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Over the last year or so European developers have really made a great impression on me as a whole by trying to deliver FPS games very different from their Westernised counterparts. It seems to me that Western developed FPS games such as the Medal of Honour series, Unreal based series and anything obviously released from the stables of ID get far too much limelight and promising FPS titles from European developers get left in the dark. Recent titles such as Iron Storm, which I thought was a promising title, have come and gone without almost any impact whatsoever. Was this due to a poorly released title or just due to its less known development origin?
A handful of other up and coming FPS games all being worked on by dev teams outside the US such as Chaser, Devastation (which is partly made up of some Japanese developers), S.t.a.l.k.e.r Oblivion Lost and the recently back on track Y-project are all highly promising titles in my eyes but they seem to have gotten little attention to date apart from the odd scattered preview. Why is this? Why don’t we see these games all over the cover of countless magazines or spread all over forums with excited gamers anticipating their release?
The only current Western based title I can even think of that has me excited due to trying to make a substantial difference to just how an FPS is conceived and played is Unreal II. I have always said this and I hope once it is released it lives up to its many promises and that others then follow suit. But does where a title is developed in any way really influence your interest levels during its dev process or if you go out and buy the title upon its release date? EU developers as I see it really are trying to pull something new out of the hat wherever possible but are getting overshadowed by the larger more known developers out there which I think is a crying shame when innovation can come from any part of the world at any given time.
And in this substantially overcrowded genre where such poor games as 007:Nightfire are getting the limelight when they should be covered with a black bin bag and ignored is confusing the hell out of me. Something that is getting very sorely needed no matter where the dev team are based or how extreme their ideas may initially seem is a new slant or a new idea for the genre. Something to finally move it forward. I will in the end commend any that really do make an eventual difference and change the very face of the FPS genre we all know and love. If we just keep an eye on what’s coming from the EU developers aswell as from Western shores it may actually come sooner than we think.
It's something I've often wondered about. I mean, I'd love to edit FPS games for a living, but to be a part of a big studio; I'd probably have to move out to America. To prove my point, the only British FPS studio I can actually think of at the moment is Rebellion (maker of AvP and Dredd vs. Death). Although AvP was a successful game and Dredd is likely to follow suit, the British market for FPS games seems disgustingly overlooked. But let's not forget that highly successful games series' like GTA and Tomb Raider, both of which originated from Great Britain. Hence GTA: London but not GTA: Washington. Or was there something like that released in USA? Anyway. That’s beyond the point. Buy British. I wonder if the Yanks for GTA: London…
Some of the best games ever came from Europe, I mean look at the Czechs – they are pumping out some of the best games ever, we are the country which invented most original games ever, at the time people said that Theme Park was mad, a 3d game about dungeon with FPS combat was mad and game based adult anime about cyborgs with really big guns was mad. Hell even some of the frogs made good games. European stuff is more refreshing to play. Not including "British" in that either. European developers are easily the more innovative and risk-taking of developers, and a lot of 2003's gems are likely to come from Europe.
Out of European developers, it's seems the Eastern European lot are the most promising. They also seem to have an unhealthy obsession with war, but that's no bad thing as Illusion Softworks and Bohemia Interactive gave us the sublime Hidden & Dangerous and Operation Flashpoint respectively, and IS gave us the more recent Mafia too. Westka Interactive (German) were looking promising with Y-Project till they sadly disappeared, and also the innovative GSC Gameworld, also German I believe, who were responsible for Codename Outbreak and Cossacks. And the British have an array of talent too. Bratt Designs (Breed), Wide Games (Prisoner of War), Rage (Hostile Waters) and many other much bigger outfits that have been mentioned, such as the makers of GTA and lets not forget Eidos UK - who have published such games as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Project IGI and Hitman.
What gets me the most is that I’m pretty positive that many of these European dev teams have far less promotion values than the larger US dev teams. I’m not saying that the funding isn’t there or the commitment to making a truly recognisable groundbreaking game I’m just stating that when a new US developed title gears up to release the hype is pretty much felt like a tidal wave. Then by the time the said title is released you’re almost sick of hearing about the damn thing. If someone mentions "The awesome photo-realistic lighting of DOOM III!" one more time I think I’ll be physically sick. EU companies are not really known for this type of fierce marketing deployment (ala EA) and really do let the games they make primarily sell themselves which IMO Stalker: Oblivion Lost is a prime example of. Showing mass amounts of promise and keeping the gaming publics interest with very little hype at all.
All companies know that you can produce the hype but to have a game that actually lives up to the hype upon release is a very rare thing indeed. I admire EU gamers for basically saying "Here is the game we have worked on for 3 years flat out, we like it and are proud of what we achieved and we hope you like it too". Rather than EAs approach "This game will change gaming history forever! Blah de blah". We all search and yearn for that something different in this genre, more interaction with our surroundings and more bonding with the character we will play throughout the game etc. And you can almost be assured that games from the EU developers will strive for that more than US ones who seem merely content with churning out a game with a slightly updated engine and a mediocre title you can complete in a single afternoon.
If we just go out and buy GENERIC SHOOTER X time after time then developers will think that is enough to satisfy us time after time, well we should let them know that for many of us in FPS land this really isn’t the case any longer. Here's a small list of some good European developers just to jog your memory of how we're so much better than the Americans at games.
Appeal (Outcast)
Bitmap Brothers (Speedball, Z/Z2) (British)
Bratt Designs (Breed) (British)
Digital Illusions (Battlefield 1942) (Swedish)
Elixir Studios (Republic) (British)
Innerloop Studios (Project IGI, IGI2) (Norwegian)
Rebellion (AvP, Gunlok) (British)
Warthog (Starlancer) (British)
It's hard finding this sort of information, but above is a small list of some quality European and British developers that I haven’t mentioned yet.
Thanks for reading (sorry it’s a bit fanboy-ish)
Flux.
A handful of other up and coming FPS games all being worked on by dev teams outside the US such as Chaser, Devastation (which is partly made up of some Japanese developers), S.t.a.l.k.e.r Oblivion Lost and the recently back on track Y-project are all highly promising titles in my eyes but they seem to have gotten little attention to date apart from the odd scattered preview. Why is this? Why don’t we see these games all over the cover of countless magazines or spread all over forums with excited gamers anticipating their release?
The only current Western based title I can even think of that has me excited due to trying to make a substantial difference to just how an FPS is conceived and played is Unreal II. I have always said this and I hope once it is released it lives up to its many promises and that others then follow suit. But does where a title is developed in any way really influence your interest levels during its dev process or if you go out and buy the title upon its release date? EU developers as I see it really are trying to pull something new out of the hat wherever possible but are getting overshadowed by the larger more known developers out there which I think is a crying shame when innovation can come from any part of the world at any given time.
And in this substantially overcrowded genre where such poor games as 007:Nightfire are getting the limelight when they should be covered with a black bin bag and ignored is confusing the hell out of me. Something that is getting very sorely needed no matter where the dev team are based or how extreme their ideas may initially seem is a new slant or a new idea for the genre. Something to finally move it forward. I will in the end commend any that really do make an eventual difference and change the very face of the FPS genre we all know and love. If we just keep an eye on what’s coming from the EU developers aswell as from Western shores it may actually come sooner than we think.
It's something I've often wondered about. I mean, I'd love to edit FPS games for a living, but to be a part of a big studio; I'd probably have to move out to America. To prove my point, the only British FPS studio I can actually think of at the moment is Rebellion (maker of AvP and Dredd vs. Death). Although AvP was a successful game and Dredd is likely to follow suit, the British market for FPS games seems disgustingly overlooked. But let's not forget that highly successful games series' like GTA and Tomb Raider, both of which originated from Great Britain. Hence GTA: London but not GTA: Washington. Or was there something like that released in USA? Anyway. That’s beyond the point. Buy British. I wonder if the Yanks for GTA: London…
Some of the best games ever came from Europe, I mean look at the Czechs – they are pumping out some of the best games ever, we are the country which invented most original games ever, at the time people said that Theme Park was mad, a 3d game about dungeon with FPS combat was mad and game based adult anime about cyborgs with really big guns was mad. Hell even some of the frogs made good games. European stuff is more refreshing to play. Not including "British" in that either. European developers are easily the more innovative and risk-taking of developers, and a lot of 2003's gems are likely to come from Europe.
Out of European developers, it's seems the Eastern European lot are the most promising. They also seem to have an unhealthy obsession with war, but that's no bad thing as Illusion Softworks and Bohemia Interactive gave us the sublime Hidden & Dangerous and Operation Flashpoint respectively, and IS gave us the more recent Mafia too. Westka Interactive (German) were looking promising with Y-Project till they sadly disappeared, and also the innovative GSC Gameworld, also German I believe, who were responsible for Codename Outbreak and Cossacks. And the British have an array of talent too. Bratt Designs (Breed), Wide Games (Prisoner of War), Rage (Hostile Waters) and many other much bigger outfits that have been mentioned, such as the makers of GTA and lets not forget Eidos UK - who have published such games as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Project IGI and Hitman.
What gets me the most is that I’m pretty positive that many of these European dev teams have far less promotion values than the larger US dev teams. I’m not saying that the funding isn’t there or the commitment to making a truly recognisable groundbreaking game I’m just stating that when a new US developed title gears up to release the hype is pretty much felt like a tidal wave. Then by the time the said title is released you’re almost sick of hearing about the damn thing. If someone mentions "The awesome photo-realistic lighting of DOOM III!" one more time I think I’ll be physically sick. EU companies are not really known for this type of fierce marketing deployment (ala EA) and really do let the games they make primarily sell themselves which IMO Stalker: Oblivion Lost is a prime example of. Showing mass amounts of promise and keeping the gaming publics interest with very little hype at all.
All companies know that you can produce the hype but to have a game that actually lives up to the hype upon release is a very rare thing indeed. I admire EU gamers for basically saying "Here is the game we have worked on for 3 years flat out, we like it and are proud of what we achieved and we hope you like it too". Rather than EAs approach "This game will change gaming history forever! Blah de blah". We all search and yearn for that something different in this genre, more interaction with our surroundings and more bonding with the character we will play throughout the game etc. And you can almost be assured that games from the EU developers will strive for that more than US ones who seem merely content with churning out a game with a slightly updated engine and a mediocre title you can complete in a single afternoon.
If we just go out and buy GENERIC SHOOTER X time after time then developers will think that is enough to satisfy us time after time, well we should let them know that for many of us in FPS land this really isn’t the case any longer. Here's a small list of some good European developers just to jog your memory of how we're so much better than the Americans at games.
Appeal (Outcast)
Bitmap Brothers (Speedball, Z/Z2) (British)
Bratt Designs (Breed) (British)
Digital Illusions (Battlefield 1942) (Swedish)
Elixir Studios (Republic) (British)
Innerloop Studios (Project IGI, IGI2) (Norwegian)
Rebellion (AvP, Gunlok) (British)
Warthog (Starlancer) (British)
It's hard finding this sort of information, but above is a small list of some quality European and British developers that I haven’t mentioned yet.
Thanks for reading (sorry it’s a bit fanboy-ish)
Flux.
There have been no replies to this thread yet.
Over the last year or so European developers have really made a great impression on me as a whole by trying to deliver FPS games very different from their Westernised counterparts. It seems to me that Western developed FPS games such as the Medal of Honour series, Unreal based series and anything obviously released from the stables of ID get far too much limelight and promising FPS titles from European developers get left in the dark. Recent titles such as Iron Storm, which I thought was a promising title, have come and gone without almost any impact whatsoever. Was this due to a poorly released title or just due to its less known development origin?
A handful of other up and coming FPS games all being worked on by dev teams outside the US such as Chaser, Devastation (which is partly made up of some Japanese developers), S.t.a.l.k.e.r Oblivion Lost and the recently back on track Y-project are all highly promising titles in my eyes but they seem to have gotten little attention to date apart from the odd scattered preview. Why is this? Why don’t we see these games all over the cover of countless magazines or spread all over forums with excited gamers anticipating their release?
The only current Western based title I can even think of that has me excited due to trying to make a substantial difference to just how an FPS is conceived and played is Unreal II. I have always said this and I hope once it is released it lives up to its many promises and that others then follow suit. But does where a title is developed in any way really influence your interest levels during its dev process or if you go out and buy the title upon its release date? EU developers as I see it really are trying to pull something new out of the hat wherever possible but are getting overshadowed by the larger more known developers out there which I think is a crying shame when innovation can come from any part of the world at any given time.
And in this substantially overcrowded genre where such poor games as 007:Nightfire are getting the limelight when they should be covered with a black bin bag and ignored is confusing the hell out of me. Something that is getting very sorely needed no matter where the dev team are based or how extreme their ideas may initially seem is a new slant or a new idea for the genre. Something to finally move it forward. I will in the end commend any that really do make an eventual difference and change the very face of the FPS genre we all know and love. If we just keep an eye on what’s coming from the EU developers aswell as from Western shores it may actually come sooner than we think.
It's something I've often wondered about. I mean, I'd love to edit FPS games for a living, but to be a part of a big studio; I'd probably have to move out to America. To prove my point, the only British FPS studio I can actually think of at the moment is Rebellion (maker of AvP and Dredd vs. Death). Although AvP was a successful game and Dredd is likely to follow suit, the British market for FPS games seems disgustingly overlooked. But let's not forget that highly successful games series' like GTA and Tomb Raider, both of which originated from Great Britain. Hence GTA: London but not GTA: Washington. Or was there something like that released in USA? Anyway. That’s beyond the point. Buy British. I wonder if the Yanks for GTA: London…
Some of the best games ever came from Europe, I mean look at the Czechs – they are pumping out some of the best games ever, we are the country which invented most original games ever, at the time people said that Theme Park was mad, a 3d game about dungeon with FPS combat was mad and game based adult anime about cyborgs with really big guns was mad. Hell even some of the frogs made good games. European stuff is more refreshing to play. Not including "British" in that either. European developers are easily the more innovative and risk-taking of developers, and a lot of 2003's gems are likely to come from Europe.
Out of European developers, it's seems the Eastern European lot are the most promising. They also seem to have an unhealthy obsession with war, but that's no bad thing as Illusion Softworks and Bohemia Interactive gave us the sublime Hidden & Dangerous and Operation Flashpoint respectively, and IS gave us the more recent Mafia too. Westka Interactive (German) were looking promising with Y-Project till they sadly disappeared, and also the innovative GSC Gameworld, also German I believe, who were responsible for Codename Outbreak and Cossacks. And the British have an array of talent too. Bratt Designs (Breed), Wide Games (Prisoner of War), Rage (Hostile Waters) and many other much bigger outfits that have been mentioned, such as the makers of GTA and lets not forget Eidos UK - who have published such games as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Project IGI and Hitman.
What gets me the most is that I’m pretty positive that many of these European dev teams have far less promotion values than the larger US dev teams. I’m not saying that the funding isn’t there or the commitment to making a truly recognisable groundbreaking game I’m just stating that when a new US developed title gears up to release the hype is pretty much felt like a tidal wave. Then by the time the said title is released you’re almost sick of hearing about the damn thing. If someone mentions "The awesome photo-realistic lighting of DOOM III!" one more time I think I’ll be physically sick. EU companies are not really known for this type of fierce marketing deployment (ala EA) and really do let the games they make primarily sell themselves which IMO Stalker: Oblivion Lost is a prime example of. Showing mass amounts of promise and keeping the gaming publics interest with very little hype at all.
All companies know that you can produce the hype but to have a game that actually lives up to the hype upon release is a very rare thing indeed. I admire EU gamers for basically saying "Here is the game we have worked on for 3 years flat out, we like it and are proud of what we achieved and we hope you like it too". Rather than EAs approach "This game will change gaming history forever! Blah de blah". We all search and yearn for that something different in this genre, more interaction with our surroundings and more bonding with the character we will play throughout the game etc. And you can almost be assured that games from the EU developers will strive for that more than US ones who seem merely content with churning out a game with a slightly updated engine and a mediocre title you can complete in a single afternoon.
If we just go out and buy GENERIC SHOOTER X time after time then developers will think that is enough to satisfy us time after time, well we should let them know that for many of us in FPS land this really isn’t the case any longer. Here's a small list of some good European developers just to jog your memory of how we're so much better than the Americans at games.
Appeal (Outcast)
Bitmap Brothers (Speedball, Z/Z2) (British)
Bratt Designs (Breed) (British)
Digital Illusions (Battlefield 1942) (Swedish)
Elixir Studios (Republic) (British)
Innerloop Studios (Project IGI, IGI2) (Norwegian)
Rebellion (AvP, Gunlok) (British)
Warthog (Starlancer) (British)
It's hard finding this sort of information, but above is a small list of some quality European and British developers that I haven’t mentioned yet.
Thanks for reading (sorry it’s a bit fanboy-ish)
Flux.
A handful of other up and coming FPS games all being worked on by dev teams outside the US such as Chaser, Devastation (which is partly made up of some Japanese developers), S.t.a.l.k.e.r Oblivion Lost and the recently back on track Y-project are all highly promising titles in my eyes but they seem to have gotten little attention to date apart from the odd scattered preview. Why is this? Why don’t we see these games all over the cover of countless magazines or spread all over forums with excited gamers anticipating their release?
The only current Western based title I can even think of that has me excited due to trying to make a substantial difference to just how an FPS is conceived and played is Unreal II. I have always said this and I hope once it is released it lives up to its many promises and that others then follow suit. But does where a title is developed in any way really influence your interest levels during its dev process or if you go out and buy the title upon its release date? EU developers as I see it really are trying to pull something new out of the hat wherever possible but are getting overshadowed by the larger more known developers out there which I think is a crying shame when innovation can come from any part of the world at any given time.
And in this substantially overcrowded genre where such poor games as 007:Nightfire are getting the limelight when they should be covered with a black bin bag and ignored is confusing the hell out of me. Something that is getting very sorely needed no matter where the dev team are based or how extreme their ideas may initially seem is a new slant or a new idea for the genre. Something to finally move it forward. I will in the end commend any that really do make an eventual difference and change the very face of the FPS genre we all know and love. If we just keep an eye on what’s coming from the EU developers aswell as from Western shores it may actually come sooner than we think.
It's something I've often wondered about. I mean, I'd love to edit FPS games for a living, but to be a part of a big studio; I'd probably have to move out to America. To prove my point, the only British FPS studio I can actually think of at the moment is Rebellion (maker of AvP and Dredd vs. Death). Although AvP was a successful game and Dredd is likely to follow suit, the British market for FPS games seems disgustingly overlooked. But let's not forget that highly successful games series' like GTA and Tomb Raider, both of which originated from Great Britain. Hence GTA: London but not GTA: Washington. Or was there something like that released in USA? Anyway. That’s beyond the point. Buy British. I wonder if the Yanks for GTA: London…
Some of the best games ever came from Europe, I mean look at the Czechs – they are pumping out some of the best games ever, we are the country which invented most original games ever, at the time people said that Theme Park was mad, a 3d game about dungeon with FPS combat was mad and game based adult anime about cyborgs with really big guns was mad. Hell even some of the frogs made good games. European stuff is more refreshing to play. Not including "British" in that either. European developers are easily the more innovative and risk-taking of developers, and a lot of 2003's gems are likely to come from Europe.
Out of European developers, it's seems the Eastern European lot are the most promising. They also seem to have an unhealthy obsession with war, but that's no bad thing as Illusion Softworks and Bohemia Interactive gave us the sublime Hidden & Dangerous and Operation Flashpoint respectively, and IS gave us the more recent Mafia too. Westka Interactive (German) were looking promising with Y-Project till they sadly disappeared, and also the innovative GSC Gameworld, also German I believe, who were responsible for Codename Outbreak and Cossacks. And the British have an array of talent too. Bratt Designs (Breed), Wide Games (Prisoner of War), Rage (Hostile Waters) and many other much bigger outfits that have been mentioned, such as the makers of GTA and lets not forget Eidos UK - who have published such games as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Project IGI and Hitman.
What gets me the most is that I’m pretty positive that many of these European dev teams have far less promotion values than the larger US dev teams. I’m not saying that the funding isn’t there or the commitment to making a truly recognisable groundbreaking game I’m just stating that when a new US developed title gears up to release the hype is pretty much felt like a tidal wave. Then by the time the said title is released you’re almost sick of hearing about the damn thing. If someone mentions "The awesome photo-realistic lighting of DOOM III!" one more time I think I’ll be physically sick. EU companies are not really known for this type of fierce marketing deployment (ala EA) and really do let the games they make primarily sell themselves which IMO Stalker: Oblivion Lost is a prime example of. Showing mass amounts of promise and keeping the gaming publics interest with very little hype at all.
All companies know that you can produce the hype but to have a game that actually lives up to the hype upon release is a very rare thing indeed. I admire EU gamers for basically saying "Here is the game we have worked on for 3 years flat out, we like it and are proud of what we achieved and we hope you like it too". Rather than EAs approach "This game will change gaming history forever! Blah de blah". We all search and yearn for that something different in this genre, more interaction with our surroundings and more bonding with the character we will play throughout the game etc. And you can almost be assured that games from the EU developers will strive for that more than US ones who seem merely content with churning out a game with a slightly updated engine and a mediocre title you can complete in a single afternoon.
If we just go out and buy GENERIC SHOOTER X time after time then developers will think that is enough to satisfy us time after time, well we should let them know that for many of us in FPS land this really isn’t the case any longer. Here's a small list of some good European developers just to jog your memory of how we're so much better than the Americans at games.
Appeal (Outcast)
Bitmap Brothers (Speedball, Z/Z2) (British)
Bratt Designs (Breed) (British)
Digital Illusions (Battlefield 1942) (Swedish)
Elixir Studios (Republic) (British)
Innerloop Studios (Project IGI, IGI2) (Norwegian)
Rebellion (AvP, Gunlok) (British)
Warthog (Starlancer) (British)
It's hard finding this sort of information, but above is a small list of some quality European and British developers that I haven’t mentioned yet.
Thanks for reading (sorry it’s a bit fanboy-ish)
Flux.