Behind the shroud of exotic cars and/or women, piles of cash, the extravagant nightlife, and other hyperbole as well, we game developer types have at least one thing in common with our player base.
We like playing games. I know, this is a huge stretch, but bear with me...
Truth is, despite the industry's status as a multi-appropriate-prefix-llion dollar juggernaut, it remains a 'small' industry. Competing developers make our favorite games and are the places our friends, past colleagues, and even future colleagues call home.
Here's a few development studios that I personally think deserve some public internet high-fives for their recent and/or current work, in no particular order:
Somewhere in this Scottish studio, someone had a brilliant idea. One part GTA, one part parkour, one part World's Strongest Man, and 10 parts excessive, Crackdown was born. Part platformer, part RPG, and part brawler, Crackdown built an impressive feature list on top of a GTA-styled base and turned into one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I've ever had. What starts as a familiar romp ravaging gangs while attempting (less successfully as time goes on) to minimize civilian casualties quickly evolves into an orgy of destruction bouncing from rooftop to rooftop and throwing cars on people. And it had a Halo 3 beta key as a marketing tie-in. What’s not to love?
While the narrative ultimately fell flat (somewhat by necessity to open the world the way they intended), the lasting fun factor is immense and Real Time Worlds deserves serious credit for crafting an experience that's fun whether playing for hours on end or in 10-15 minutes before bed. They've also committed themselves to future support for the game, which can be seen in two downloadable content packs - announced as I was writing my first pass of this, no less. In addition to the packs, the game itself gains an impressive list of new features and fixes. In a refreshing development, the new features and one of the content packs will be entirely free, and at least some elements of the paid pack are even available in coop games when playing with a player who has purchased it. While surely some credit is due to Microsoft on the pricing side of things, the feature listing shows RTW has been paying attention to their player base and the game itself demonstrates that they're more than ready to run with the big boys of the genre. Which I guess makes sense when you’re founded by a guy who helped come up with GTA in the first place.
While everyone currently focuses their attention to Crysis, Crytek deserves some serious props for their tool development. The new Sandbox editor looks to be an incredible tool, to the point where there's actually a road tool. Yes, where other games suffer from having too many samey corridors and the like, the Crysis modding community will suffer from excess roads. Other features such as the brilliant 3D terrain sculpting and the play-from-anywhere interface make this a toolset to keep an eye on. The Crytek engine team definitely understands the value of improving workflows, which in the long run allows us as developers (or le
vel designers, at least) to work faster and more efficiently. This is good in that it gives us more time to frolic in the halls in the middle of the afternoon.
Questions remain as to the big picture work flow and scalable performance of the engine, but with a reasonable price tag and polished toolkit CryEngine may be building up to be a more serious competitor on the licensing front than anyone initially expected.
Also, "Big up" to Alf-Life, Friechamp, and narby. Half-Life community represent! *fist*
When you make a movie containing a freakin grenade jump, you can be on any list you please. I salute you.
When I saw the God of War: Chains of Olympus trailer, the first thing to get me hyped wasn't the first mid-air combo, or even Kratos standing before an epic opening door in the first frame, but rather the Ready at Dawn logo 8 seconds in. With Daxter, unquestionably the greatest game available on the PSP (at least until I play Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters), Ready at Dawn has proven they can proportionally do to the PSP both in visuals and gameplay approximately what SCEA has done to the PS2 with God of War II.
Which is to say, naughty, terrible, dirty things. This could not be more excellent.
If Chains of Olympus hits as big as it likely will, and with the quality (or more) of Daxter, Ready at Dawn will have earned the respect to be one of those studios whose games you anticipate without even caring what it is - they could bring Daikatana to the PSP and I'd be excited. Hopefully their success will also pave the way for developing their own projects, should they choose that route.
So well done to them. And well done to me for writing that whole blurb without some cheesy pun involving their RAD abbreviation.
...crap.
