Shame, they were one of the only publishers willing to take the risk on a new IP.
Sadly, the worst part is not that an adventuresome publisher is no longer with us. The worst part is that all the other publishers will now be that much more afraid of being adventuresome.
The success of saints row exemplifies not only willingness to take on risk, but the importance and value of iteration towards success.
Saints row 1 was largely forgettable, 2 became interesting, and 3 is a sandbox classic, out shining in many ways even GTA IV. The combination of novel ideas and willingness to improve and change is such a crucial combination when developing a product.
I suspect that Saint's Row is most notable for how exceptional it is compared to the rest of THQ's line-up. Not being an Xbox owner, I can't say I've played it, but I'll accept for the sake of argument that it is a truly original game and not just a well-made GTA look-alike.
So even given that, to me the main thing THQ's name brings to mind is the endless stream of games they churned out under licensing agreements with various TV and movie franchises. If I were going to pick a game company to be the poster child for unoriginal cash cows, the maker of all those SpongeBob, Kung Fu Panda and WWF games would absolutely be a top candidate.
Saints Row 3 is also on PC. You can find it cheap during one of the seasonal Steam sales (under 10 dollars recently). Does not take a mega PC to run it either in requirements. If you only roll with Linux or OSX, it's old enough it should run fine with Wine.
It might have some stability issues (I haven't seen anything posted about it with Wine in over a year now though), but if one can get it running, I don't think it would perform that bad.
It would depend on if you wanted it to work with the dx11 graphics or dx9 option. Dx9 is all consoles get so it wouldn't be horrible. The game is also nowhere as graphically impressive as some other PC games (Witcher 2, original Crysis, Deus Ex). Lots of low res textures in it that were not improved when porting from the consoles.
Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but it's a console port at heart and has the side-effects that come from porting it without improving graphically really. It wasn't a game I played for the graphics though and not something to nitpick really.
It's not only the textures that's the problem. Wine's app tracker reports that in 2010, Saints Row 2 would crash on launch. It's possible it runs now, but that doesn't leave Saints Row 3 with a good outlook.
Thankfully EA, Activision or one of the other more cookie cutter publishers did not get ahold of Saints Row and Metro. If they did, each series might as well have died with THQ. I think I would be sick to see Metro or Saints Row turned into a Call of Duty or Medal of Honor knockoff.
EA just is not what it used to be and all my favorite classic franchises (Command and Conquer, C&C Red Alert, Sim City, Syndicate, etc) are just a shadow of what they once were.
You might find it amusing that I considered all those to be from a much less interesting iteration of EA than the one I grew up with, which really did make some classic games:
I played 7 cities (the remake) in the late 90s, but the rest are long before my time or I'm sure I would agree with you on a personal level. 7 cities was fun though and I know M.U.L.E. was a pioneer in the strategy game area.
I didn't have a real PC until I was 11 or so and that was around 1996 (had an NES, Sega Genesis and SNES before that). I did play many of the classic games of the early 90s (original sim city, red baron, panzer general, doom, wing commander, x-wing/tie fighter), but ones from the 80s are kind of beyond my scope, even for an avid PC gamer like me. I could play them now, but not sure if I would be able to appreciate them on quite the same level with the same magic they had when they came out.
I do have one question though for the sake of curiousity. Did you ever lament or rage at the state of pc games in the 90s compared to those in the 80s? Your reply kind of hints at it, but was not sure what your actual point was for sure. I always second guess everything repeating itself, even something like this.
It's hard to completely remove nostalgia from the picture but yes, I do think the best games from the 80s were more creative than what followed. I'm not sure why. Maybe because more limited resources forced developers to focus more on concepts? Maybe because game publishing wasn't yet the risk-averse, well-oiled money making machine it came to be.
I hold out some hope for the new generation of indie game makers but mostly what I see coming from that crowd is platformers of various stripes. Maybe kids today just don't have the attention span for a game like M.U.L.E.?
Yeah, I would agree that it's kind of been diminishing returns for many games out there. I think the strategy games put out by Paradox Interactive are still pretty decent for the most part (Hearts of Iron III and Victoria II especially).
I wouldn't mind seeing a remake of M.U.L.E. if it's done right. Though that would probably be somewhat complicated with the original creator dead and EA probably has all the rights to it still. Have to be independantly developed. I would hate to see what EA would come up with if they tried to put it out.
> EA just is not what it used to be and all my favorite classic franchises (Command and Conquer, C&C Red Alert, Sim City, Syndicate, etc) are just a shadow of what they once were.
The games you quoted were not FROM EA per se, they were mostly from studios acquired by EA which were dissolved soon after they released something worthy of publishing. Sim City was from Maxix, SYndicate from Bullfrog, CC from Westwood. Do not assume developer=publisher.
I'm aware of who developed/published them :). EA is also a developer and not just a publisher. I'd guess as they acquired each one, they became more prominent in the decisions for each franchise as well as hirings of future developers. Westwood and Maxis as far as I can see, ceased to exist when they were acquired and the games they put out shortly after were running on the inertia they had before acquisition.
I played on Westwood's multiplayer servers back in the 90s. EA carried on letting Command and Conquer series be pretty good up until Red Alert 3 (bad) and Command & Conquer 4 (horrible), which were made long after Westwood was absorbed[1]. Even Sim City 4 was pretty good and that was published long after Maxis had been swallowed.
My point was, EA is where good games go to die, regardless of who develops them. It wasn't always that way, but something shifted in the company over the past 10 years. Their current mode of operation is treat PC as a second class platform, recycle instead of create, appeal to the lowest common denominator for marketing[2] and stuff as much social/online interaction as they can with no way to opt out[3].
As someone whose employer just underwent Chapter 11 and a subsequent sale, I hope that the power-jousting, cockfights, backstabbing, and general dumbassery that I experienced will not happen to the members of THQ. The lengths some people will go through for some token of power...
I'm actually quite pleased with that, Sega seems like a good home for Relic. They seem to do ok with The Creative Assembly (Total War games). Homeworld 3 please :)
I agree. It was a bit 'easier' in that there were features like automatically vacuuming up all resources on a map once a mission was complete. The graphics were more modern (not that Homeworld 1 had any problems in that department) and I seem to recall the tech tree being a bit more streamlined? Also a better UI - much more information could be on screen at the same time.
About the automatic resources vaccuming, I preferred the homeworld 1 way, where you could rebuild your fleet at the end of the mission (cataclysm added a much needed time warp).
Still my favorite RTS.
Metro and CoH 2 seems to be safe. Southpark may be in trouble, and Obsidian are in no need of additional trouble right now. And Ubisoft don't know what an RPG is.
Ubisoft wants to buy South Park, but it looks like there may be legal trouble. South Park Studios filed a complaint saying that THQ did not have the legal right to sell South Park as long as South Park Studios reclaims the license by paying the full amount that THQ put into the game.
I think that Ubisoft is a death sentence for any creative studio, and obsidian is that. I thought with the 2004-5-6 Prince of Persia trilogy and Beyond good and Evil that Ubisoft has finally found out how to make great games that are also creative.
But from all of their recent years - they ran Heroes into the ground, from the fabled AC franchise only the ACII is really good, and whatever they ship they manage to make unplayable with the uplay crap.
I hope whomever South Park Studios does bequeath the rights to the game to will treat it nicely. Poor Obsidian, even when they find a publisher who doesn't seem like it will abuse them, the publisher goes under. Perhaps their only friend are the fans, thanks be to Kickstarter.
Metro 2033 is most likely in good hands. The parent company that bought them owns Deep Silver, who published one of the great games of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series[1], which I think Metro pulls from. Random fun fact, but the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game was also published by THQ. Probably why THQ were so interested in Metro 2033, which came shortly after.
Partly to help people find it in their bookshops, but mostly because I'm an anal-retentive pedant, the novel is actually called 'Roadside Picnic' by the Strugatsky brothers.
I hate how people echo Saints Row and Company of Heroes whenever someone mentions THQ. Darksiders and Darksiders 2 (especially the latter) are brilliant games.
Vigil is the part of this that most interests me, and saddens in me in that the current word last I knew was no one had shown much interest in picking the studio up.
My first programming gig was an internship at Vigil Games when I was 20. I had an awesome summer there and worked with some amazing people; hopefully those who were still at the studio will find something soon.
Exactly this! They can essentially start the story for Homefront 2 right where the first one stopped, and with Crytek's track record, it should look amazing as well.
That is, if it's not already deep in development, which I think I remember hearing that it is.
They need to balance the guns somewhat, fix the spawn points and get people playing the DLC maps but otherwise multiplayer is fantastic.
The ability to get additional toys per round is a huge mechanic IMO in replayability.
I also look forward to the improved graphics that Crytek will bring. My only fear is that Crysis from what I have seen feels pretty cold at times so hopefully that does not bleed over.
EDIT: I also don't get why Homefront was so panned by critics. The graphics obviously pale when compared to something like Crysis but like I said, I think they got many aspects of multiplayer very right.
On the grafics part I completly agree with you, crytek games DO look great. Even if they botched it up somewhat with Crysis 2 at the beginning.
Where they have to improve upon actually is the story and gameplay, Crysis 2 was a little disapointing there, I think. Crysis Warhead on th other hand was way better.
Which other publisher would dare take on the offensive, lewd sandbox game like Saint's Row, each sequel just a little more over the top than the last?
In a market full of repetitive sequels, played out plotlines, and annual cash-cows, I'm hoping Koch Media do Volition and Saint's Row 4 justice!