04-09-2003, 12:20 PM
I doubt that the PC game market is falling to the might of consoles. More to the point, each generation of console becomes more cost effective than the last and with some of the hassles of software installion and running,. it's no surprise then that the console market is growing. I don't think PC is declining. But I do think that consoles are becoming more prevalent.
But the console market consistantly proves to be internally competitive too. I remember the days when the Sega Megadrive was 'the in thing' and then along came Sony Playstation and rolled it. The Dreamcast turned up and proved to be on the scene too late to combat Playstation's momentum and so on.
I take it you've never played Gauntlet. Top-down viewpoints have been around for a lot longer than Diablo. Pointing and clicking waited for mouse interface to happen and certainly Diablo did much to popularize the style, but Diablo was hardly the "Grandfather of top-down dungeon crawls". ;)
Words like these still draw a frown on my brow. Did you know that Halo was originally under development for PC? I was tracking it's progress, even to the point of writing up an early tentative release schedule in the shop where I worked at the time. Then along came Microsoft, bought up the company doing it and it was goodbye PC title, hello XBox flagship title. <_< I was plnning to bye it at the time and to date I've only ever seen a few screenies.
They stole it from me. They stole the precious. <_<
Favourites? Old favourites?
Diablo II: Lord of Destruction competes for my time with Unreal Tournament. I have Master of Orion II (1996) and Master of Magic (1994) installed, both woken up occasionally. X-Wing Alliance is there too.
Thought derailment: I just remembered a relevant anecdote. :blink:
My first fascination with coloured lights on the screen shooting at other coloured lights on the screen came in the late seventies when my mother, her friend and both sets of kids in tow (four kids total) went to visit MOTAT (Museum of Transport and Technology). We had been upstairs in one of the buildings and I think it was on decending the stairs to the ground floor I saw a large black upright box with a group of young people crowding around. I immediately wormed my way in to watch the screen they were all intent upon and became totally engrosed in the lightshow displayed there. A small irregular box scooting back and forth along the bottom of the screen shooting little blocks of light up the screen at waves of other irregular boxes moving down. On some levels the little 'tank' would have large chunks of something to hide behind for when the enemy shot back. On all level it was fighting against the clock to stop those ships from tounching the bottom. You know the one. ;) BTW, I was probably standing on tippy toes with my head tilted a little back and fingertips hooked over the edge to peer at all of this. :D
From that day forward I was hooked. I turned around for for the obligatory, "Look Mum! Look at this!" kind of exclamation.
To find the silly cow, the friend and the other three kids had long gone! :( Can you imagine it? Going into a public place like that and expecting a six year old to be anywhere other than the one screen with coloured blobs in the place, which I might add, was brand spanking new technology at the time. <_< Sheesh! Unbelievable! So there I am, frantically looking around, bawling my eyes out, finally discovered by a couple of museum employees and by this stage absolutely distraught at the fact my own mother hadn't even had the decency to come back looking for me. One of the employees tried to calm me down by having me look at cars wizzing around a small section of speedway track visible in the distance, while the other ran off to the head office or wherever it is they stash the intercom mic.
Um. Yeah whatever mate. Got any more of those big black boxes with the Star Wars stuff on it? <_<
It gets worse though. The intercom message goes out and a short time later who should come running? Nooooooooo. Not Mum. Her friend FFS! :angry: Unbelievable!. <_<
Well anyway after I got reunited with Mrs. Forgetsherownson you'll be happy to know that I told her off appropriately. From a six year year old this entails a good deal of foot stomping and finger pointing making just enough noise so that all nearby bystanders are quite clear on the nature of the crime committed. B)
I loved that game though. B)
Where was I? Oh yeah, old favourites.
My first foray into PC games was actually WarCraft 2. (I had a Vic 20 many years earlier, but I'll skip that part). After WarCraft 2 came the various MechWarrior titles and a number of strategy games aaaah buggerit I'll leave this post at the anecdote - I can't seem to get this paragraph happening right. :lol:
But the console market consistantly proves to be internally competitive too. I remember the days when the Sega Megadrive was 'the in thing' and then along came Sony Playstation and rolled it. The Dreamcast turned up and proved to be on the scene too late to combat Playstation's momentum and so on.
Quote:I mean, come on, once the top-down perspective of Diablo came out, most every hack-n-slash, point-and-click action game after that used it.
I take it you've never played Gauntlet. Top-down viewpoints have been around for a lot longer than Diablo. Pointing and clicking waited for mouse interface to happen and certainly Diablo did much to popularize the style, but Diablo was hardly the "Grandfather of top-down dungeon crawls". ;)
Quote:A prime example of this would Halo for the X Box.
Words like these still draw a frown on my brow. Did you know that Halo was originally under development for PC? I was tracking it's progress, even to the point of writing up an early tentative release schedule in the shop where I worked at the time. Then along came Microsoft, bought up the company doing it and it was goodbye PC title, hello XBox flagship title. <_< I was plnning to bye it at the time and to date I've only ever seen a few screenies.
They stole it from me. They stole the precious. <_<
Favourites? Old favourites?
Diablo II: Lord of Destruction competes for my time with Unreal Tournament. I have Master of Orion II (1996) and Master of Magic (1994) installed, both woken up occasionally. X-Wing Alliance is there too.
Thought derailment: I just remembered a relevant anecdote. :blink:
My first fascination with coloured lights on the screen shooting at other coloured lights on the screen came in the late seventies when my mother, her friend and both sets of kids in tow (four kids total) went to visit MOTAT (Museum of Transport and Technology). We had been upstairs in one of the buildings and I think it was on decending the stairs to the ground floor I saw a large black upright box with a group of young people crowding around. I immediately wormed my way in to watch the screen they were all intent upon and became totally engrosed in the lightshow displayed there. A small irregular box scooting back and forth along the bottom of the screen shooting little blocks of light up the screen at waves of other irregular boxes moving down. On some levels the little 'tank' would have large chunks of something to hide behind for when the enemy shot back. On all level it was fighting against the clock to stop those ships from tounching the bottom. You know the one. ;) BTW, I was probably standing on tippy toes with my head tilted a little back and fingertips hooked over the edge to peer at all of this. :D
From that day forward I was hooked. I turned around for for the obligatory, "Look Mum! Look at this!" kind of exclamation.
To find the silly cow, the friend and the other three kids had long gone! :( Can you imagine it? Going into a public place like that and expecting a six year old to be anywhere other than the one screen with coloured blobs in the place, which I might add, was brand spanking new technology at the time. <_< Sheesh! Unbelievable! So there I am, frantically looking around, bawling my eyes out, finally discovered by a couple of museum employees and by this stage absolutely distraught at the fact my own mother hadn't even had the decency to come back looking for me. One of the employees tried to calm me down by having me look at cars wizzing around a small section of speedway track visible in the distance, while the other ran off to the head office or wherever it is they stash the intercom mic.
Um. Yeah whatever mate. Got any more of those big black boxes with the Star Wars stuff on it? <_<
It gets worse though. The intercom message goes out and a short time later who should come running? Nooooooooo. Not Mum. Her friend FFS! :angry: Unbelievable!. <_<
Well anyway after I got reunited with Mrs. Forgetsherownson you'll be happy to know that I told her off appropriately. From a six year year old this entails a good deal of foot stomping and finger pointing making just enough noise so that all nearby bystanders are quite clear on the nature of the crime committed. B)
I loved that game though. B)
Where was I? Oh yeah, old favourites.
My first foray into PC games was actually WarCraft 2. (I had a Vic 20 many years earlier, but I'll skip that part). After WarCraft 2 came the various MechWarrior titles and a number of strategy games aaaah buggerit I'll leave this post at the anecdote - I can't seem to get this paragraph happening right. :lol:
Heed the Song of Battle and Unsheath the Blades of War