While Unreal Tournament and Quake failed to catch my attention, Elite Force was one of the FPS games that did. EV Nova was stretching it.Īs I said, I've played my share of FPS games, too, and I would be remiss not to mention my favorite one: Star Trek Elite Force. It was boring to have to go through the start of the game all over again just because you were good enough to have finished a different storyline! This is, of course, not mentioning the fact that a good game idea can only take you so far. EV Nova includes much less variety in the storylines than Override did, and so after playing through two or three of the different storylines, I gave up.
So once you finish a storyline, that's it - you have to start with a fresh pilot to try other missions. The improvements to the graphics and gameplay were nice, but there's always a main storyline that you follow, and all of the main storylines are mutually exclusive. But the threquel to the series, Escape Velocity Nova, isn't as good. Override was a big step up from the classic version, boasting a much larger universe and many more storylines to pick up, since there were many more different species and factions in the game. That ruined the delicate balance between micromanagement and frustration that StarCraft had created so perfectly.Īnother game that I used to play all the time was Escape Velocity, by the venerable shareware company Ambrosia Software. It was basically just a rehash of the old gameplay, but with more micromanagement.
I bought the hype - I went out and bought it the week it was released, and was sorely disappointed. WarCraft III, though, the next big game to come out of Blizzard after StarCraft, didn't hold my attention. WarCraft II, the previous god game that was also created by Blizzard Entertainment, also had an involving storyline, but the gameplay wasn't as great - you couldn't queue up people to train and you could only select 9 people at a time, which were big limitations when getting into big battles. StarCraft was the perfect "god" game, where you were able to micromanage your armies and coordinate attacks as if you were someone watching the battlefield from above. The solo game had a really involving storyline that kept pulling you back into the game, and the expansion pack built upon that solid foundation. But most of the ones that I can think of are already almost 2 years old, or older. But that hasn't happened for me: none of the recent games have really caught my interest.ĭon't get me wrong: there are a few bright spots in the gaming industry in the past few years. I was expecting that I'd always find some sort of new game to replace the old, even if I didn't like the FPS genre that has dominated the gaming landscape in the past few years. Of course, unless it's a really intriguing game with a continually evolving storyline, a game can't hold a person's attention forever, and so I had lost interest in the old games that I used to play a lot. The biggest recent splash in FPS gaming has been Halo I haven't played it myself, but I will definitely play it in demo form or on someone else's computer before buying into the hype. Besides, I tend to go for more shareware games that aren't necessarily in the FPS genre - adventure games, puzzle games, god games. First person shooter games seem to make up a large part (if not the majority) of the commercial games out there on the market. I've never been an avid fan of first person shooter games, and maybe that's a large part of why I don't play games much anymore. boring! And that has been driving me back to rediscover old games that I have given up on in the past. I have a fundamental problem with the games that are coming out on ALL platforms these days. And this isn't just a little bone to pick about how Macs are always second fiddle to PCs when it comes to game developers. Lately, I've been a little frustrated with gaming on my Mac. Learning to Refer to Objects in AppleScript Studio.Local Track, Shared Track, or iTunes Store Preview?.
The Sad State of Sucky Scanning Software on Mac OS X.
Enigmo 2 Bug Friday: New Dimension Obliterates an Otherwise Awesome Puzzle Game.