21–30 of 67 posts
At the time I installed Windows on a free partition on my desktop PC for the sole purpose of playing FarCry. It was great fun. The graphics blew me away. I watched the movie a few years later, it was ... not as good as the game. But movie adaptations of video games almost never are, Postal being a notable exception.
Fun fact, both films were made by one of the worst directors of all time: Uwe Boll
The brothers went to E3 with a demo they were showing us all, but only some of us has the tech to fully run it (I had a GeForce256 I got for free from NVidia because of work I had done with the recently opened up Quake source code) - then things went crazy, they tried to get a bunch of us to move to Germany and put us up in hostels on very restrictive contracts (basically they'd move us then we'd be completely liable for our own costs)
Now, the X-Isle demo really did help push NVidia cards, but the company now had to ramp up quickly.
I heard that 'mafia' money was involved in making this happen (and they came calling for their interest a few years back which is why the company hasn't done so well) - it was odd that Cevat's first purchase was a Ferrari...
Anyway every other project got canned after this - a few of us went on to try set up our own studio, but that didn't pan our after a year.
I miss the days when the Internet just didn't have a long standing archive of reminders of how old I'm getting, every day. And somehow I don't feel like anything, but the absolute obvious, is any better.
I don't think it is either, speaking as someone who also started using the internet when hardly anyone was. I mean, if you think about it, human needs (even up to self-actualization) require just a modest amount of innovation. After that, it's just the trick that was invented at the turn of the 20th century with psychological manipulation and advertising: they found a way to make us think things are getting better, but not really in the sense of absolute human enjoyment. For example:
* Yes, I do love my Macbook Air M1 which has undreamt of power compared to my old 486 computer that could barely run "Tomato Blaster", but the power my current Mac is only valuable in regard to the rest of the technology that exists...but if computer development stopped at the 486 would I really be less happy? Not really, I would still enjoy using it and developing basic junk on it.
* Yes, I love my 24MP full-frame camera with my 500mm prime lens. Looking back at a photo guide to animals from the 80s, my equipment destroys the shots back then. But then again, if NO ONE had this advanced stuff, I doubt I would be less happy. In fact, I recently put an old mirror lens introduced in 1983 on my camera. The shots are way worse than the modern prime, but yet...I can get some interesting images and honestly I'd be happy "perfecting my craft" on that lens if no modern lenses were available
The truth is, the very knowledge of the existence of newer technology makes us want it, but do we really need it?
In most cases no, and because creating new tech requires more resources, I think that endless technological development (especially with regard to new computing) is an enormous mistake.
I loved the way this game allowed for very different tactics (go all guns blazing or go stealth).
Yup an open world and quite smart enemies made me explore the same checkpoint dozens of times, to get the most perfect approach.
FC2, FC3, FC4, FC5 and FC6 had checkpoints
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I absolutely am! Doh!
It's fair, though - it was the original Crysis There was a time when it took fairly impressive hardware. I think this was one of the first popular 64bit games, upgrading into it
I don't think so. I remember struggles and patches necessary to get it run when I moved to a 64 bit machine a few years after it came out and I wanted to replay it.
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They unironically are, gaming is no longer a small nerd niche, but rather a mainstream activity.
There is a lot more offer than before, but most of it is shovelware, asset flips, etc. You can find indie studios that still respect the art and produce good games, but these are the exception, not the norm. And you can basically count good AAA studios on one hand.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's fair, though - it was the original Crysis There was a time when it took fairly impressive hardware. I think this was one of the first popular 64bit games, upgrading into it
> I think this was one of the first popular 64bit games, upgrading into it I don't think so. I remember struggles and patches necessary to get it run when I moved to a 64 bit machine a few years after it came out and I wanted to replay it.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1677
They were technically beat by Chronicles of Riddick who shipped something on disk
Looking back, this did little for performance. I suspect the memory limitations and introduction of SMP around that time to be a lot of warts we recall
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fun fact, both films were made by one of the worst directors of all time: Uwe Boll
IIRC he had/has a talent for taking advantage of German media laws. He's made a lot of derivative things like this
https://www.cinemablend.com/features/Uwe-Boll-Money-Nothing-...
They closed the loophole he was using in 2006.