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?”
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:
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.”
Aspyr! I was a Mac user in an era that was 95% Windows, and Aspyr brought quality games over to our side of the pond. I remember they ported Alpha Centauri in particular, but there were lots of other ones too.
Also Bungie back in that era—they were Mac-exclusive and putting out the amazing Marathon series. I was heartbroken when I saw the trailer for the new “Marathon” game that looks nothing like the originals.
Infocom hands down. Pure escapism
How has no on said this yet.
B U N G I E
Booting Halo was my go-to for like 10 years as the first three games came out. Literally 10s of thousands of hours.
Bungie gave me some of the best gaming childhood memories.
So much Halo. I was obsessed with it as a kid. The gameplay, the story… It was a SciFi gaming masterpiece. Super fond memories.
I’m also a HUGE fan of classic Marathon and Pathways Into Darkness. People don’t give these games the credit they are due, and everyone should play them. You can find the Alephone engine, open-sourced by Bungie, and play all of the Marathon games and community scenarios completely free. A well-respected community member even ported Pathways to the engine.
Depends on people’s age! I was beyond childhood when that came out, but it was a game changer for me getting to play a FPS that was couch co-op. All FPS games to that point were mostly (all?) multiplayer competitive. PvE was always a solo experience until then!
Neversoft. THPS2 had a banger soundtrack.
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. >
Maxis, Bullfrog, Westwood, Origin… basically any studio that EA bought and destroyed.
Valve is the only one of mine that’s still around as more than just a brand name used by EA.
Bioware, Maxis, Bullfrog, Westwood, and more… All gobbled up and turned into shit by Electronic Farts.
Others that just died on their own include Black Isle and Interplay, Sierra and LucasArts. Some of these might be around in some capacity, though afaik they’re just used for the names.
I’m surprised no one has said thq. They had so many bangers
Microprose. Silent Service II and Special Forces were so good
C’mon, can’t leave master of Orion out
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
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 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…
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
Psygnosis, later known as Studio Liverpool.
Sony shut them down a few years ago. Man seeing that old owl logo hits me hard in the nostalgia bone.
Harmless games, also bought and shut down by Sony.
They seem to consider only massive franchises like GoW and TLoU and Horizon worth their time… But most gamers need variety outside the mainstream game genres, so I don’t see why they are shutting down anything with a smaller fanbase.
Maybe those smaller teams create tools or assets (or maybe it’s the team itself) that they want.
Capitalists can’t let anyone have fun when there’s profit to be made.
Drakan :D
Blizzard and Westwood studios. It’s unfortunate what happened to them.
Electronic Arts :(
(early 8-bit era)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
