PC gamers in the mid-to-late 90s apparently started turning up their noses at turn-based strategy games in favour of the new hotness of the Command & Conquers and Warcrafts of the day
A review of X-Com Apocalypse from the time:
"to be honest, the new real-time combat is so good I really can't see why anyone would want to play the much slower (and often infuriating) turn-based tactical game"
:kitty-cri-screm:
spoiler
That's like preferring Diablo over Fallout
Gamers in the 90s and 00s were even more infuriating about chasing the newest trend then they are now.
It's like how people hated Wind Waker for being too cartoony because gritty realism was cool at the time.
Or how people thought every game should be an online multiplayer FPS after Halo cane out.
After Mass Effect came out and became the next big thing in like 2007, I remember seeing someone on a Pokemon forum say they wanted the next Pokemon to have renegade and paragon choices.
I guess the modern equivalent to this is everyone wanting open worlds and dodge rolls now.
remembering that famous review of the original doom that marked it down because you couldnt talk to the monsters
edit: here it is, peak liberalism - why cant you just debate the literal helldemons in the free marketplace of ideas?
lf only you could talk to these creatures, then perhaps you could try and make friends with them, form alliances... Now, that would be interesting. [7]
Didn't the UAC do exactly this by Doom Eternal?
I don't see a score attached to this (due to it being on the wayback machine probably) . If anything it seems their criticism are that there is low enemy variety and that the gameplay seems lacking once you get over the stunning graphics
pretty sure its the [7] at the end, which is like the kiss of death in g*mer numbers
lf only you could talk to these creatures, then perhaps you could try and make friends with them, form alliances... Now, that would be interesting.
is more the bit that people have focused on, because a) theyre literal helldemons (imagine hed written this review about wolfenstein) and b) it fundamentally misunderstands the type of game that doom is trying to be and there is no way that shoehorning in talking to the monsters to fulfil some lib fantasy adds to that experience
yeah but in the context of the whole review it sounds like someone who does not like the gameplay that much. Which is fine to think
But the gameplay is as narrow as it gets: you run along beautifully parallaxed corridors and through stunning 3D rooms shooting at a near endless supply of green lizards. That’s it.
As it is, once the power of Doom's graphics has worn off (they're amazing, so give that at least a week or two), you’lI be longing for something new in this game.
That said, though, there are problems with the game (Edge has no intention of joining the rabble mindlessly praising Doom beyond its worth). Yes, it is good in fact it’s a very, very technically impressive piece of programming but where's the genuine 3D (look up and down) of Ultima Underworld? Where’s the variety in the gameplay (it’s all just kill, kill, kill)? And looking at it coldly, what is there really in Doom (apart from the graphics) to set it above even the most average, most highly repetitive and tedious 2D shoot ‘em up?
Like I think issue they had with the game is more the lack of variety more than literally not being able to befriend the demons
This person probably preferred playing System Shock since you make more choices in that about what kind of playstyle you want.
Edit: Hopefully this author later played the Shin Megami Tensei games if they really wanted some demon alliance action
lf only you could talk to these creatures, then perhaps you could try and make friends with them, form alliances… Now, that would be interesting. [7]
Sounds like they would've preferred Xenologist /shamelessselfpromotion
every game should be an online multiplayer FPS after Halo cane out.
There's a :capitalist-laugh: reason for this, though. Online multiplayer greatly pads out the amount of time players spend in the game.
What if every single second they spent in the game was monetised :cap-think:
What if we eliminated quarters and hooked up their credit cards directly to the cabinets
Early MMORPGs
What if we hooked up their credit card directly to the cabinet, and also continued to sell them arbitrary bits of code for a premium markup?
Modern MMORPGs
Also cheaper to make a game that's just an arena withough having to think about level design or story too much
Idk about anyone else but I get much more annoyed at most RTS games because I'm at an inherent disadvantage playing against an AI with perfect awareness that can multitask flawlessly and isn't limited by a user interface.
Also where the fuck are all the pirates coming from, Sins of a Solar Empire? I know for a fact they don't have an economy, how in the goddamn are they able to send thirty warships into my territory, over and over like clockwork, every 10 minutes? It's not like they bolster their numbers with the survivors of previous raids, because there are none.
Yeah I'm the same, it's also that and when it comes to playing against players it feels like it's more about knowing the general metas and then having a good enough apm to implement them better than your opponent.
Most of the time in an RTS it's about focusing on your economy and production while executing a gameplan. Metagaming is fine and all but someone playing the current meta but missing production cycles will lose to a solid macro player who doesn't follow the current meta
It doesn't change the fundamental problem (and yes I do think that this is a kind of problem) that everything is still ultimately, mainly determined by ones APM abilties.
Yeah if you're playing against the computer it's not nearly as fun because either the AI is too good/cheating like you say or the AI is artificially bad to allow you to win.
RTS, in my old man opinion, is far superior when playing a person of similar skill level
Since you ranted about sins, I'd like to add how utterly janky the "culture" or whatever they call it mechanic is. Apparently an utterly devastated planet with no population left on it after an annihilating bombardment still needs The Unity to send endless broadcasts to it until it can be reoccupied.
In XCOM, all the aliens always know where the operatives are.
this is also the same time that everyone was losing their minds with excitement about fmv in videog*mes, easy for people to get caught up in novelty
original turnbased xcom today is janky but still extremely playable, i cant imagine anyone wanting to play xcom apocalypse in 2022
Such a top-tier series, somebody needs to come along and copy the formula but with bigger battles and better AI. Stuff like Ultimate General and Grand Tactician (both Civil War games) are what I'm talking about.
I like RTS way more than turn based strategy but i basically only play StarCraft because it's the only RTS with an active 1v1 ladder
I always prefer TBS. RTS games feel a lot more based on reflexes and fast action to me, while turn-based games let me focus on pure strategy.
RTS can be about speed and reflexes certainly but it's also about managing your own effective actions as though they are another resource. Flying a dropship into the back of your base while pushing the front seems tough when viewed but realistically unless I'm a pro gamer god I'm probably only really controlling the army at the front and using the dropship as a distraction. Forcing you to split your attention.
For a single player experience I quite enjoy TBS but playing against humans it's so much more fun to me to play RTS
I grew up loving StarCraft but I really dislike base building. The best 1v1 RTS for my money is Wargame: Red Dragon, though it suffers from a tiny playerbase.
Have you played X-Com Apocalypse?
The turn-based combat is infuriating. The game only really works in real time. There’s also a common early-game enemy that’s almost completely harmless in real-time, but will routinely squad-wipe you in turn-based unless you’re extremely diligent with overwatch, which makes it even slower.
I understood the quote to mean going back to the original turn-based X-Coms, not turning on the turn-based mode in Apocalypse
Yeah, I tried to play Apocalypse as a standard TBS but the brainsuckers made me give up on that pretty quickly
“to be honest, the new real-time combat is so good I really can’t see why anyone would want to play the much slower (and often infuriating) turn-based tactical game”
tell that to my thousands of hours in the Civ series :meow-floppy:
