Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Preaching from the choir
Just a little more about what I said yesterday. I don't know why I didn't stress that enough.
It's probably not too surprising that, in the history of video games, the only company that IGN felt made a licensed game worthy of the Top 100 Games of All Time list was Rare with their FPS masterpeice Goldeneye.
Right now, a lot of people are down on Rare. They say they are in a slump. They say they've lost something. They've lost their edge. They've become soft this generation, since Microsoft bought them out. Since they sold out to the man.
I say that is bullshit. Rare has consistently been one of the top developers in the world for more than 20 years. 20! Since before the NES came out. Since video games were even a popular medium. I hardly doubt they lost all that talent in only a few years.
Yes, you can look at the fact that they've lost many people from their talented staff over the years. But, guess what, they are one of the best developers in the world, of course they're going to lose some of their talent over the years. The key is brining new people in.
After Goldeneye they lost a number of key artists and programmers. It may have caused Perfect Dark to come out a little later than they would have liked, but it certainly didn't hurt that game any. Perfect Dark was Goldeneye but better in every aspect but one: balance. With all the new weapons, with 2nd functions on every gun, it was hard to have a completely balanced match. But that was easily remedied by allowing the user to create their own weapon set.
Other than that, a short handed Goldeneye development team blew one of the greatest games ever out of the water. A longer and harder story mode. Co-op and Counter-op play. 8 computer controlled bots, something no other console FPS was able to accomplish until a year ago. Not too shabby. The first FPS with a Challenge Mode, which the Timesplitters team has adopted as their own. A shooting range mode. The list goes on and on and on.
Rare hasn't lost a thing.
So, you can say that Grabbed by the Ghoulies was repetitive, even if you haven't played it. You can say the GBA Banjo-Kazooie isn't as good as its N64 brothers, but that's obvious. Kazooie and Tooie are two of the top 20 games of all time. You can say that Conker wasn't even fun, to which you'd be wrong.
While it's true Rare hasn't made a great game since Conker's Bad Fur Day, that was only in 2001. They've only released a few games since then.
Anyway, I just felt the need to defend my favorite video game developer. If Conker: Live and Uncut and Perfect Dark Zero come out and suck, maybe they have slipped. But for right now, it seems more likely they will continue their greatness rather than let 20 years of being at the top go down the toilet.
I think I'm going to play some Jet Force Gemini for a bit now.
It's probably not too surprising that, in the history of video games, the only company that IGN felt made a licensed game worthy of the Top 100 Games of All Time list was Rare with their FPS masterpeice Goldeneye.
Right now, a lot of people are down on Rare. They say they are in a slump. They say they've lost something. They've lost their edge. They've become soft this generation, since Microsoft bought them out. Since they sold out to the man.
I say that is bullshit. Rare has consistently been one of the top developers in the world for more than 20 years. 20! Since before the NES came out. Since video games were even a popular medium. I hardly doubt they lost all that talent in only a few years.
Yes, you can look at the fact that they've lost many people from their talented staff over the years. But, guess what, they are one of the best developers in the world, of course they're going to lose some of their talent over the years. The key is brining new people in.
After Goldeneye they lost a number of key artists and programmers. It may have caused Perfect Dark to come out a little later than they would have liked, but it certainly didn't hurt that game any. Perfect Dark was Goldeneye but better in every aspect but one: balance. With all the new weapons, with 2nd functions on every gun, it was hard to have a completely balanced match. But that was easily remedied by allowing the user to create their own weapon set.
Other than that, a short handed Goldeneye development team blew one of the greatest games ever out of the water. A longer and harder story mode. Co-op and Counter-op play. 8 computer controlled bots, something no other console FPS was able to accomplish until a year ago. Not too shabby. The first FPS with a Challenge Mode, which the Timesplitters team has adopted as their own. A shooting range mode. The list goes on and on and on.
Rare hasn't lost a thing.
So, you can say that Grabbed by the Ghoulies was repetitive, even if you haven't played it. You can say the GBA Banjo-Kazooie isn't as good as its N64 brothers, but that's obvious. Kazooie and Tooie are two of the top 20 games of all time. You can say that Conker wasn't even fun, to which you'd be wrong.
While it's true Rare hasn't made a great game since Conker's Bad Fur Day, that was only in 2001. They've only released a few games since then.
Anyway, I just felt the need to defend my favorite video game developer. If Conker: Live and Uncut and Perfect Dark Zero come out and suck, maybe they have slipped. But for right now, it seems more likely they will continue their greatness rather than let 20 years of being at the top go down the toilet.
I think I'm going to play some Jet Force Gemini for a bit now.
// posted by Tom @ 9:37 AM 
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