New Unreal Engine Game, Same Formula

UO Staff Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 524 Location: Atlanta

Eh.. well, I'm semi-excited to announce the... err... announcement of a new game from Konami, tentatively titled The Regiment. It's a tactical shooter using the Unreal Engine. It's going to be available for PS2 and PC in 2005 - a more specific date is not yet available. More information on the game can be found here.

While we're on the topic - does anyone think that it's stupid as hell how developers keep going back to the same old thing? It seemed like all the World War II games were practically the same, aside from RtCW, which had the beauty of including a very well done occult / historical element. All these tactical shooters seem to similar, too. Real guns, terrorists... I mean, how many times are we going to have to see the same thing in a different package? For it's shortcomings, I have to say that Nintendo is one of the only companies lately that seems to be really pushing the envelope of what a game is or isn't - it just seems like we don't see enough new, fresh ideas.

What are your thoughts? Do we need newer blood and fresher ideas, or is the industry fine as it is? Comment below.

UO Noob Joined: 17 Sep 2003 Posts: 19 Location: helmond.nl

Hmm.. I'm fine with it.. since some ww2 shooters are realistic (IMHO Boring) and some are arcady (My kind of game).. Just compare games like Call of duty and the mod Red Orchestra, some people think RO is way better than CoD, but that's because they like the (boring) realism of RO, and others really like CoD because of the arcade like gameplay (although Wolfenstein-enemy territory is more arcady).. both games are WW2 games, but both are completly different..
Also people still like the same idea's, but only want it looking better than the previous game they played.. and some people think a game should be really original, well good luck that m8 since creating an original game is virtually impossible these days, everything has been done already in some way..

You think Nintendo is original? I never thought of Mario 64 as being original since it was nothing more than Super Mario world only in 3d (and I still really like SMW which I still play sometimes, but I never play M64 anymore)..

Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2004 2:39 pm

ENOUGH war games for me.. all i play is Americas Army (in the war games genre)
and that is a cool game!!
if someone doesnt come with something new in the war games (VR Razz

) then they can just as wel not release any more war games..

Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2004 1:41 am

Want something original? Get NeoCairo! Comming soon...

Twisted Evil

HunterKiller
TeamOrbit coder
http://dynamic6.gamespy.com/~teamorbit/

Guest

So no comments on how Konami is stealing the work by the "SAS:Into the Lion's Den"-team ?
Wink

I still don't understand why any game that uses a 'real' theme at its core then has to ignore that same 'reality' for "gameplay"-reasons as it is 'too boring' otherwise. Rolling Eyes

Why not pick a real fantasy/science-fiction setting and be done with it ?

I don't blame the industry for lack of imagination, because one can't really fault a business for wanting to make the most amount of money with the least amount of efford.

I rather blame the consumers for wanting the same thing over and over again. They are the real reason the industry can afford to be lazy in the first place.

/me I'd rather play nothing if all I can buy is yet another dumb WW2 or CS-clone.
I'd definitely would love to see someone use the same kind of extreme realisme as used in Infiltration & RO, except used in a fantasy/SF-setting.

UO Noob Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 6 Location: Minn, USA

Developers are playing it safe, which is stupid. We'll never wind up with history-making games such as Herzog Zwei, Star Control 2, System Shock 1&2, and so on if all the big developers just want to make Yet Another (Boring) realistic shooter.

Not to imply that those types of games shouldn't be made. There's a lot of fun in them. Developers just need to branch out. Or maybe they should make some realistic-while-ficitonal games like STALKER seems to be.

UO Noob Joined: 16 Jul 2004 Posts: 25 Location: San Diego

You keep filling out those damn surveys!! Stop it!! Very Happy

There's the re-hash of WWII, enough... someone finally decided Viet Nam is ok to make a game off of since Platoon on the NES... Grand Theft Auto clones... enough... Metal Gear Clones... enough... one more FPS? Well the PC is home of the FPS. Are you guys getting sick of it yet? Granted it's fun to blow the hell out of co-workers, but really.

Your average game costs 3-10 million. Taking 18-32 months to develop. Not many people have around 7 million to piss away. And if you're spending 10 million, it better sell like mad, and it has to be a shoe-in. Like Tony Hawk, or Madden..

Small dev houses are going the way of the dinosaur because of these costs. Seek shelter under the corp. umbrella, or perish. Indie teams don't have the $$$ to out-show large companies, nor the production value to compete. Tons of inovative ideas are out there, but there is no way beyond something insanely revolutionary to get them noticed.

Increased production costs, increased machine power, the demand for everything from everyone, one-upping the other guy in visual quality, means that games will cost more. But better graphics don't equal better gameplay.

People who are developing games for the GameBoy get to play more with types of gameplay than any other platform becuase of low production costs and rapid devlopment time. Astro Boy effing rocks.

If large companies sponsored Indie game dev teams, this would not be happening. It's fear, not from the artist and programmers, but from the guys who write the checks for the artist and programmers. Every artist and programmer would love to make a sweet game that was fun. All we can do is make it look better and follow the spec.

Games that are really fun and inovative, you guys will probably never buy because you never heard of them, just wrote it off as a bargin-bin game, or they lacked the $3 million ad campaign and the celeb-flavor of the moment to sell the game. There are tons of games out there that are very good writen by people who have no CEO dictating what will sell, their marketing director is their own heart, and their audience is the 25 gamers who downloaded their game that year.

I have tons of strange games and one of the strangest is a game of a little girl who must sweep the temple while dogs, children, old monks make a mess. I found this at some 100 (99. cent store) Yen shop in Japan... pretty fun to play when work is getting to you.

Another thing is that people usually remember games from when they were kids as being revolutionary for some reason. It was the best there was when you were a kid. You're getting old... When my son grows to an age where he knows how to play games, the PS4 will be out... what we are playing will look old and tired. He will always remember the games of his day as being fresh and new.

We're going to be 50 years old bitching about how some game reminds us of Unreal 2004. "OH!! They got that from Unreal!!" or, I don't know why in the hell you need 2 keyboards to play games now... I can kick your ass with WASD and 400dpi mouse!!.

I'm rambling because I am old!!! 25 years is a long time to be alive...

We bitched about this to some extent here:

CG Chat.com Gameart

UO Noob Joined: 05 Aug 2004 Posts: 7

I'm only 17 but i can remember a time when games were as diverse as you could imagine,there was prince of persia,lemmings,magic carpet,sopwith,outrun,pirates!,populous,and a hojilion more on the pc alone.In recent years the pc seems to have degraded into 3 catagories:

1-FPS
2-RPG
3-RTS

I love all these genres,but you can only take so much of each,i miss the days of beat em ups on pc,as well as the point and click adventures of Monkey Island (I will never forgive Lucasarts for canning Sam & Max 2).

Fortunately games like Prince of Persia:The Sands of Time and Sid Meier's Pirates! remake should help kick the pc back into action.As for consoles,well the xbox and ps2 seem to be slowly morphing into store bought pcs,in terms of capabilitires and games,it really is Nintendo who are not content to make money buy selling the same cr*p over and over and over and over again.

UO Staff Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 524 Location: Atlanta

Magic Carpet was so damn hardcore.

That's what I'm talking about - where are the Magic Carpets and The Lemmings? Where's the Incredible Machines? Anywho... I just think that we need more innovation.