JEO 23/46
Subject:      Re: The Minter Thing.
From:         Scott Le Grand 
Date:         1997/12/16
Newsgroups:   rec.games.video.atari
It's de novo sphincter tearing time...
Gareth Davies opined
>Iron Soldier - another good game but a little slow; not quite up to the
>standard of the similar 32X game - can't remember the name. Not much
>texture mapping to be seen in it either - scenery is pretty bland.
>Still, as you say, playability is what counts - I don't suppose a 300 >ft
robot is very nippy!
Are you f'ing kidding me?  Metal Head was a 32 bit disaster.  It
creaked at 5 fps, its t-mapping was sub-Wolf3D quality, and it simply
wasn't any fun.  The only game on the 32X which I thought was worth
its snuff was the vastly underrated Shadow Squadron: the last really
fun space game put out by the entire industry IMO...
Iron Soldier is the >ONLY< mech game I've ever enjoyed because it's
the >ONLY< mech game that ever provided that Frankenstein
Junior/Godzilla thrill of running around in a 300 foot robot and
beating up buildings with your bare hands.  Despite tens of millions
of dollars spent on other mech games across every conceivable
platform, no other developer has hit on this simple formula for
success, not even the vastly overrated Miyamoto (checked out Starfox
64?  P U!  I thought Argonaut had suffered an aneurism until I found
out the ugly truth)...
Which brings me to my main point...
>Anyway, back to "The Minter thing." Personally I was underwhelmed by
>Tempest 200 - and the PS version. Not really my type of game to be
>honest although I can appreciate that it was/is an incredibly playable
>game and, with the exception of Doom and Iron Soldier, probably the
>best Jaguar game ever released. The point is that it shouldn't have
>been. It didn't offer much new in terms of graphical effects - video
>feedback was the game's fingerprint.
The Playstation version is to Jaguar Tempest 2000 what Metalhead is to
Iron Soldier: an abortion.  Even Minter said as much (who incidentally
was not even consulted as a playtester).  The difference between the
two editions is exactly the difference between a lone genius hacking a
videogame Mona Lisa and game design by the suits at Interplay, the
same Einsteins who brought us Starfleet Academy and other "I'm not a
bad game, I just play one on your PC" blockbusters.
You freely admit it's not your kind of game. If Iron Soldier and
Tempest 2000 are not your kind of game, I feel we have little common
ground for they are both in my top ten favorites of all time (In no
particular order:  Rescue on Fractalus, Doom, Tempest 2000, Star
Raiders, Iron Soldier, Starfox, Street Fighter II, Discs of Tron,
Stargate, Warcraft II).
Video feedback was a special effect used well in T2K, but the
fingerprint of a Minter game is the John Woo pacing: Much like anyone
can make an action flick and only John Woo can make excessive gunfire
flow like ballet, Minter's games are mind-altering onslaughts that
have only been matched by the likes of a much younger and now
seemingly burned out Eugene Jarvis.
Yeah, Minter has made some stinkers along the way: nobody's perfect,
but when he's on target, he's a god from whom any aspiring designer
can learn...
What I'd really like to see is Minter try his hands at the FPS
genre...
Scott Le Grand
Lead Coder
4Play
Who has realized to his dismay that he really doesn't have a clear
favorite videogame for 1997: this was the year of buggy software
starting with Diablo all the way to Quake 2.  What a lousy
graphics-obsessed year...
Subject:      Re: The Minter Thing.
From:         rjung@netcom.com (Robert A. Jung)
Date:         1997/12/17
Newsgroups:   rec.games.video.atari
  You're certainly welcome to your opinion, but I think you miss the
point -- the reason a lot of people (especially Atarians[*]) like Jeff
Minter's work is BECAUSE he stays rooted in the past.  While other
people are experimenting with first-person exploration graphical
clicking multimedia whoosis, Minter builds his games on the
gameplaying foundations of the "Golden Age" of video games, the simple
and dynamic interplay of a few basic rules.
  A Minter game is not about using the newest texture-mapped
subroutine to make a realist-looking cave and populating it with
lifelike figures, it's about creating a game that blots out needless
distraction, grabs your attention, and doesn't let go until you wake
up from a pixel-blasting daze hours later.  Nifty sights and sounds
are nice, sure, but the most important thing behind Jeff's titles is
the gameplay itself.
  You don't play a Minter game because you want state-of-the-art eye
candy; you play a Minter game because you want to recapture the
lighting-fast adrenaline rush that you used to get with ASTEROIDS or
JOUST...
(* = Long-time Atarians tend to be big Minter fans, IMO, because we
grew up with this kind of uncomplicated gameplay. I suspect that fans
of Jeff's games snap up those "Classics" emulations like cookies. I
know I do... B-)
                                                --R.J.
                                                B-)
Send whatevers to rjung@netcom.com  |   If it has pixels, I'm for it.
"You weren't chosen because you are the best pilot in the Air Force.
You were chosen because you are the class clown and frankly, you're
expendable."
Visit Rob on the web! ------ http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/ 
... > ***THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE*** <
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