Lucky Day
Daywatch
I can't remember a thread on this but there probably is one.
On Pricewatch! we've been talking about the ET game so I brought up Limbo of the Lost and Desert Bus Simulator?
I think I'd throw U9 in there as well because of the condition it was in at release time. So…
I can't remember a thread on this but there probably is one.
On Pricewatch! we've been talking about the ET game so I brought up Limbo of the Lost and Desert Bus Simulator?
I think I'd throw U9 in there as well because of the condition it was in at release time. So…
ET the atari game - This game had a 5 week development time but sold 300k copies at Christmas but 1million cartridges had been made. An urban legend regarding the lost "millions" of copies developed and which had been found to be true and the subject of an upcoming documentary.
Limbo of the Lost-A indie adventure game originally started development on the Amriga was finally released for PC. A year later some players noted areas that looked suspiciously like Oblvion, including the crosshairs symbol that game uses. With a week screenshots from the game flooded in from users side by side with screenshots from the games they were stolen from.
On top of the plagiarism LotL includes one of the most memorable and shocking end game cut scenes ever seen. Had it not been for the controversy already, this jewel in a pig's snout would have gone unnoticed.
Desert Bus - a minigame in Penn & Teller's unreleased Smoke and Mirrors 1995 Sega game, that was meant as a gag gift to give to friends. The game is a realistic simulation of the 8 hour drive from Tucson and Las Vegas played in real time. The road is straight, but the bus pulls to the right requiring the player to be at the controls the whole time. There are no passengers. The only interesting thing that happens is a bug hits the window after 5 hours.
Ultima 9 - the story of the long awaited sequel to what was then the most popular game franchise in has many facets. The biggest irony of which was that in both variants of the game it was meant to be a redemption to the fans of where the company went wrong with the last game in the title.
The game was originally well into production when it was an Isometric 2d game but the development team was cannibalized to work on Ultima Online. After UO was released, with the game looking old with with no one motivated to completing it that iteration of the game died.
Some tests with 3dfx Voodoo Card impressed some old Origin employees at EA to restart development in 3d. Richard Garriot insisted on removing transitions and "blow ups" that were the hallmark of the early games he invented to make the game more realistic along with many other graphic innovations such as the ability to walk under vertical walkmesh plains.
Development time took so long that the story was radically cut and completely abandoned its original premise. EA halted development and insisted on hard release date at around the same time 3dfx went out of business due to the growing popularity of nVidia cards which U9 was not optimized for.
The result was a game pushed out the door that literally did not work. Complaints were so bad another new first happened thanks to Origin: the official forums were reset to clear out negative complaints. They eventually closed altogether. Lord British was forced out of the company, including in his UO role, and the Origin Studios division was shuttered forever.
Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor is a remake of the first and most successful of the official Dungeons and Dragons by SSI in the early 1980's that spawned the nickname "The Goldbox Games". Its 10 year development time was marred by re-writes, including the last one of redeveloping the game using the d20 rules.
Expectations were so high for this game that it was the best selling game for the first two weeks of its release. It was also the most returned game.
PoR: RoMD was clunky, and repetitious. The released version of the game had a bug the demo didn't have even though they had the same version number.
Worst of all, was the bug that could corrupt your Windows Operating System. A patch and an apology was released to the fans and a lot of stickers were were sent to the Software shops to slap on the box.
Dungeon Lords - DW Bradly who took over the successful Wizardry franchise developed the premise for this game which is so successful that the publishers continue to package new variants of it every few years with minor tweaks (such as the official patch) so they can sell it again as a new product at Wal Mart.
Like taking an old Robert E Howard public domain Conan story and slipping a Frank Frazetta cover on it the game is a work of marketing genious with a low cost threshold
For the record its empty and boring. We try to warn you every few years but you don't listen. Let's warn you again.
--
Honourable Mention
Grimoire - 20 years in the making from a bipolar, paranoid schizophrenic ex-pat American ex-Wziardry developer living in the Outback this will probably be an amazing game when we all hop in our time machines.
Outpost - A forgotten combination of Simcity meets Civilization after they colonize the stars, this game would have required 20 CD's in its original form. It was scaled down to 1 or 2 when finally released and the game was effectively a boring sci fi 4x game.
Duke Nukem Forever, Doom 3, Lara Croft, XCom, Deus Ex Invisible War, Fallout platformers - way to kill a franchise. sell unimaginative sequels that do little but cash in on the name.
On Pricewatch! we've been talking about the ET game so I brought up Limbo of the Lost and Desert Bus Simulator?
I think I'd throw U9 in there as well because of the condition it was in at release time. So…
I can't remember a thread on this but there probably is one.
On Pricewatch! we've been talking about the ET game so I brought up Limbo of the Lost and Desert Bus Simulator?
I think I'd throw U9 in there as well because of the condition it was in at release time. So…
ET the atari game - This game had a 5 week development time but sold 300k copies at Christmas but 1million cartridges had been made. An urban legend regarding the lost "millions" of copies developed and which had been found to be true and the subject of an upcoming documentary.
Limbo of the Lost-A indie adventure game originally started development on the Amriga was finally released for PC. A year later some players noted areas that looked suspiciously like Oblvion, including the crosshairs symbol that game uses. With a week screenshots from the game flooded in from users side by side with screenshots from the games they were stolen from.
On top of the plagiarism LotL includes one of the most memorable and shocking end game cut scenes ever seen. Had it not been for the controversy already, this jewel in a pig's snout would have gone unnoticed.
Desert Bus - a minigame in Penn & Teller's unreleased Smoke and Mirrors 1995 Sega game, that was meant as a gag gift to give to friends. The game is a realistic simulation of the 8 hour drive from Tucson and Las Vegas played in real time. The road is straight, but the bus pulls to the right requiring the player to be at the controls the whole time. There are no passengers. The only interesting thing that happens is a bug hits the window after 5 hours.
Ultima 9 - the story of the long awaited sequel to what was then the most popular game franchise in has many facets. The biggest irony of which was that in both variants of the game it was meant to be a redemption to the fans of where the company went wrong with the last game in the title.
The game was originally well into production when it was an Isometric 2d game but the development team was cannibalized to work on Ultima Online. After UO was released, with the game looking old with with no one motivated to completing it that iteration of the game died.
Some tests with 3dfx Voodoo Card impressed some old Origin employees at EA to restart development in 3d. Richard Garriot insisted on removing transitions and "blow ups" that were the hallmark of the early games he invented to make the game more realistic along with many other graphic innovations such as the ability to walk under vertical walkmesh plains.
Development time took so long that the story was radically cut and completely abandoned its original premise. EA halted development and insisted on hard release date at around the same time 3dfx went out of business due to the growing popularity of nVidia cards which U9 was not optimized for.
The result was a game pushed out the door that literally did not work. Complaints were so bad another new first happened thanks to Origin: the official forums were reset to clear out negative complaints. They eventually closed altogether. Lord British was forced out of the company, including in his UO role, and the Origin Studios division was shuttered forever.
Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor is a remake of the first and most successful of the official Dungeons and Dragons by SSI in the early 1980's that spawned the nickname "The Goldbox Games". Its 10 year development time was marred by re-writes, including the last one of redeveloping the game using the d20 rules.
Expectations were so high for this game that it was the best selling game for the first two weeks of its release. It was also the most returned game.
PoR: RoMD was clunky, and repetitious. The released version of the game had a bug the demo didn't have even though they had the same version number.
Worst of all, was the bug that could corrupt your Windows Operating System. A patch and an apology was released to the fans and a lot of stickers were were sent to the Software shops to slap on the box.
Dungeon Lords - DW Bradly who took over the successful Wizardry franchise developed the premise for this game which is so successful that the publishers continue to package new variants of it every few years with minor tweaks (such as the official patch) so they can sell it again as a new product at Wal Mart.
Like taking an old Robert E Howard public domain Conan story and slipping a Frank Frazetta cover on it the game is a work of marketing genious with a low cost threshold
For the record its empty and boring. We try to warn you every few years but you don't listen. Let's warn you again.
--
Honourable Mention
Grimoire - 20 years in the making from a bipolar, paranoid schizophrenic ex-pat American ex-Wziardry developer living in the Outback this will probably be an amazing game when we all hop in our time machines.
Outpost - A forgotten combination of Simcity meets Civilization after they colonize the stars, this game would have required 20 CD's in its original form. It was scaled down to 1 or 2 when finally released and the game was effectively a boring sci fi 4x game.
Duke Nukem Forever, Doom 3, Lara Croft, XCom, Deus Ex Invisible War, Fallout platformers - way to kill a franchise. sell unimaginative sequels that do little but cash in on the name.
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