Adrian's Opinions

A quick discussion with the other members of Team ARP revealed the general feeling that the game industry is somewhat flooded with 3D first-person shooters. Whatever happened to the good old RPGs and adventure games? It has also been quite a long time since the last release of a major flight / space simulator.

Adrian felt that there is way too much emphasis on first person shooters these days. In his own words :

“I long for the old days when there was a wide range of games. From strategy to adventure, RPGs and of course, flight simulators!

"In those days, gameplay was far more important than graphics. Of course, one can argue that graphics capabilities were limited in those days, forcing them to concentrate on gameplay instead. In that case, I would rather go for lousy graphics and better gameplay.

"Remember the original Civilization? I was playing it even after Civ II and Civ III came out. A truly superb game. Nothing to boast about in graphics but superb gameplay.

"Also, remember adventure games like Under A Killing Moon or The Pandora Directive from the Tex Murphy series? Albeit using relatively low quality (but innovative) video and simulated 3D graphics, the game play was... superb. It was something different. Something unique. And very memorable.

Tex Murphy's Under A Killing Moon

"What about flight simulators? I used to be a big fan of flight simulators, flying everything from the Apache to the Eurofighter.

"And remember X-Wing and TIE-Fighter? Man.. Those were the days!

"IMHO, the eye candy in games these days is most remarkable. But I think many game developers have kind of lost the innovative spirit that revolutionized PC gaming in the old days.”