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TerminILL
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Post by TerminILL »

man what if iD created TUIT instead of going on to revolutionise and pretty much launch the FPS genre.

who else here would be thankful, huh? Huh? :D
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Grimson
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Post by Grimson »

also, as of now, the platformer genre is dying. It does not have the influence of the 2D days when everyone and their dog was creating a Mario clone. Now consoles like the Xbox have first person shooters as their flagship titles. So if the platformer genre died out sooner? Maybe both of the companies would have shifted their focus. Just maybe.
This genre has much potential. Shame if it's degrading.
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Commander Spleen
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Post by Commander Spleen »

the platformer genre is dying
In terms of its pursuit, perhaps. But definitely not in terms of its potential. There has always been so much left unexplored in this genre.
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Lava89
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Post by Lava89 »

@Grimson and Spleen: I completely agree. I mean, we're just scratching the surface with games like Mario Galaxy (anti-gravity), Sonic Unleashed (speed) and LittleBigPlanet (user created content and physics-based levels, from what I've seen).

But sadly, platformers are just not considered relevant by most companies. A trend that was, in a way, started by id software (though I don't blame them for killing the genre).

Two of the biggest consoles at the time of the early 90's had platformers as their flagship games. Now it's treated almost like a niche' genre.
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VikingBoyBilly
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Post by VikingBoyBilly »

Yeah I really wish mario 64 was designed like Croc and Crash Bandicoot. Those games showed that even fully 3d they could play similarly to the sidescrollers of old. Then in Croc 2 and Crash Bandicoot 2 they started going into the mario 64-ish central-hub-design route and it was bitterly disappointing.

But to be fair they kinda ripped off other games. Croc had floating boxes with question marks on them AND a health system that was about collecting gems and dropping them all when you get hit :dopekeen. Crash's levels and world map kinda felt similar to Donkey Kong Country in a way..
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Lava89
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Post by Lava89 »

VikingBoyBilly wrote:Yeah I really wish mario 64 was designed like Croc and Crash Bandicoot. Those games showed that even fully 3d they could play similarly to the sidescrollers of old. Then in Croc 2 and Crash Bandicoot 2 they started going into the mario 64-ish central-hub-design route and it was bitterly disappointing.
Well, I am glad that they made Mario 64 the way it was in terms of hub worlds. It gave the genre a new definition and new ways of playing the games.

I just didn't like the fact that games after it didn't try as hard to come up with new ideas and just copied what Mario 64 did. Mario 64 should've been more like a experiment, not a "set in stone way" of making 3D platformers.

Thankfully Sonic and Crash had their own methods on how to access the levels. While what you said is true in that Crash 2 did have more of a hub design. It was much more functional, as opposed to Mario where the exploration of the hub was part of the challenge. The hub in Crash 2 (and 3) just gave you more choices as to what you wanted to play at the time. And the levels that you actually played were much more linear than Mario 64's.

Then you take Sonic Adventure, which did have an "adventure field" \ hub. You could explore this field, but each level had to be completed in order. It wasn't like Mario 64 where you could play earlier levels to progress through the game. And then like Crash 2 & 3, Sonic Adventure had very linear levels. Sonic Adventure 2 took linearity to the next step where each level came right after each other, without a "hub" world.

Yeah, the Crash 1 map was very much like DK Country.
VikingBoyBilly wrote:But to be fair they kinda ripped off other games. Croc had floating boxes with question marks on them AND a health system that was about collecting gems and dropping them all when you get hit :dopekeen. Crash's levels and world map kinda felt similar to Donkey Kong Country in a way..
Yeah the premise of Croc and Crash (especially Crash) being anthropomorphic animals stemmed from the trend set by Sonic. I'd say Crash has some of the most similarities. With his nemesis being a human scientist, that is trying to distort his animal friends.

But then Sonic paid Crash back by having crates in Sonic Adventure 2 (which did NOT fit Sonic's world at all).
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