In 1992, the computer games industry consists mainly of role -playing games and quests. Both of them are monstrously oversaturated. Based on officially licensed desktop role systems, they make Eye of the Beholder 2 , The Dark Queen of Krynn And Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny , according to designed independently (and not much different from desktop) – Darklands , ISHAR: Legend of the Fortress And Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen. Graphic quests have not yet realized themselves as an independent form of art – drawn The Dagger of Amon Ra , Daughter of Serpents , The Legend of Kyrandia , King’s Quest 6 , Lure of the Temptress , Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 And Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender live according to the laws of textual adventure, classical detective, fantasy and science fiction. There are separate experiments – KGB , Curse of Enchantia (where there is no text at all), Quest for Glory 3 , Dark Seed , But in general, the genre is still satisfied with a cozy format of a book with pictures where you can move a cursor and choose dialogue branches.
Puzzles are taken outside the quests and issued in a separate casual genre: they come out The Incredible Machine , The Lost Vikings , Gobliins 2. Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis sixteen consoles are owned by the happiest children of the planet: Snes come out Contra 3: The Alien Wars , Street Fighter 2 And Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4: Turtles in Time , On Genesis – Sonic the Hedgehog 2 , ECCO The Dolphin And Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf.
Against this background, few people pay attention to the harbingers of the future, the game-gangs, games-darts and games-worlds: Flashback , Alone in the Dark , Dune 2 And Star Control 2 , Ultima 7 , Ultima Underworld And Comanche: Maximum Overkill. Of the seven of the listed brilliant and revolutionary games, two will be sold normally, one will bring profit to the creators, and only the contemporaries will be appreciated by contemporaries Wolfenstein 3D.
In a stone bag
Richard Garriot and his company Origin Do not have a k Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss practically nothing to do. The development of the game was engaged in a small (4 people) New Hampshire company Blue Sky Productions , led by Paul Newrat – a large fan of the desktop Dungeons & Dragon S, The first to think of crossing role -playing game with a real three -dimensional graphics of air systems. The idea appeared back in 1989, while working on Space Rogue (mixture Elite with classic RPG), in the spring of 1991, Newrat showed all familiar developers and publishers a technical demo version.
Since no one knew how to make a full -fledged “dungeon simulator”, the development was led blindly, to the touch: a combat system, a system of movements and artificial intelligence were redistributed many times. But the most powerful impression was made by a real three -dimensional world, in which you could look up and down, jump, fly, swim … There were abysses, bridges, stairs, lighting, inclined surfaces and real three -dimensional gaming objects besides spiting: doors, benches, Egyptian crosses. The game barely crawled on the super -powerful Intel 486DX processors, the picture was a quarter of the screen. Nevertheless, after discrete RPGs, it seems Dungeon Master And Eye of the Beholder it was a revelation, a completely different game of a completely different genre. In the summer, a contract was concluded with the publisher of Origin, and Garriot invited the developers to transfer the action to the Ultima universe.
In order to confuse the situation even more, shortly after the exit of the Ultima Underworld Blue Sky Productions united with another developer company and became Looking Glass Studios , And to develop the game at the last moment, the experienced producer Warren Spector was invited, who spoke on behalf of Origin for advertising purposes and was accepted for the main designer of the game. Although there was not enough advertising hype: the Underworld, published in March 1992, was sold badly, the publisher practically deprived the game of advertising and lost all interest in Sixvel. In total, half a million copies of Ultima Underworld and the nineties sold and Ultima Underworld 2.
Among the acquaintances of the developers whom Newrat showed technical demo, there were guys from a recently founded company ID Software , carried away by flat arcades. The nineteen-year-old programmer John Karmak really liked what he saw, but he assured that he was able to write a faster and less demanding engine to the iron, sacrificing some non-essential little things (like a third dimension). Two months after Ultima Underworld, Wolfenstein 3D was released.
Wolfenstein 3D levels are primitive, devoid of floor and ceiling, fake lighting, and all corners are straight. There is no NPC, there is no conversation and trade with them, there is no magic, no inventory, no nonlinearity. But commercial episodes of the game (the first episode could be downloaded free of charge from an electronic bulletin board or take on a diset with a dozen other free demo) they bring ID and publisher during the year Apogee Software Stable profit: 250 thousand dollars per month. Is it any wonder that on the basis of Wolfenstein 3D, a whole genre (at the first person) was hastily invented, which over the next two years became the main competitor of the quests and RPG (and soon began to confidently crowd them from the market), and along the path of Ultima Underworld and according to This day no one has gone except Looking Glass Studios?
The facets of the rational
He went out in November Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters – A game comparable to Ultima Underworld both in importance and meager sales. Creators (Paul Reich-Through and Fred Ford from a small company Toys for Bob ) made a game with a minimum budget, and for several months they worked at all without a salary. They were inspired by the work of science fiction writer David Brin and not so much their own cosmic arcade Star Control , how many games out in the late eighties Starflight And Starflight 2. It turned out that the space arcade can be connected to the quest, the quest is with a role -playing game, a role -playing game with a strategy, and that, in turn, with an economic simulator. The original design of ships, hunting resources, space duels and phenomenal music (developers made a competition for the best music paths based on the description of the game) – it's all great, but in the case of Star Control 2, not the main thing.
Before us is the only computer game that more or less believably displays Captain Marlin sister sites a person’s contact with other civilizations. All races Master of Orion (including insectoids and intelligent crystals) suffer from excessive anthropomorphism, they say equally, fight equally, behave like a greedy thick geek strateg even when they are controlled by AI. In the Star Control 2, the speech of reasonable fish is not completely translated due to the lack of suitable terms in the human language, intelligent spiders with tender aspiration recall religious torture, and rational amoebas demonstrate a very specific sense of humor. Even human-like robots, humanoids and slutty green-skinned arrivals in Star Control 2 are somewhat different from classic NF analogues: the races they meet will mutter, demand, beg, be afraid, bargaining, indignant.
All this does not fit into one dry boring word "diplomacy"! Behind each race is a culture, history, inexhaustible fantasy of the authors and exemplary knowledge of the laws of the genre (sufficient to turn it inside out). This is not just borrowing from books, cinema and TV. Without the Star Control 2 genius, we would never see the carefully designed Mass Effect races, and video games would continue to cost space orcs, elves and reasonable octopuses, which the culture is completely replaced by the desire to enslave all earth bases.
Jones and others
The best pure quest of the fruitful 1992 should be recognized Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. The seventh game on the SCUMM engine, created without the participation of Lucasfilm Games stars (Ron Gilbert left the company this year, the star of Tim Schafer has not yet risen), is pleasantly different from the works of Sierra On-Line and other large quest developers for its cinema. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is one of the most dynamic quests in history, there are practically no static pictures there. Even a screensaver – with action elements, controlled. Here you can not only walk, speak and use objects, but also fight, one of the methods of passing the game is a purely combat. This is rather an interactive movie than an interactive book. Details are best to find out by emulator Scummvm ( www.Scummvm.Org ) and in any way the way the acquired copy of the game (we need, of course, a CD version with complete voice acting).
Otherwise, in the industry, unhealthy literature predominates, this is the last year in the history of mankind, when there are more games in books than films in cinema. Legend Entertainment releases a quest Gateway based on the work of Frederick Paul, Tsunami Media – Quest Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch based on the works of Larry Niven, Cryo Interactive – Dune, quest hybrid and strategy based on Frank Herbert’s novel and (to a greater extent) film David Lynch. Westwood Studios , in turn, responds competing Dune 2: The Building of A Dynasty – The world's first real -time strategy, which acquired the Dune license almost by accident (developers were more interested in fortresses, magicians and goblins).
And the most terrible blow to the genres-overgrows is inflicted by Richard Garriot with his Ultima 7: The Black Gate. A very complex quest story about the investigation of ritual murders has superimposed here on the proprietary role of Ultima … But this is not even the point! Typically, the fantasy genre is chosen in order not to come up with anything (everything has already been invented in advance), while Garriot chose the setting of the fantasy Middle Ages and came up with everything there. Not only history and laws, not only a system of magic, but all the smallest household objects and processes – in Ultima 7 you can light candles, play on the harpsichord, rob banks, bake bread, make clothes, manage ships, collect pumpkin, read any book on any book shelf. Such care, such attention to elementary life details does not exist even in modern MMORPG. The change of day and night, NPC, walking in their business according to the daily schedule, a huge world with cities, monsters, dungeons and islands … This is either the largest and largest quest in history, or the most peaceful and obsessed with a million different small objects of RPG. And also – the best game of Garriot and a very symbolic project for 1992.