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by DanielleMolloy 2416 days ago
The prevalence of the shooter genre is one of the main reasons why I‘ve still got to be embarrassed about this video game hobby outside tech circles (The other main, of course more problematic reason being the visibility of free to play mobile games). Pretentious Guardian views about shooter corridors won’t change that. That’s just a sign of an industry having lost touch with developed art forms. I wish this would change, but big guns / mindless repetitive gameplay / violence / explosions seem to address primal instincts for too many out there.

I’ve heard one of the Commander Keen developers did not like the direction id and gaming was heading with Wolfenstein already. Would be interesting to read a modern day interview with him.

Got mild hopes that streaming will improve things as it won’t only select a market of people who are already very financially committed to this hobby. Very curious about how Stadia will turn out.
1 comments
severine 2416 days ago
I’ve heard one of the Commander Keen developers did not like the direction id and gaming was heading with Wolfenstein already. Would be interesting to read a modern day interview with him.

Perhaps Tom Hall? There's this recent audio interview [1] with him that seems interesting, thanks for the hint!

[1] https://www.devgameclub.com/blog/2018/1/17/dgc-ep-096-tom-ha...

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lisptw102019 2416 days ago
Probably Tom Hall. The breaking point for him was Doom; When you look at the level of interactivity/story in Doom 3, consider that it was 'closer' to his vision for the original than what was released in 1993.

Anachronox is probably the best example of what he thought was a 'proper' game, and while I've never had the chance to play it, I understand it was a very underappreciated gem in it's day.

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severine 2416 days ago
Thanks, I'm having a great time reading about Anachronox!

If you play on Windows, it's $5.39 in GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/anachronox

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paulryanrogers 2416 days ago
Anachronox is great. It has the things I always wanted from Wolfenstein and Doom: story, characters, world building, light RPG elements.
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