[cageface]

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.?

[yareally]

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.