First post, by leileilol
- Rank
- l33t++
Inspired by this and this account (which is more hardware/art than software) I thought about making a list of software that would be matching aesthetically.
It's a little broad and hard to define being a brief "it's the future!!!" period at the turn of the millenium, but you'll know it when:
- Thick round plasticy edges, (transparent plastic if you're lucky), an attempt to look like a pre-G4 iDevice
- Use of light gray with another color, like burgundy, aqua, lime, etc.
- Scanlines, mainly with hues of turquoise, blue or purple (rather than green or amber because that'd imply vintage)
- Softer/chill DnB being more likely (where background music is applicable)
- Striking shapes, half-tones, other patterns
- Certain 'future' typefaces, such as Aero
- No busy gritiness at all, a uniform look
- Probably other things i've forgot about, like gratuitous hexagons
Games:
Battlezone II - for the very blue hud, the very cool hued environments and the color schemes and how the models generally look.
Clusterball - It looks metallic and sportsy and you fly around to pick up colored "BALL!"s. Shiny environment maps on yourself give off plastic impressions
Cosmic Smash - Stylish Dreamcast/Arcade breakout game where you play transparent plastic man in flat looking future train station with chill music.
Deus Ex - should go without saying for the menu/hud and some Michiel Van Den Bos pieces.
Locus - Crap, but ahead of its time in the aesthetic department (1995)
Phantasy Star Online - of course i'm putting this on the list. Look around Pioneer 2 architecture. Go to the mines. Stare at the notWhoWantsToBeAMillionaire UI. The original DC/PC releases in particular, as Blue Burst changes alot of it for a more generic cyan round stuff from the Gamecube version.
Quake III Team Arena - Note I said TEAM arena! The menu system is pretty much this. It's a striking contrast from the edgy red industrial look of the base game.
Ricochet - 😀
Red Alert 2 - Ingame UI looks like a TV's remote control, the colors, the sets and the voice acting are corny to match.
Anything The Design Republic has done (Wipeout, Wipeout 2097, Hardwar, but especially Wip Three Out)
Apps:
NeoPlanet - It's pretty much an IE5 shell that's skinned with some sponsor gimmicks. The default skin is very much designed with this aesthetic. (the skin site for it has long died)
Netscape 6 - Apologies if this sets off bad memories of their downfall but this crap applies here too 🙁
TV card software - like Haupaugge!'s WinTV2000 and 3dfx's 3dfx TV
WINAMP - not winamp itself by default, but some of the skins for it apply.
PlayCenter 2.0 - 1.0's more like WinAMP, 2.0 tries for a more devicey look. The accompanying LAVA! visualizer as well
Windows Media Player 7 - Some of the default skins definitely do apply. This was Microsoft's answer to get at Apple's Quicktime 4 after all.
Windows Whistler - Watercolor was more like this than Luna was.
Other:
PC gaming magazine coverdisc frontends: ALL PCAccelerator on-disc frontends, 00-01 PCGamer flash-based frontends,, mid00-01 "Lifelike" George "fucking" Jones-era CGW frontends