xcomcmdr wrote on 2020-06-09, 17:43:

Shagittarius wrote on 2020-06-09, 14:19:

So yes Resident Evil was a successor, or as I would call it, a rip-off. I'm not using that in a negative tone, just that they exactly copied the formula of the genre defining original.

A rip-off that has nothing to do with it (no usage of Lovecraft anywhere) apart from some mechanics/gameplay elements ? What kind of rip-off is that ?

Also, the designer of Bioahazard said he never knew of Alone in the Dark.

I played Alone in the Dark when it came out. When Resident Evil came out I thought , "How smart, they made a clone of Alone in the Dark. Great, that design deserves more iterations." It's starting to sound like your first exposure to gaming might have been on a Playstation, the way you are defending Reisdent Evil, there's no need, games take inspiration from everywhere, they are both great games, its just that Resident Evil owes its very existence to Alone in the Dark.

Also complete bull he never knew of alone in the dark, haha, too funny. If he never played an important game like Alone in the dark 3 years before he released Resident Evil, then he's not much of a game designer for not being interested in it to begin with.

And on a final note: Games are about Mechanics and Gameplay, not settings and story, so a game rip-off is always about gameplay and mechanics. How many copies of Dooms story have there been? A ton, but its the mechanics that are adjusted and changed and evolve.

Actually it was on PC with Alone in the Dark, but that's irrelevant. Edit 2 : And I'm French, so if anyone in this thread would say "RE totally lifted everything for our AITD !" that would be me first. Yet, I don't.

I'm not defending anything. But the two games are too far appart in their approaches to horror themes, so I still don't buy it.

Edit : Also, mechanics are not always copied, they can also be discovered side by side.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2020-06-09, 17:53:

Actually it was on PC with Alone in the Dark, but that's irrelevant. And I'm French, so if anyone in this thread would say "RE totally lifted everything for our AITD !" that would be me first. Yet, I don't.

I'm not defending anything. But the two games are too far appart in their approaches to horror themes, so I still don't buy it.

Both games even had a monster bursting through a window in the first 15 minutes of gameplay. They both have zombies , and maybe zombie dogs but I'm not sure of what that thing that bursts through the window in alone in the dark is...

Im not saying Resident Evil didn't expand on the concept, just that it is an evolution of that design.

I mean, I find it a bit strange to choose to believe in this despite the lack of evidence outside of mere coincidences in the games themselves, and yet to negate the quote above with a hand wave.

I think that the technical limitations at the time lead to a similar set of solutions / game designs indenpendantly if the japanese Game Designer is to be believed.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2020-06-09, 18:01:

I mean, I find it a bit strange to choose to believe in this despite the lack of evidence outside of mere coincidences in the games themselves, and yet to negate the quote above with a hand wave.

I think that the technical limitations at the time lead to a similar set of solutions / game designs indenpendantly if the japanese Game Designer is to be believed.

There's no way the game wasn't designed with the Alone in the Dark concept in mind. Not a chance, they weren't developed side by side, Resident Evil is the perfect dev cycle (of the time period) after Alone in the Dark. There's nothing wrong with Resident Evil copying Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil is the better game, but it certainly was a copy, or tribute, or rip-off, or whatever you prefer to call it.

Anyways, We should move to a more appropriate thread if we want to continue this conversation...we've derailed the original purpose for a while now, sorry.

Shinji Mikami said it himself in an interview https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2014/10 … 00_4408996.html

His original prototype was a first person shooter to avoid having to display to the player's character and only focus on enemies and decor in 3d, he wasn't satisfied with the results. He played Alone in the Dark and found the fixed camera system better.

I'd call that first monster a gargoyle...

Ah, now that's a proper source. Thank you !

No to mention there were other various copy cats before RE hit the streets as well. Ecstatica to name one. Not horror, but same type of gameplay.

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-06-09, 06:51:

Tried the original RTS Warcraft (not the modern MMO), and I'm not going to judge it poorly, but going to such a basic game after playing more modern titles like Starcraft, Red Alert 2, Planetary Annihilation, etc... It feels so weird.

I suspect, reading previous posts, that Tomb Raider is the same way.

Warcraft 1 - even Warcraft 2 in many ways, aged pretty badly, compared to conteporaries such as Command & Conquer and War Wind. The best you can say about Warcraft 1 is that its GUI is less clunky than Dune II. It doesn't have half the charm and fun though.

liqmat wrote on 2020-06-09, 16:50:

Yeah, pretty much everyone I knew was playing Alone In The Dark on its release here in the U.S. No one had seen anything like it before. Lost a bit of sleep on that one.

This. Resident Evil was a mediocre Alone in the Dark rip-off.

AITD didn't age well compared to RE. Its 3D was embarrassing compared to RE. It has a lot of very cheap deaths, too.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-06-10, 06:59:

Warcraft 1 - even Warcraft 2 in many ways, aged pretty badly, compared to conteporaries such as Command & Conquer and War Wind.

Agreed. I have recently replayed the original Command & Conquer and Red Alert without any issues. I then tried WarCraft 1&2 and just couldn't get past the clunky UI.

The Battle.net edition of WarCraft 2 is supposedly a bit better in this regard, but I haven't had a chance to test that yet.

xcomcmdr wrote on 2020-06-10, 07:15:

AITD didn't age well compared to RE. Its 3D was embarrassing compared to RE. It has a lot of very cheap deaths, too.

No shit. One of them was released in 1992 on 386/486 hardware and the other in 1996 on 3D accelerated graphics hardware.

I'm finishing off warcraft1 now and i think it aged well. Very playable and excellent midi music. It has an extremely simple interface compared to later rts games, but simple can be a virtue in this genre. IMO the only games that aged badly are early polygonal 3d games and early car racing games. Early flight sims aged pretty well ironically because their bad graphics roughly match the actual detail the human eye can discern from 30,000feet, and the mission design is often excellent and supported by thick manuals and paper maps. I am not aware of many games that were considered excellent in the day but then said to age poorly, usually these games were considered pretty bad back in the day but were excused because they were pushing the limits of what pcs of the day could do.

Good job : you didn't realize that I was comparing them for what they offer today, and for ignoring the second part of that comment.

Peak VOGONS right there.

my no-name CRT just bit the dust so I switched to a Dell Ultrasharp 1704FPV monitor. It's 4.3 aspect ratio and looks decent with retro PC graphics.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2020-06-10, 07:39:

I then tried WarCraft 1&2 and just couldn't get past the clunky UI.

The Battle.net edition of WarCraft 2 is supposedly a bit better in this regard, but I haven't had a chance to test that yet.

I had the same experience with Dune II. Absolutely loved it back in the day. Tried playing it within recent memory and I could barely tolerate the UI. In the end, when you have nothing to compare it to, ignorance is bliss I suppose.

Dune II is a mess compared to C&C.

Dune Dynasty finally fixes it.

Received one of these for my Commodore VIC-20 today -

That pic I grabbed from Google images, the one I received has a torn & coffee-stained sticker that I'll clean up a bit (the torn bit is inside the cartridge slot, so doesn't matter). But otherwise it's working as intended.

It came with no instructions, so I had to figure out what each toggle switch did - which was pretty straightforward. For my usage purposes, I'm just going to leave it set to the full 32KB and only toggle the middle switch if I want to run a game requiring 3KB RAM. CBM FileBrowser handles the rest, so no need to mess with switches 1 & 3.

I've been testing out & playing loads of games, mostly cartridge-based games. Nice ports of Donkey Kong, Pac-Man & Moon Patrol. Never thought I'd enjoy the VIC-20 so much!

Also got the external RF adapter for the VIC-20, the seller included it with the expansion card. Nice bonus, works well and is nice to have, though I'm using Composite output instead

Windows9566 wrote on 2020-06-10, 08:15:

my no-name CRT just bit the dust so I switched to a Dell Ultrasharp 1704FPV monitor. It's 4.3 aspect ratio and looks decent with retro PC graphics.

F

may you enjoy the ancient office LCD until you need to replace the capacitors x3

Finished and tested my DIY adlib clone.

Worked first time 😀

Not bad bearing in mind the only soldering I have done in the last 20 years was to desolder a couple of varta batteries and change a tantalum cap.