Sloppy developers.

[JackAxe]

5. Resident Evil 4 was a beautiful GCN title. Rogue Squadron was doing things at launch that developers still haven't done on Wii. Why do you think that is? Are studios getting sloppy on Wii?

Julian: Yes. I'm so disappointed knowing exactly what the Wii can do -- and I still think nobody knows it better than we (no pun intended) [laughs]. I really have to say, boy, am I disappointed! They all have finally figured out, five years into the hardware's life cycle, how to do at least basic shaders and a rim light, but that's what everybody does. But I still don't see enough bump and normal-mapping, if any. I still don't see enough post effects, although you would have insane fill-rates with Wii. I don't see any of that. I was digging out Rebel Strike the other day and was looking at it, and we had some people who were visiting ask, "Why isn't anybody else doing this on Wii?" And I am at a loss. I really am.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/762/762984p1.html

---

This is something we all know, but it still sickens me.

The first Rogue Squadron was great, the second one was atrocious. It's one of the few games that actually froze on my Cube. The only reason I bought it was to play RS1 co-op. But it still looked way better than most of the ***** that some of these developers have been vomiting onto the Wii.

I'm more optimistic about the Wii and 3rd party support than this guy, only because of the DS's success and I know of so many people, not just your usual gamer dweeb, buying Wiis. He's obviously in Sony's pocket book right now.

<]=)

[mkaake]

On that note, I've frozen my cube twice. Once playing the matrix game (there was a room where you could just hang out, and enemies would continue to come and attack... I played in there for about 1.5 hours just finding different ways of counter-attacking - there were so many guns laying around that it finally froze up trying to redraw...), and the second (which is verrryyyy repeatable) is with time splitters 2. Haven't tried it with 3 yet, but in 2, if you made a map with more than 16 doors, if they all were open at the same time, the cube would freeze. Every single time.

Frustrating.

But yeah, anyway, I think the curse of the cube was the self fulfilling prophecy of it being a 'kiddy console'. Once that took hold, the developers really stopped trying to make things look great (with a few exceptions, like RE4). In the end, the perception of being a kiddy console created lackluster games, supporting the perception.

Bummer too, because it could make some pretty good looking games - better than the PS2, but most people just laugh if you say it's more powerful.

So it goes, so it goes. Give me a game that's fun. Give me a game that's fun, and make it look better in the process, and I'll be even happier.

[JackAxe]

Was that the same Matrix game that was slapped together by Shiny? The one that used a gun model in place of a flashlight under a bridge? If yes, I didn't play it, but I recall watching a review on XPlay when it was still on TechTV. They didn't take to kindly to it. There's too much crap out there now and it's tainted any game left on the Cube that was actually good.

I owned a Cube, but to be honest I didn't buy that many games. I only bought one after it was available in black and after playing Metroid Prime at a friends. 3rd party games were all just ports of the same blah, so I really had no interest in what they had to offer. I was still playing mostly PC games back then, so I was only really interested in Nintendo's titles, since they weren't dumbed-down ports of my PC games. Even the most hardened PC dorks would admit that MarioParty was fun, once I got them to play it. :)

I noticed that most of the kiddy comments were coming from kids. It also didn't help that magazines like GamePro, and even worse, G4TV were there to further the fud. I used to like that show Icon speaking of this horrid-channel. I stopped watching that channel altogether after they sold out to Microsoft and aired an Iconmercial about the x360. This was several months prior to the console's initial launch. G4TV is probably the quintessential of everything that was wrong with last generations gaming. Teenage boys were the primary target, even though studies show that it's guys in my age group (I'm 34) :o that make up the average gamer.

Apparently this info wasn't available 5 years ago, because it completely contradicts what publishers assumed were their target audience;
http://www.theesa.com/facts/top_10_facts.php

Anyway, I've been playing games since the pong days. I've seen games visually get way better, which is amazing, but also deteriorate in complexity and worthwhile substance. Maybe I've just been playing the wrong games, but I find most of these supposed-non-kiddy-games to simple for my liking.

I watch movies like Idiocracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy) and it makes me think that if it wern't for companies like Nintendo trying to break the mold, our world would probably lead down a similar path.

<]=)

[MacRumorUser]

oo the second rogue squadron on the cube (rogue squadron 3: rebel strike) was like a rabid dog. it should have been taken out into the desert and put out of it's misery.

A real heap of junk. Hell if you pre-ordered the game it came with the 20 year old arcade starwars game on bonus disk, and it's telling when that game was actually 5 million times better than the game it came with....


But yeah I'd say the problem with the wii is that Developers didnt have the kits or know the specs until fairly late last year and so the games we have seen so far have been basically cube games. Give it another 6 months to a year and expect the quality to improve. (I hope)

[JackAxe]

I still have my copy of RS N64. This was a fun series when they cared. The thing I hated the most about the later RS games, was being forced to run around in 3rd person, because they had implemented it so poorly. It seemed slapped in. I didn't even bother finishing any of the later games.

Same here about hoping. Juilan has a point though, since these developers aren't even doing with the Wi what they had achieved early on with the Cube. it's the same basic dev-kit from what I understand? I guess most developers have been focusing on the controls, but that doesn't say much either in some cases.

<]=)

[Dagless]

Julian has a point, but let me tell you some parts of his sordid past...

Factor 5 made the Great Giana Sisters, a commercial clone of Mario. Nintendo put a swift end to that.
Factor 5 then made Turrican. A linear (and IMO better) Metroid clone, complete with "turn into a ball" powers, flamethrower, giant bosses, alterable weapons, and a gun for an arm. oh and a magical suit. The series slumps on the consoles, turning more into a Contra style game. Which, Factor 5 also ported to the Gameboy.
Factor 5 then spent a few years merely porting arcade classics (BC Kid/Bonk, R-Type) to the Amiga.
Factor 5 hit the big time with Rogue- series. Though absolutely milked it with the lacklustre Rebel Strike.
Factor 5 then come out with a game that looks like Panzer Dragoon and has the same GUI and (looks to have) similar gameplay to Rogue- series.

He thinks he can comment on lazy devs? Julian hasn't got a creative bone in his body. Factor 5 are great coders but they have such little imagination. Their history is stooped in clones, ports and re-runs. I'd rather see someone with creativity of the gods (Will Wright, Shigsy) talk about sloppy devs. All I'm seeing is some kind of pot calling a kettle like device black.

[Haoshiro]

This goes back to people acting like the Wii is only a slight improvement to GameCube.

GameCube and Xbox were very comparable in what they could handle real-world, and now we have a Wii that is very likely twice as powerful in real-world scenarios then both.

I'm sure the Wii can do some incredible stuff that developer just aren't doing. That might be because it's viewed as a budget system, even by publishers... so they just don't put the time and effort into it.

[darkwing]

This goes back to people acting like the Wii is only a slight improvement to GameCube.

GameCube and Xbox were very comparable in what they could handle real-world, and now we have a Wii that is very likely twice as powerful in real-world scenarios then both.

I'm sure the Wii can do some incredible stuff that developer just aren't doing. That might be because it's viewed as a budget system, even by publishers... so they just don't put the time and effort into it.

The Wii reminds me of the time I upgraded my 1.5 rev C powerbook 17" to a 1.67 rev E powerbook 17". A tiny un-noticeable speed/graphics card bump and accelerometers to play that motion-sensing ball whirling game demo. :rolleyes:

This didn't occur to me until now, but the Wii having similar architecture to the GC should really give developers quite an edge. They already know how to work with that stuff, and the games should be gorgeous.

Speaking of Factor 5, isn't Lair just a clone of Drakengard?

I remember studying in my English 101C (creative writing) course that there are only something like 21 abstract models any movie or story can take, and all can be summed up as one (or sometimes more) of these basic plot points.

Perhaps we should start a video game genome project. :cool:

[MacRumorUser]

Factor 5 made the Great Giana Sisters, a commercial clone of Mario. Nintendo put a swift end to that..

They did Giana :eek: Remember how quickly that game got stamped on. It became "the" floppy to get at a car boot sale :D

[zero2dash]

These guys (Factor 5) also said that Lair wouldn't be possible without BluRay, a single level in Lair wouldn't fit on an Xbox 360 DVD-9, and BluRay is required for next gen gaming.

"in Sony's pocket book right now" is an understatement.

[darkwing]

These guys (Factor 5) also said that Lair wouldn't be possible without BluRay, a single level in Lair wouldn't fit on an Xbox 360 DVD-9, and BluRay is required for next gen gaming.

"in Sony's pocket book right now" is an understatement.

So if a single level won't fit in 9 gigs, then I guess Lair only has 2 levels since until Sony releases the firmware patch unlocking (if it's even possible) dual layer BD support (50 gigs) then I guess they're stuck at a paltry 25. :rolleyes:

[Haoshiro]

The Wii reminds me of the time I upgraded my 1.5 rev C powerbook 17" to a 1.67 rev E powerbook 17". A tiny un-noticeable speed/graphics card bump and accelerometers to play that motion-sensing ball whirling game demo. :rolleyes:

Except it's a bigger jump then that. Was your Rev C twice as fast as your Rev E? :rolleyes:

Developers rarely tapped out the GameCube (RE4 and Twighlight Princess being the most likely possibles), the Wii hasn't been touched in terms of possibility. Will developers ever? I don't know... it sure didn't happen much on the cube.

This didn't occur to me until now, but the Wii having similar architecture to the GC should really give developers quite an edge. They already know how to work with that stuff, and the games should be gorgeous.

I would think so, but that would only apply to developers who have worked on the GameCube. Overall something like the 360 might have the edge with Microsofts strong developer support.

Add to that the sad truth that developers didn't hardly tap the GameCube and it's not all roses for Wii, even with the architecture 'advantage'. :(

I remember studying in my English 101C (creative writing) course that there are only something like 21 abstract models any movie or story can take, and all can be summed up as one (or sometimes more) of these basic plot points.

Perhaps we should start a video game genome project. :cool:

Personally I think that would be awesome. A "Pandora (http://www.pandora.com/)" for gaming :D

These guys (Factor 5) also said that Lair wouldn't be possible without BluRay, a single level in Lair wouldn't fit on an Xbox 360 DVD-9, and BluRay is required for next gen gaming.

"in Sony's pocket book right now" is an understatement.

So if a single level won't fit in 9 gigs, then I guess Lair only has 2 levels since until Sony releases the firmware patch unlocking (if it's even possible) dual layer BD support (50 gigs) then I guess they're stuck at a paltry 25. :rolleyes:

Wow that is funny... especially coming from you darkwing, for some reason. I didn't even realize the current PS3 didn't support dual layer BD. That really surprises me, but probably shouldn't.

[zero2dash]

So if a single level won't fit in 9 gigs, then I guess Lair only has 2 levels since until Sony releases the firmware patch unlocking (if it's even possible) dual layer BD support (50 gigs) then I guess they're stuck at a paltry 25. :rolleyes:

I'll grab my EGM when I get home and post the direct quote; I looked for it online but couldn't find it.

One of their devs (don't remember who) said something along the lines of the texture work and 1080p makes it impossible to fit on a DVD-9 and I believe he said something about a single level not fitting. Of course uncompressed textures take up a lot of space but considering that practically every gpu in existence these days contains some sort of texture compression, the argument of overblown size is moot.

I don't mind developers being behind their product, but the article I'm referencing left me pretty pissed off at all the one-sidedness. :rolleyes: I'll post a direct quote here when I get home. ;)

[darkwing]

Except it's a bigger jump then that. Was your Rev C twice as fast as your Rev E? :rolleyes:

Developers rarely tapped out the GameCube (RE4 and Twighlight Princess being the most likely possibles), the Wii hasn't been touched in terms of possibility. Will developers ever? I don't know... it sure didn't happen much on the cube.

The Wii games I'm seeing so far look like GC games. The GC was better than the ps2 in terms of capabilities, but the Wii is looking so last gen. SSX Blur looks just like SSX on the ps2, which was a launch title imho. Usually when you re-release something you upgrade the graphics. :rolleyes:

I would think so, but that would only apply to developers who have worked on the GameCube. Overall something like the 360 might have the edge with Microsofts strong developer support.

I'm starting to wonder how strong MS's dev support is when modern releases like GOW have framerate issues.

Wow that is funny... especially coming from you darkwing, for some reason. I didn't even realize the current PS3 didn't support dual layer BD. That really surprises me, but probably shouldn't.

Blatant marketing BS always ticks me off. If you want to argue specs, that's fine. If you want to trash the competition, that's fine too. But at least have some ring of truth to something you say that can't be passed off as an opinion or perception.

So unless Lair only has 2 levels, that guy is an idiot. :P

Sony's said that the PS3 will support dual-layer and all they need is a firmware patch to unlock it or something. However, who knows if that'll ever happen. I know the BD spec goes up to quad-layer with 100 gigs (as opposed to only 3 layers at 45 gigs for HD-DVD) but I've never heard the PS3 will be able to handle that. I've only heard of quad-layer being in labs and might even be a draft spec.

[Haoshiro]

The Wii games I'm seeing so far look like GC games. The GC was better than the ps2 in terms of capabilities, but the Wii is looking so last gen. SSX Blur looks just like SSX on the ps2, which was a launch title imho. Usually when you re-release something you upgrade the graphics. :rolleyes:

No argument there, in fact that was a point I was trying to clearly agree on (but must have failed). We aren't seeing anything better on Wii, but that doesn't mean the hardware is capable of it. GameCube better then PS2, but developers rarely demonstrated that.

Again, I personally think that's because publishers aren't taking the Nintendo systems that seriously, and probably (this is assumption) giving GameCube/Wii titles less funding. But it could just be lazy/sloppy developers.

I'm starting to wonder how strong MS's dev support is when modern releases like GOW have framerate issues.

I only noticed framerate issues during cutscenes and I would blame Epic for that. It's as if these people put effort into the gameplay performance but don't realize how it hurts presentation to have the cutscenes chop.

Halo 2 had the same problems with cutscenes, only worse... effects would actually pop in and out as if the engine was trying to make an effort to make things run smoothly... dumb they didn't put some more time into presentation.

As for a "game genome project" you seriously have me thinking about starting something like that! :)

[sikkinixx]

Well Nintendo certainly doesnt help their own cause. Super Paper Mario, which was supposed to be a cube title, is getting ported over to Wii with a new control scheme. Sound familiar?

[garethlewis2]

Silly me Julian. Now I bow your your wonderous mind and its infinite knowledge. Strange there was me thinking the GC and Wii have fixed function pipelines and can't do shaders, and lo and behold this genius proved ATi wrong. Amazing.

[Sky Blue]

Factor 5 made the Great Giana Sisters,

i used to have that on my Amiga! hard game.

[MacRumorUser]

I only noticed framerate issues during cutscenes and I would blame Epic for that.

Yeah same here. Only saw it glitch a little in the cut scenes.

Which is really odd when a scripted movie has framerate probs and yet the rest of the game when all chaos breaking loose and there is action everywhere has no frame-rate problems at all.

That's basically the development team at fault - there's no excuse if the rest of the game is smooth as silk.

As for a "game genome project" you seriously have me thinking about starting something like that! :)

and it best not have

a quest for a lost artifact
a forgotten or imprisoned princess
a world under invasion from aliens
a dystopian aftermath with robots
any talking animals or birds (unless it's a woodcock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodcock) and a beaver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver)) :D
a frickin fairy 'or sprite' that gets on your nerves
space pirates
a real world war 2 setting
people who talk gibberish rather than a real sounding language
zombies period...

[zero2dash]

No argument there, in fact that was a point I was trying to clearly agree on (but must have failed). We aren't seeing anything better on Wii, but that doesn't mean the hardware is capable of it. GameCube better then PS2, but developers rarely demonstrated that.

Again, I personally think that's because publishers aren't taking the Nintendo systems that seriously, and probably (this is assumption) giving GameCube/Wii titles less funding. But it could just be lazy/sloppy developers.

Well Nintendo certainly doesnt help their own cause. Super Paper Mario, which was supposed to be a cube title, is getting ported over to Wii with a new control scheme. Sound familiar?

Yeah, this is my inherent problem with the Wii. It wouldn't take too much work for a developer to do a halfassed game on the system, tack on some haphazard control scheme, and pass it off as a work of art.

The Wii has promise and potential...and a gammut of "quick and lazy ways to make a buck" which is why I'm leery of buying one. Hell, Nintendo is [somewhat] doing a similar trend with their own games for cripes' sake. Take a 'Cube title, change the control scheme, rinse/repeat release it on the Wii as newfangled. Leery, guys...I'm really leery about the Wii.


I only noticed framerate issues during cutscenes and I would blame Epic for that. It's as if these people put effort into the gameplay performance but don't realize how it hurts presentation to have the cutscenes chop.

Halo 2 had the same problems with cutscenes, only worse... effects would actually pop in and out as if the engine was trying to make an effort to make things run smoothly... dumb they didn't put some more time into presentation.

I agree, and while framerate drops are framerate drops...if I've gotta have them, I'd rather have them in non-interactive cut scenes than the actual game itself. I guess that's the belly of the beast though; they'll get knocked for the framerate drops obviously but since it doesn't detract from the rest of the game itself (the parts you play), it doesn't bother me.

[sikkinixx]

Maybe devs actually listened to message boards and they don't really care about maxing out Nintendo system's graphic capability since Nintendo owners have been on the "Graphics don't matter, gameplay matters", so instead of wasting more time on the graphics (think how long GoW devs would have taken to get those graphics nice and smooth) they just make them decent and pop the game out and move on to project #2.

Of course, this could all change in the next year or so once the REAL Wii games start coming out, same with PS3...so maybe its a little useless debating all this now :o

[e²Studios]

The PS3 supports DL BD, or at least it has to by the European launch. The Casino Royale disc they are getting is a DL 50GB BD, i still think we should send the French Talladega Nights...

Ed

[jdechko]

Of course, this could all change in the next year or so once the REAL Wii games start coming out, same with PS3...so maybe its a little useless debating all this now :o

I sure hope so. I mean, when the original Splinter-Cell game came out on the XBox (and later the GC) I though the game looked awesome. And looking at RE and Metroid Prime 1/2 on the gamecube, I don't doubt that there will be some amazing games on the Wii with some amazing graphics. I just hope that some of those games will be 3rd party.

[MacRumorUser]

The PS3 supports DL BD, or at least it has to by the European launch. The Casino Royale disc they are getting is a DL 50GB BD, i still think we should send the French Talladega Nights...

Ed

I've set up a european PSN network account. I wonder if it will let me register the console on launch day so I can nab a copy of Casino Royale (assuming it will be region free, though probably not) :)

[Haoshiro]

and it best not have

a quest for a lost artifact
a forgotten or imprisoned princess
a world under invasion from aliens
a dystopian aftermath with robots
any talking animals or birds (unless it's a woodcock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodcock) and a beaver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver)) :D
a frickin fairy 'or sprite' that gets on your nerves
space pirates
a real world war 2 setting
people who talk gibberish rather than a real sounding language
zombies period...

I'd think those would be required by default!

[Krevnik]

The Wii has promise and potential...and a gammut of "quick and lazy ways to make a buck" which is why I'm leery of buying one. Hell, Nintendo is [somewhat] doing a similar trend with their own games for cripes' sake. Take a 'Cube title, change the control scheme, rinse/repeat release it on the Wii as newfangled. Leery, guys...I'm really leery about the Wii.

Realize that Nintendo doing this is killing the GC off as a dev platform at the same time. By releasing Twilight Princess first for the Wii, the GC sales dropped through the floor. Super Paper Mario isn't even a GC title anymore.

Nintendo's reasons for pushing GC titles onto the Wii was a move of confidence in the platform. Already the Wii has sold 4.5 million, and it would be in REALLY poor taste on their part if they kept Super Paper Mario as a GC title. It would lead investors to believe they don't stand by their new platform, even when it is doing /really/ well.

MS did this as well with a couple XBox titles: Kameo and PDZ, having Rare make them into 360 launch titles instead. If we can be leery about anything, we should be leery about the pricing structure on the VC titles. Even though Sony is behind on title selection, Sony's pricing is far better than Nintendo's. Then again, Sony's downloadable PS1 titles can't even be played on the PS3 yet.

[zero2dash]

Realize that Nintendo doing this is killing the GC off as a dev platform at the same time. By releasing Twilight Princess first for the Wii, the GC sales dropped through the floor. Super Paper Mario isn't even a GC title anymore.

Nintendo's reasons for pushing GC titles onto the Wii was a move of confidence in the platform. Already the Wii has sold 4.5 million, and it would be in REALLY poor taste on their part if they kept Super Paper Mario as a GC title. It would lead investors to believe they don't stand by their new platform, even when it is doing /really/ well.

I agree with what you say, but I still don't think it's a great thing to do. Ports will obviously pad the library of available titles, but IMO the jury's still out on what the Wii can do. When the DS first came out, there was a lot of (similar) mish-mash; eventually, greats like Advance Wars, Trauma Center, Nintendogs, and Kirby:Canvas Curse came out and showcased what they had been talking about all along. That's the type of stuff I want to see for the Wii before I pay the entry fee.

MS did this as well with a couple XBox titles: Kameo and PDZ, having Rare make them into 360 launch titles instead.

Fair, yes, but we're also talking about 360 games that received quite a lot of upgrades (visually and in gameplay; for instance - multiplayer on PDZ was increased quite a bit) versus Wii titles that receive little to nothing over the same title on the Gamecube (if one exists, say: Twilight Princess). What's the one feature the Wii TP has over the GC one? Widescreen display or something? WTF? I'm sure the game is great, but that's the epitome of the term "lazy". Yes, I know the game has a different control scheme, obviously. But otherwise...nothing else was really changed. TP still probably should've been a GC title, but I guess Nintendo needed a killer Wii launch app so they stole it from the GC and threw it on the Wii.

If we can be leery about anything, we should be leery about the pricing structure on the VC titles. Even though Sony is behind on title selection, Sony's pricing is far better than Nintendo's. Then again, Sony's downloadable PS1 titles can't even be played on the PS3 yet.

Yeah, I'm still hoping for a "monthly VC a la carte" fee but I'm sure it'll never happen when they can milk those games for all eternity. :D

[darkwing]

As for a "game genome project" you seriously have me thinking about starting something like that! :)

I think it'd be awesome. I can work on server-side programming. Let's make it a huge web project or something. I even have a friend who could host it. I just don't do xhtml. :P

Anyway, yes I see your point. I only wonder what the Wii is really capable of. I know it's more than this, but it isn't so much more that it feels next-gen. Still, I get the feeling what the Wii is going to be burdened with is a lot of re-releases with a nifty control mechanism.

[Haoshiro]

I think it'd be awesome. I can work on server-side programming. Let's make it a huge web project or something. I even have a friend who could host it. I just don't do xhtml. :P

I'm seriously considering it. It just so happens web development is what I do professionally. In fact I've been working on a large scale web framework the last few weeks (v2, actually). My fortés on the web side of things are: PHP, HTML/XHTML, Javascript, and MySQL... as well as graphics design (Photoshop).

Perhaps I should throw up a forum or just start a new thread here, where we can toss ideas around and figure out who's most suited for what? It'd definitely be fun, although I don't have a great deal of time... and have a ridiculous amount of distractions. :D

[2nyRiggz]

Games will get better on the wii...my goodness man the console is only in its 1st leg. I hope they tap the full potential of the system and don't wait for the console on it last leg to push it to its limit.



Bless

[JackAxe]

Good things will definately come.

Kameo is actually a really poor example, since it was originally slated for the Cube. ;) So this game was being developed for years.

Most developers only had about a year to work with the Wii. I recall hearing this in an interview. So taking a game like Zelda and updating all of the art would have been unfeasible, so they focused on the controls. This is why the game is 100% Cube graphics, but mirrored to accomadate the marjority of us righties. :o This game was why I bought a Wii day one. :) TP was a Cube game, but it's certainly way better on the Wii IMO, so was well worth the wait. It's not like Nintendo jus abandoned the Cube version. The controls are very well implemented. I've tried Wind Waker again since playing TP on the Wii and even though the controls are excellent, I just don't like them now, do to my Wii spoilage.

Anyway, graphics matter to a point, this is a given, but only if they don't get in the way of game play. Graphics that bother me, aren't because they're of a lower-rez, but when I can tell that the developer didn't even bother to do a good job. I've noticed that many developers don't work well with what they're given, so produce crap vs other studios that can produce gold with in the same constraints. If that makes sense? Retro Studio vs many others is a good exmple of this sort of thing. And many studios have become sloppy over time. Lucas Arts and Novalogic fit this build. :( I bought the Novalogic Flight Simulator pack from Costco a few years back and talk about vomit. None of these games could even remotely touch old games like Comanche or Falcon 4.0. I get quite annoyed that I don't see games of this calibre (http://www.allgame.com/cg/agg.dll?p=agg&sql=1:954) any more.

One of my biggest gripes, besides poorly produced games, is that so many titles are just too arcade like in their nature; Rogue Squadron vs X-Wing Alliance as an example.

Blah.

<]=)