy AI (or natural I in case of multiplayer...)

For now there are still a few perks that are to be added and explored but won't make a good game, then a break of 2-3 years till really good games can be made again. Fully destructable environment, actual smart, good AI both on sidekick and enemy side, locational damage that causes related effects, stealth-based combat that makes sense, massive active environments that don't limit your gameplay area, actual mass-scale warfare operations, these things are yet to come, but not anytime soon.

In the meantime there's a lot of long-overdue "genres" that were neglected because they weren't really possible on the old hardware, but are possible now. Assume most of the above combat elements but with dynamism needed in combat removed. Fully destructable environment that may take up to 3 minutes to precalc the effects of the destruction. Good decision-making non-realtime AI. Stealth-based non-combat operations. Mass scale non-military operations. Many of these things were tried but failed because they appeared before their times. Now they have a good chance of success.

The basic problem with the gaming industry is that it caters to idiots. Games are getting dumbed down to be playable and understandable by the most stupid of players and as result lose their charm, they stop appealing to more intelligent players. Perks and tricks are being added but they are still the same old games.

Not entirely

[SmallFurryCreature]

If you read up on it you do find out that daikatana did sell a good number of games and would have been considered a success by other game standards. However ION storm/Romero had been burning money at such an awesome speed that even this "sucess" was barely enough to cover stated production costs. Note that these often do not include secundary costs. You would have to follow movie production a lot closer then most to learn the differences between the production costs of a project and the total costs involved.

But the real cost was not money but the fact that Romero lost the respect of his customers. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Who is going to buy Daikatana 2? For that matter any ION Storm game or any Romero game?

Daikatana was Romero's project and it sucked donkey balls as a game. I only downloaded it and still felt ripped off. It was so bad that it can't be believed.

Now the difference with Will Wright is that he A: never was going to make us his bitch and B had other successfull games. Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein 3D are not Romero games. In fact judging by the turd that Daikatana was and that Romero has produced nothing else worth while it may be claimed that these ID games became successes despite Romero's involvement, not because.

Play Daikatana. I dare you to disagree that it is bad. Selling an overhyped game however isn't hard, there are always suckers lured in by advertising who are not warned by bad reviews and word of mouth. But the proof is simple. In an industry of sequels there is no Daikatana 2. How many success games have there been without a sequel?

Re:Already losing interest.

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

wow. . . I can understand your position on Halo but TES4? Did you even play it? You're right about the graphics, but the rest of the game IMHO is neither short, sucky, nor a hack and slash.

If you want to judge it on the main arc alone then you might be able to stretch that ~25 hours is short. Add one guild and then it's probably closer to 50 hours. . . and that's IF you don't actually play the game, just grinding through it.

To be fair though, the leveling of the enemies in the game is completely retarded. Easily knocks 20% off of my score for it. I mean, since when do kobolds have like full set of dwarven plate armor and daedric daikatanas anyway?
Luckily there exists a masterfully done mod that fixes the leveling problem in a way that doesn't feel like a trainer. Also the alcohol mod is interesting too.

to answer your question about halo, it was definitely the best co-op FPS I've ever played. I would like to know though, what your favourite FPS game is. Your question made me think of that and to be honest there really aren't that many good FPS games. I think we value many of them simply because of the nostalgia value that we attach to them. I mean, Wolf3d was an awesome game to me when I first played it. Now if we don't attach the nostalgia, it really isn't that good. Niether are doom, duke 3d, or heretic.

were they revolutionary games? yes.

but can you honestly say they're better than games of this generation? And can we honestly say that the games of this generation are better than the ones of the next?

Even if the gameplay stays exactly the same, the graphics, level design, and soundplay will follow the technology, increasing with each generation. How can one argue that the games won't be better?

I mean, quake, half-life, and unreal all blow them out of the water. But what happens when we make new games based almost entirely on the nostalgia factor of the old? Doom 3 happens! I mean, its got squeeky clean (for dirty muddy mars) graphics but its almost a step down on the game play level.

Also it is unfair to qualify mods when we're talking about FPS in a context of comparing PC to Console. Sure some of the mods for half-life, quake, and UT2kx have been amazing as far as gameplay goes but it is unfair to compare them to the static console world.

So with that said if I absolutely had to pick one FPS as my favourite it might be Halo or it might not be, I suppose it will depend on when FPS games are no longer made, it would probably be one of the last couple dozen that come out.

ha ha, we can only hope that it is Deus Ex :P

Oh well, everyone's entitled to their opinion so I say we should just hope in a {insert latest fps game name here} match and blast each other until the next one comes out.

One last thing, I hope I don't get ModerRAPED for probably grinding a lot of fps'ers gears.