🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <43fu1f$h...@news.d.umn.edu>, mlar...@ub.d.umn.edu (melanie larson) says:
>
>James Wall (alp...@hunterlink.net.au) wrote:
>: > >Dave
>: > Current release date according to Apogee is "when it's done"
>
>: Hah!  So they're copying from iD _again_?!
>
>: :>
>
>How incredibly true! Sheesh, I'm really getting tired of it!
>
>Imagination please, Apogee. Creativity..
>

Imagination?  Creativity?  They've never heard of such things.  Remember
when they werre "reevaluating their position in the marketplace?"
Apparently they were reconciling themselves to playing second fiddle
to companies like Interplay and Id, whose technology and ideas Crapogee
consistently attempt to rip off.  It took me less than an hour to delete 
that sad piece of ripoff, Nintendoesque shit, Terminal Velocity. They said
it all in their promo for the thing when they said "It's a flying game
without all the boring simulation aspects."  (probably misquoted, but
that was pretty close to what they said.)  Apogee should be developing
console games and releasing them into obscurity, just like all the other
crap publishers.  I really can't say enough bad about Apogee, except that
their people actually have the balls to send me annoyed mail.

I am wondering whether Apogee is a company run by suits (my guess: only
a committee could consistently come so close to the mark and then miss
it by so far) or whether they are a bunch of game programmers who wish
that they were working on business database programs.  

As second-rate software goes, Apogee is king.  ROTT is an advance over
Wolfenstein 3D, albeit a small one, although the nintendo-style rewards
and somehow sanitized violence go a long way toward turning this piece
of... software... into a wanna-be.  Terminal Velocity is like Descent
without the gameplay, the atmosphere, and the excellent AI.  The flying
model in TV is horseshit; the autoleveling makes it seem like you're 
flying a paper-airplane armed with weapons that were rejected from 
Gradius.

I play Descent, the SHAREWARE VERSION for crying out loud, and I come
away from a session exhausted.  The AI pincers you, understands walls,
advances in bounding overwatch, sneaks behind you to unleash a
devastating barrage.  Because of the "boring" simulation aspects of
Descent, we have a game with great complexity and the feeling that
you could improve infinitely as a pilot.

I spent probably 1000 hours or more playing Doom in deathmatch alone.
The AI in Doom is no great shakes, but there's something intensely
visceral about it.  The buildings seem real, oppressive, gothic.
The ability to execute instant mouse snaps gives it, again, a feeling
that there's infinite complexity to the gameplay.  As my friend Chris
says, playing Doom is like playing a musical instrument.  

Where is your heart and soul, Apogee?  When are you going to release
something original with an interesting plot and good gameplay instead
of these ripoffs that somehow miss the heart and soul of the originals?
Why is it that the violence in your games seems somehow unsatisfying and
lacks that gutwrenching feel?  Do you hire playtesters?  Do you listen
to their suggestions or do you listen to the words of your committee
as they tell you how to "leverage your positional advantage in today's
increasingly competitive marketplace?"  You'd better start listening
to *us*, your jaded, cynical, bloodthirsty audience, or you're dead in
the water.

If you want to talk, mail me.

-Jason

hi...@mill2.millcomm.com