You might find it amusing that I considered all those to be from a much less interesting iteration of EA than the one I grew up with, which really did make some classic games:
I played 7 cities (the remake) in the late 90s, but the rest are long before my time or I'm sure I would agree with you on a personal level. 7 cities was fun though and I know M.U.L.E. was a pioneer in the strategy game area.
I didn't have a real PC until I was 11 or so and that was around 1996 (had an NES, Sega Genesis and SNES before that). I did play many of the classic games of the early 90s (original sim city, red baron, panzer general, doom, wing commander, x-wing/tie fighter), but ones from the 80s are kind of beyond my scope, even for an avid PC gamer like me. I could play them now, but not sure if I would be able to appreciate them on quite the same level with the same magic they had when they came out.
I do have one question though for the sake of curiousity. Did you ever lament or rage at the state of pc games in the 90s compared to those in the 80s? Your reply kind of hints at it, but was not sure what your actual point was for sure. I always second guess everything repeating itself, even something like this.
It's hard to completely remove nostalgia from the picture but yes, I do think the best games from the 80s were more creative than what followed. I'm not sure why. Maybe because more limited resources forced developers to focus more on concepts? Maybe because game publishing wasn't yet the risk-averse, well-oiled money making machine it came to be.
I hold out some hope for the new generation of indie game makers but mostly what I see coming from that crowd is platformers of various stripes. Maybe kids today just don't have the attention span for a game like M.U.L.E.?
Yeah, I would agree that it's kind of been diminishing returns for many games out there. I think the strategy games put out by Paradox Interactive are still pretty decent for the most part (Hearts of Iron III and Victoria II especially).
I wouldn't mind seeing a remake of M.U.L.E. if it's done right. Though that would probably be somewhat complicated with the original creator dead and EA probably has all the rights to it still. Have to be independantly developed. I would hate to see what EA would come up with if they tried to put it out.
I didn't have a real PC until I was 11 or so and that was around 1996 (had an NES, Sega Genesis and SNES before that). I did play many of the classic games of the early 90s (original sim city, red baron, panzer general, doom, wing commander, x-wing/tie fighter), but ones from the 80s are kind of beyond my scope, even for an avid PC gamer like me. I could play them now, but not sure if I would be able to appreciate them on quite the same level with the same magic they had when they came out.
I do have one question though for the sake of curiousity. Did you ever lament or rage at the state of pc games in the 90s compared to those in the 80s? Your reply kind of hints at it, but was not sure what your actual point was for sure. I always second guess everything repeating itself, even something like this.