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Favorite Game Developers
Topic Started: Jun 20 2012, 07:21 PM (163 Views)
CallUpChuck
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We talked a little about the game developers and publishers we hate, but I haven't read any discussions about the ones we liked. My favorites would be:

Bethesda - Elder Scrolls and Fallout
Square Enix - Everything they do is awesome! Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest
Blizzard - Diablo, Diablo 2, Warcraft 2 & 3 and Starcraft
Bungie - Maybe this love will transfer to 343i, but we shall see
Dice - Love me some Battlefield. Actually a company I don't mind being under EA
Ensemble Studios - Age of Empires and Age of Mythology
Cavedog Entertainment - short-lived company that made one game, Total Annihilation. This company was also based in Bothell, which is about a 15 minute drive from where I live.
Valve - Half-life and the Source engine. Also founded in Kirkland, Washington where I'm from.
Westwood Studios - Started the Command & Conquer series until... EA came in. Although I still like the games in the C&C series, the development is everywhere. Who do I even give credit to?
BioWare - KotOR, Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Again, EA stuck their c**k in and tried to change things.

There's probably more, but that's all for now.
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porottaja
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In addition to your list:

Insomniac Games - Spyro (1, 2 & 3), Ratchet & Clank series
Naught Dog - Crash Bandicoot (1, 2, 3 and Racing), Uncharted series
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Deadpool Psycko
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Bear in mind that quality is in the eye of the beholder. Success isn't determined by your like for it. If they sell a product and continue to seel products, that's success. Mainly b/c of my first on the list (also, this is in NO particular favoritism order)


Activision - Reason? They've brought some of my favorite childhood fantasies to life.

Ubisoft - Rarely have they failed to impress me. They should change their name to Immersion Inc. One of the top dogs of Open World games.

VALVe - While most of The Orange Box didn't grasp me, I fell in love with the uniqueness of Portal(s) and the L4D series.

Rockstar - The company that put open world gaming on the mainstream level as well as not afraid to add controversy to their titles.

Ensemble Studios - RTS glory

EA Redwood - EA hitting a rare high note with the quality of Dead Space




Team Ico - Probably the most vivid in taking two unlikely pairs and building a bond between them.

Quantum Dream - From what I remember of Indigo Prophecy was only enhanced with Heavy Rain. The Kara demo is absolutely stunning.

High Moon Studios - Took the Transformer franchise and put it in the top realms of 2010's releases. Flawed but the reception from the upcoming sequel AND their improvement of the Movie Adaptation genre (DOTM) was impressive.
Edited by Deadpool Psycko, Jun 20 2012, 09:03 PM.
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Enfinit
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In order:

1. Valve. Everything they make is a masterpiece. Every. Single. Game; an example of what gaming and developing should be.
2. Bungie. The philosophy under which they create their games is inspiring and awesome, from Pathways Into Darkness (my first PC game!) to Halo, every game has been amazing.
3. Rockstar North. The Grand Theft Auto Series are amongst the most fun games I've ever had the pleasure of playing from a kid to an adult.
4. Square Enix. Two words: Kingdom Hearts. My favorite video game series of all time.
5. 343 Industries. From what I've seen coming in Halo 4, to how they're handling press, to CEA (as well as knowing a number of its employees), I've been nothing but impressed.

Honorable mention: Halfbrick Studios. I cannot stop playing their mobile games! Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride are a pleasure to play.
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Braythor
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I am totally in agreement with Poro re Insomniac, they create awesome games.
Square Enix is up there for me too.
For contributing massively over the years to my gaming joy and to the industry as a whole, Psygnosis (now known as SCE Liverpool, which is a shit name).
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ASLANS R0AR
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Don't have a lot to add, but want to second the mentions to Bungie, Valve and 343 (with cautious optimism for the latter as they are yet to be proven).

Also, have to say that I'm not too favorable toward Ubisoft after having to wait for something like 8 months for a critical patch for Far Cry 2! (it wouldn't save any more progress once you got past 50%, and it's a very time consuming open-range game; gamers were furious!)
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KouMoady243
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Rare - Back in the good ol' days of N64!
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Deadpool Psycko
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ASLANS R0AR
Jun 20 2012, 09:50 PM
Don't have a lot to add, but want to second the mentions to Bungie, Valve and 343 (with cautious optimism for the latter as they are yet to be proven).

Also, have to say that I'm not too favorable toward Ubisoft after having to wait for something like 8 months for a critical patch for Far Cry 2! (it wouldn't save any more progress once you got past 50%, and it's a very time consuming open-range game; gamers were furious!)
Things like this kind of sadden me.

Yes, I understand frustration but do you write off the entirety of, say, McDonalds if someone finds a chicken neckbone in their nuggets? I don't think you should blame the entire company for one games areas of mistakes.

I've mentioned numerous times that their reaction and improvement of the Assassin's Creed engine after the firsts was a clear sign that they DO care about their fans. I'm no coding/tech expert. Hell, I'm surely still within the novice realm but I'm sure sometimes these things aren't a few taps of the keyboard and VOILA! Patch Created! Again, that's just my thoughts on it. Look at how long Bungie/343 took to fix their so-called issued complaints?

They're the 4th biggest company in the industry and well within reason. Their library of games is impressive to say the least and they do crank out stellar titles more often than most. Another point is I brought up which is my initial reason is I love being immersed in a game.

And come on? I don't think you can necessarily take animosity towards a company that made THIS

Posted Image

:rofl:
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ASLANS R0AR
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Deadpool Psycko
Jun 21 2012, 02:08 PM
ASLANS R0AR
Jun 20 2012, 09:50 PM
Don't have a lot to add, but want to second the mentions to Bungie, Valve and 343 (with cautious optimism for the latter as they are yet to be proven).

Also, have to say that I'm not too favorable toward Ubisoft after having to wait for something like 8 months for a critical patch for Far Cry 2! (it wouldn't save any more progress once you got past 50%, and it's a very time consuming open-range game; gamers were furious!)
Things like this kind of sadden me.

Yes, I understand frustration but do you write off the entirety of, say, McDonalds if someone finds a chicken neckbone in their nuggets? I don't think you should blame the entire company for one games areas of mistakes.

I've mentioned numerous times that their reaction and improvement of the Assassin's Creed engine after the firsts was a clear sign that they DO care about their fans. I'm no coding/tech expert. Hell, I'm surely still within the novice realm but I'm sure sometimes these things aren't a few taps of the keyboard and VOILA! Patch Created! Again, that's just my thoughts on it. Look at how long Bungie/343 took to fix their so-called issued complaints?

They're the 4th biggest company in the industry and well within reason. Their library of games is impressive to say the least and they do crank out stellar titles more often than most. Another point is I brought up which is my initial reason is I love being immersed in a game.

And come on? I don't think you can necessarily take animosity towards a company that made THIS

Posted Image

:rofl:
I'm not writing Ubisoft off - just a bit more cautious with them in the future, maybe wait a while to buy a game to see if there are any problems, and if so, if they've taken care of them yet (but that's just me)
Edited by ASLANS R0AR, Jun 21 2012, 04:40 PM.
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Deadpool Psycko
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Oh come on, that could be ANY developer!
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ASLANS R0AR
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And to be fair, the glitch was so bad, that it speaks to their probably releasing a game before it was ready, at least in that case.
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Deadpool Psycko
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A saving glitch would be a monster of a problem, I agree. I'm just one to fall in line with "shit happens". As I said with coding and stuff, when it comes to save files and stuff, I'm sure they have to handle those delicately with the probability of further loss of data. The one thing I appreciate about games, regardless of their flaws, is that they have something that movies and such don't. They DO get attended to for their "mistakes" ie glitches and such.

But that's just me and my "Looking from all ends of the table" personality.
Edited by Deadpool Psycko, Jun 21 2012, 04:53 PM.
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ASLANS R0AR
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Granted, it may be more complex than I realize to fix such things.

LOL - I just imagined what level of uproar there would be if when Halo 4 came out you could only play through half the campaign, because it wouldn't save progress anymore and you had to wait 6mos to return to it after it was patched! It would kill the new Trilogy, to be sure and 343 would go down as a big time failure! I have full confidence this won't happen, just amusing to imagine.
Edited by ASLANS R0AR, Jun 21 2012, 05:20 PM.
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Deadpool Psycko
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Hahaha couldn't agree more. They've been ebbing back and forth with fans with how they handle the updates on Reach. I'm personally not a fan of it. It changes too often for something that was established As Is for over a year. Doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy the game any less...but it's like putting an entirely different kind/shaped toilet seat in the bathroom every month. There's going to always be some unnecessary, constant adjustment.
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ASLANS R0AR
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Deadpool Psycko
Jun 21 2012, 05:27 PM
Hahaha couldn't agree more. They've been ebbing back and forth with fans with how they handle the updates on Reach. I'm personally not a fan of it. It changes too often for something that was established As Is for over a year. Doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy the game any less...but it's like putting an entirely different kind/shaped toilet seat in the bathroom every month. There's going to always be some unnecessary, constant adjustment.
I would love to be rich and eccentric and change out my toilet seats every month :)
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Deadpool Psycko
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:madcow:

You sir, are mad
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Enfinit
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ASLANS R0AR
Jun 21 2012, 04:45 PM
And to be fair, the glitch was so bad, that it speaks to their probably releasing a game before it was ready, at least in that case.
That's an issue with large developers that have a variety of franchises to manage, something (like the Far Cry patch) may become over looked, and a fix might take a while because support for the franchise after release is shortened.

I can see where Deadpool's coming from with the "shit happens" approach, but when it comes to a franchise you drastically care about, and a bug that drastically alters playing the game, you'd expect Ubisoft to make it a top priority instead of going the whole "Well, the game's out and they already bought the game. We can take a little time rolling this patch out because we already made our money" approach.

Ubisoft tends to do excellent work on their larger franchises, however the smaller ones (i.e. Assassin's Creed compared to Far Cry) often get neglected. After the Far Cry debacle, I have to admit I lost some respect for them. But then again, they're a huge gaming corporation; they're not expected to have souls.

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Deadpool Psycko
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Don't worry Aslan, I still think you're neat :)
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ASLANS R0AR
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Deadpool Psycko
Jun 21 2012, 06:49 PM
Don't worry Aslan, I still think you're neat :)
Phew, I'll sleep better tonight knowing that! ;)
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Scruff 815
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Genuinely don't have a favourite game developer.

You're welcome. Glad I could enrich your day by your reading this post.
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