magerette
Hedgewitch
- Joined
- October 18, 2006
- Messages
- 7,834
Sunday seems to bring out these obscure newsbits, and this one is heavy on the nostalgia factor. NextGen takes a look at the ancestors of modern video games, including MS Pac-Man, the original Final Fantasy, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Ultima IV and others:
Here's their thumbnail of Dungeon Master, from 1987:Some of these games are fun to play, even today, and some of them have been vastly surpassed in the intervening years by smoother, better-looking games that took what was there and improved. That's what games designers do. Our criteria here is not 'how do these games stack up against the games we make and play today'. Our criteria is 'which games of the 1980s do we owe the greatest debt to because they innovated so much at the time, and because they represent all that is best about original game design'.
More information.Wizardry and The Bard’s Tale may have been the first to successfully twin Dungeons & Dragons-inspired adventuring with 3D visuals, but it was Dungeon Master that finally brought the genre firmly into the mainstream. Dodgy genre staples like orcs, magical armor and hit points are all present and correct, but with its mouse driven interface and revolutionary use of real-time exploration and combat, Dungeon Master proved accessible enough to become the most popular game ever released on the Atari ST, and a heavy influence on Eye Of The Beholder, Might & Magic, and the highly revered Ultima Underworld.
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
- Messages
- 7,834