A interview with Sid Meier where he talks about getting access to Microproses legacy titles…
Pirates! ,X-com, Master of Magic, Silent Service, Red Storm Rising, Covert Ops.
All I can say is HOT DAMN!!! :o
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/august02/gencon/meier/index.shtml
Oh My Dear Lord in Heaven…
Yeah, part of me wants to see Sid break now ground and come up with new concepts…
BUT…
If he remakes any of those classics I will be the first to plunk down hard cash for my pre-order at EB.
F-15 Strike Eagle was the very first computer game I ever bought. I played the hell out of it. One of my childhood friends played the hell out of it, and now he’s an F-18 pilot.
And even though Master of Magic and X-Com weren’t his designs… I would LOVE to see what Sid could do with them… especially since those idiots at Hasbro just can’t seem to understand that people have been yearning for a proper X-Com sequel for years. Tripe such as X-Com Interceptor and that X-Com arcade game were just retched.
Okay, Hasbro doesn’t own MicroProse anymore… but it still counts. The idiots at MicroProse/Hasbro/Inforgrames just don’t know what kind of gold mind they’ve been sitting on.
Just what the world needs – a brand new “Floyd of the Jungle” game! :D
It would be nice to see Pirates! updated properly, though, as the folks at Akela seem to have muffed it somewhat. (Pending Sea Dogs II, however.)
I dunno. Yes, a new Sid Meier’s Pirates would be great. But I lost a tremendous amount of sleep over Sea Dogs. Bugs and all, I played through all four character paths. I was completely obsessed for about four weeks.
As ever,
Loyd Case
I take it you’re in the “Pirates” camp vis-a-vis the whole Pirates vs. Ninjas thing.
I don’t really care if Meier does it or not, but I’d love to see a remake of X-COM. Master of Magic would be cool, but we have AOW2 which is close.
I don’t really care if Meier does it or not, but I’d love to see a remake of X-COM.
We really should build a robot to post this sentence every month somewhere on the QT3 forums. It would save so much effort on your behalf.
GameSpy: Would that include your old stuff? Like Pirates, F-15 Strike Eagle, Gunship…
Sid Meier: … Silent Service, Red Storm Rising, Covert Ops. And we’re looking at the other games as well.
GameSpy: Like Master of Magic and X-Com?
Sid Meier: Yes.
GameSpy: You realize Usenet is going to go nuts over that answer.
During the presentation he pointedly name dropped Master of Magic and Pirates several times. He mentioned X-Com a bit too. The crowd clearly was asking him for Pirates though. I’m with them.
From the article:
Soon I got the call: “This is Sid Meier’s wife, we’re here! Can you meet us on the show floor?”
I mean, Sid Meier’s Civilization III I can understand. Even Sid Meier’s SimGolf, but now he’s gone too far…
I’d also like to point out that Firaxis generally does two titles at once. Even if they tend to be staggered. Later in the interview Sid indicated that he’s going to keep breaking new ground (and it won’t be Dinos), but that the next announced game would be something legacy.
Very funny!
True story. I was interviewing FASA’s TJ Wagner at the time. He said to me “Gotta go huh? That your wife?”
“No,” I said, “that was Sid Meier’s wife.”
Huh. I played the demo and didn’t find it very close at all; felt more like HOMM to me.
I don’t think you can have MoM without random maps.
With all the X-Com talk, thought I’d post this quote from Julian Gollop (codeveloper of X-Com) about the plans for Laser Squad Nemesis:
"We are certainly planning to create a version of LSN that has a ‘pseudo-realtime’ option with
short times for turn orders, but this is just another way to play the same game. It doesn’t alter the
fundamental way it works. We will also be creating a single-player campaign game, in which turn
orders are processed by an AI opponent on our game servers. Players will be able to progress
in this game, and get involved in the story line, in a similar manner to boxed retail games. The
difference is that you can’t cheat, and the campaign game will have continuous story lines and
scenarios added as long as people want to play it. We will even produce a ‘campaign editor’ that
will allow players to create their own single-player campaign games with their own story lines.
And we will also have a massively multiplayer game which will have a brand new level of game
play, a meta-game if you like, that links individual battles to the progress of an ongoing galactic
war. We will also have new races, new environments and new scenario types. We will soon
begin developing a fully 3D version of the software, with realistic physics simulation, multiple
levels, and multiple viewpoints. We will continue developing the game as long as people want to
play it, and so far we have been very pleased with the response.
“When we first plannned LSN we wanted to do it because it was the kind of game we wanted to
play. We believed that other people would want to play it too. There is nothing else out there
like LSN, and there never will be. It is unique, and a very valuable contribution to the field of
genuine multiplayer strategy games, which has unfortunately become mired in a never ending
series of RTS clones. The future is definitely looking much more interesting from our point of
view.”
If you haven’t played LSN, do yourself a favor and check it out: http://www.lasersquadnemesis.com/
Huh. I played the demo and didn’t find it very close at all; felt more like HOMM to me.
I don’t think you can have MoM without random maps.[/quote]
They’re not the same type of game. The tactical combat is similar, but not being able to start your own cities and spread out your kingdom that way, plus the irritating nature of the mission-based play leaves MoM in the Civilization/Colonization camp (with the added element of tactical battles) and puts AoW2 in HoMM territory. Which is not to say both AoW games weren’t kind of fun, but they’re nothing to run around crowing about.
/jeep/
You can build new cities in AOW2, though. In that regard, it’s a bit closer to MOM. To me, the game falls inbetween HOMM and MOM.
Don’t forget Covert Ops! That game was pretty cool. I’d like to see that redone. As with Xcom and Pirates!
etc
“GameSpy: Would that include your old stuff? Like Pirates, F-15 Strike Eagle, Gunship…
Sid Meier: … Silent Service, Red Storm Rising, Covert Ops. And we’re looking at the other games as well.”
He didn’t forget.
Uh-oh! I just realized something… his game was called Covert Action! Not ops. I just reviewed my tape, he’s the one who made the mistake. Ah well, it was early in the morning and he had just spent an hour writing “You rock!” on stone paperweights bearing the Civ3 logo for Gen Con weirdos. I had spent an hour watching him do that. Mistakes were made.
Covert Action was seperate from Max Remington, wasn’t it?
Frankly, any of those Golden Age MicroProse titles could be remade. Remember those signature boxes they had? And the thick manuals in each one? Good times, good times.
No, I believe Max Remington was the character you played in Covert Action. I loved that game, still pull it out and install it every once in a while. Simple, but fun. I suppose that’s the essence of a good Sid Meier game.