Games you learned to love. - by gunsmoke
mrle01 on 30/9/2008 at 09:45
Quote Posted by icemann
To quote RetroGamer:
We all remember the first time we played Doom. It's like the assassination of JFK. Everyone knows what they were doing, exactly where they were and what the experience was like.I don't remember the first time I played Doom. Does that mean that's something wrong with me? Should I visit a doctor? Did I kill JFK?
icemann on 30/9/2008 at 11:58
Yes go see a doctor immediately. Not a good sign.
Matthew on 30/9/2008 at 13:49
I have loved System Shock 1 since getting it at the time of release, but I really don't think it would have taken Doom's place in the gaming world's affections if the latter hadn't come out.
As for the media, IIRC SS1 was a bit of a media darling at the time anyway.
Edit: also mrle, do you have memories of a small grassy mound, a knoll if you will?
Neb on 30/9/2008 at 22:58
I only discovered the joy of System Shock earlier this year. I never bothered to check it out because I had heard bad things about the control scheme, along with not really picking up on what was meant to be so great about it.
Randomly I bumped into a gameplay video on youtube, and almost instantly I felt the need to play it. It's now my favourite game and I can't see that changing for quite a while. I didn't expect it to have a greater impact on me than its sequel.
N'Al on 1/10/2008 at 08:34
I felt pretty much the same way when I played System Shock for the first time in 2005 (I believe). It really is a nifty lil game, even with the wonky control scheme.
icemann on 1/10/2008 at 16:53
In my case I played SS1 round the same time that I played Wingcommander 4 for the first time, which was in 1996 I think. A local newspaper agent had it in their bargain games collection for $10 AUS ($12.50 in US dollars approximately). I was a HUGE fan of Shadowrun growing up, so anything with hacking in it at that point in time got an immediate interest from me. Glad I bought it.
I honestly dont think it would have been hugely successful if Doom hadn`t come out though. But whose to say, we cant go back in time and change events to see.
Thirith on 1/10/2008 at 17:58
Quote Posted by icemann
I honestly dont think it would have been hugely successful if Doom hadn`t come out though. But whose to say, we cant go back in time and change events to see.
I'm afraid I don't get what you're saying here. How would
System Shock have had more or less success if
Doom hadn't come out?
june gloom on 1/10/2008 at 23:13
I think I know what he's saying. He's saying that Doom is responsible for System Shock being as successful as it is- if not for Doom bringing the first person shooter to the mainstream, nobody would care about System Shock.
I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. I believe that if Doom had been more like what Tom Hall had envisioned (which was a lot like System Shock, only divided into episodes) then we'd all be sitting around talking about Doom and not System Shock, 15 years after the fact. Likewise, while BlackCapedManX is hopelessly elitist he does have a point- if not for Doom, who's to say System Shock wouldn't have been more successful? Except Doom's popularity wasn't the big problem. It was a factor, yes, but you know what kept System Shock under the radar? Same thing that keeps a lot of games under the radar- not enough advertising.
That said, we have no way of knowing how things would've turned out. The 90s was a big decade for gaming, and the playing field changed all the time.
Lansing on 1/10/2008 at 23:36
Comparing Doom and SS1 will never give a winner - they both pushed boundaries in different ways.
Doom showed how you could cheat technologically (and it did that with extreme finesse) pushing the boundaries of what was expected by engines at the time and killing loads of games with Wolfeinstein engines dead.
System shock was a graphics / physics / game engine that sacrificed speed for flexibility and telling a story. As a whole it pushed the evelope, but in any one area it wasn't as strong as what had gone before.
iD = Warner Bros
LGS = Disney
It's just a shame there isn't a LGSLand (or maybe this is it... :))
june gloom on 2/10/2008 at 00:09
That's a good way to put it. I grew up with Doom, and System Shock was a recent discovery. Well, discovery's the wrong word- I had known of the game's existence but had never actually played it until at least 2002 or so. While I love Doom I don't go through the original maps much anymore; partly because I know most of them like the back of my hand and partly because there's so many pwads out there that are really quite excellent. But System Shock I could go through again and again.
