Most Comsistently Great Game Companies...

[AFN: Judge Shred]

Jak Combat Racing.

And to this day it shocks me how freaking good that game is.

[Baixo Astral]

Jan 3, 2011 14:01:08 GMT -5 Red Impact said:

Nintendo did license all those horrible educational and CD-i games, even if they may have had little input on it.

Bethesda has had bad games, like the fairly cheaply made IHRA drag racing games and the Home Alone game. They also had a lot of Terminator franchise games, but I haven't really heard anything about those.

Naughty dog had some early flops (Way of the Warrior, Rings of Power) as well as Jak Combat Racing. It also had Uncharted 1 which, frankly, I didn't think was that good overall.

Sucker Punch has a really good track record, although I think inFamous could have been so much better than it was.

Rockstar has had some less than stellar games. Earthworm Jim 3D was really, well, unspectacular (and their only Earthworm Jim game). They also had some cheap Austin Powers games. However, as of late, they really have been on fire.

I would nominate Team Ico, but since they only have 2 games, that seems like cheating.

You silence your dirty talk! I spent hours upon hours playing RoP, drinking Tab Clear and listening to "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)"

And somewhere out there, my friend Kirsten still has a Rings of Power fansite.

[shadowangel]

I wouldn't name big companies, because greatness certainly doesn't mean "5000 play it safe but boring and uninspiring"sequels. A problem most of these companies have. Especially Rockstar who after their Table Tennis Game basically returned to "GTA Style".

The greatest companies were those that died because people rather bought the newest graphic demo or the newest EA Sports Sequel.
Looking Glass, Troika, Ion Storm - those were great companies making awesome and innovative games.
Today? Bioware is ok, but since they're together with EA you can basically see how their creativity dropped a lot (Play Baldurs Gate and compare that to the Third Person Shooter called "RPG" Mass Effect)
Creatively the best and therefore greatest companies are the small independent companies that try to make something creative like Klei Entertainment who made Eeets and Sugar Rush
Well i also name Katauri because King's Bounty: The Legend and Armoured Princess are awesome games.


And because Bethesda got named: How many good games have they made? Terminator, Terminator SkyNet, Terminator Future Shock, Wayne Gretzky Hockey 2 and 3 and...well that's about it (and all sequels). Most overrated company in this world, because Oblivion and "Fallout" 3 (It breaks my heart seeing what happened to a once great, awesome series of games - if only Black Isle had survived and made the real Fallout 3 ) were nothing but "look at our graphics, wander around and trust us, we won't challenge you with a boring video game"-crap.

[Allie Kitsune]

Jan 3, 2011 15:40:06 GMT -5 shadowangel said:

I wouldn't name big companies, because greatness certainly doesn't mean "5000 play it safe but boring and uninspiring"sequels. A problem most of these companies have. Especially Rockstar who after their Table Tennis Game basically returned to "GTA Style".

The greatest companies were those that died because people rather bought the newest graphic demo or the newest EA Sports Sequel.
Looking Glass, Troika, Ion Storm - those were great companies making awesome and innovative games.
Today? Bioware is ok, but since they're together with EA you can basically see how their creativity dropped a lot (Play Baldurs Gate and compare that to the Third Person Shooter called "RPG" Mass Effect)
Creatively the best and therefore greatest companies are the small independent companies that try to make something creative like Klei Entertainment who made Eeets and Sugar Rush
Well i also name Katauri because King's Bounty: The Legend and Armoured Princess are awesome games.


And because Bethesda got named: How many good games have they made? Terminator, Terminator SkyNet, Terminator Future Shock, Wayne Gretzky Hockey 2 and 3 and...well that's about it (and all sequels). Most overrated company in this world, because Oblivion and "Fallout" 3 (It breaks my heart seeing what happened to a once great, awesome series of games - if only Black Isle had survived and made the real Fallout 3 ) were nothing but "look at our graphics, wander around and trust us, we won't challenge you with a boring video game"-crap.

You want to know why nobody has said Ion Storm?

[biafra]

Jan 3, 2011 15:40:06 GMT -5 shadowangel said:

I wouldn't name big companies, because greatness certainly doesn't mean "5000 play it safe but boring and uninspiring"sequels. A problem most of these companies have. Especially Rockstar who after their Table Tennis Game basically returned to "GTA Style".

The greatest companies were those that died because people rather bought the newest graphic demo or the newest EA Sports Sequel.
Looking Glass, Troika, Ion Storm - those were great companies making awesome and innovative games.
Today? Bioware is ok, but since they're together with EA you can basically see how their creativity dropped a lot (Play Baldurs Gate and compare that to the Third Person Shooter called "RPG" Mass Effect)
Creatively the best and therefore greatest companies are the small independent companies that try to make something creative like Klei Entertainment who made Eeets and Sugar Rush
Well i also name Katauri because King's Bounty: The Legend and Armoured Princess are awesome games.


And because Bethesda got named: How many good games have they made? Terminator, Terminator SkyNet, Terminator Future Shock, Wayne Gretzky Hockey 2 and 3 and...well that's about it (and all sequels). Most overrated company in this world, because Oblivion and "Fallout" 3 (It breaks my heart seeing what happened to a once great, awesome series of games - if only Black Isle had survived and made the real Fallout 3 ) were nothing but "look at our graphics, wander around and trust us, we won't challenge you with a boring video game"-crap.

Rockstar has loads or uninspired, boring games?

You may think so buy the majority of the world disagrees with you. Rockstar has always pushed the envelope and has never played it safe. If they did we would have a new GTA every year with simply a new location and a few new character models.

[Welfare Willis]

For me, the big three are Nintendo, BioWare, and Blizzard. Valve and Rockstar are good enough I think they're worth a mention.

[Allie Kitsune]

Jan 3, 2011 16:16:23 GMT -5 biafra said:

Jan 3, 2011 15:40:06 GMT -5 shadowangel said:

I wouldn't name big companies, because greatness certainly doesn't mean "5000 play it safe but boring and uninspiring"sequels. A problem most of these companies have. Especially Rockstar who after their Table Tennis Game basically returned to "GTA Style".

The greatest companies were those that died because people rather bought the newest graphic demo or the newest EA Sports Sequel.
Looking Glass, Troika, Ion Storm - those were great companies making awesome and innovative games.
Today? Bioware is ok, but since they're together with EA you can basically see how their creativity dropped a lot (Play Baldurs Gate and compare that to the Third Person Shooter called "RPG" Mass Effect)
Creatively the best and therefore greatest companies are the small independent companies that try to make something creative like Klei Entertainment who made Eeets and Sugar Rush
Well i also name Katauri because King's Bounty: The Legend and Armoured Princess are awesome games.


And because Bethesda got named: How many good games have they made? Terminator, Terminator SkyNet, Terminator Future Shock, Wayne Gretzky Hockey 2 and 3 and...well that's about it (and all sequels). Most overrated company in this world, because Oblivion and "Fallout" 3 (It breaks my heart seeing what happened to a once great, awesome series of games - if only Black Isle had survived and made the real Fallout 3 ) were nothing but "look at our graphics, wander around and trust us, we won't challenge you with a boring video game"-crap.

Rockstar has loads or uninspired, boring games?

You may think so buy the majority of the world disagrees with you. Rockstar has always pushed the envelope and has never played it safe. If they did we would have a new GTA every year with simply a new location and a few new character models.

I think it's more the idea that Rockstar and their constituent programming teams tend to be behind the "Hollywood"-ization of video games more than any other company. That's not everyone's tastes, and some people do get tired of it.

There are plenty of people who want that out of a game too (obviously), but that Hollywood-esque quality might be what turns some people away from them.

[biafra]

Jan 3, 2011 16:23:15 GMT -5 Allie Kitsune said:

Jan 3, 2011 16:16:23 GMT -5 biafra said:

Rockstar has loads or uninspired, boring games?

You may think so buy the majority of the world disagrees with you. Rockstar has always pushed the envelope and has never played it safe. If they did we would have a new GTA every year with simply a new location and a few new character models.

I think it's more the idea that Rockstar and their constituent programming teams tend to be behind the "Hollywood"-ization of video games more than any other company. That's not everyone's tastes, and some people do get tired of it.

There are plenty of people who want that out of a game too (obviously), but that Hollywood-esque quality might be what turns some people away from them.

I'm not even sure what you mean by Hollywood-ization.

[Allie Kitsune]

I'm not the best at explaining, so you're going to rip me to shreds after this, but I'll try anyway.

It seems like the person who doesn't buy into to Rockstar's greatness is a fan of smaller, independent games. Most of what Rockstar publishes are Big-Budget, heavily advertised in multiple ways, have well-known actors to do voice work (Samuel L Jackson, Joe Pantoliano, and many others over the years), tv commercials set up like movie trailers, etc. I'm not saying they're the only company to move in a direction where the game industry becomes more like the movie industry ( IE : The Big Budget Blockbusters vs. the smaller, less-hyped games), but they're definitely at the forefront of it. I'm not personally saying it's right or wrong (as long as it's profitable for them, why NOT do it?), just that I can see where it'll turn certain fans off.

When they did publish a smaller budget game (Table Tennis), it seems nobody really paid attention to it.

[biafra]

Jan 3, 2011 16:42:08 GMT -5 Allie Kitsune said:

I'm not the best at explaining, so you're going to rip me to shreds after this, but I'll try anyway.

It seems like the person who doesn't buy into to Rockstar's greatness is a fan of smaller, independent games. Most of what Rockstar publishes are Big-Budget, heavily advertised in multiple ways, have well-known actors to do voice work (Samuel L Jackson, Joe Pantoliano, and many others over the years), tv commercials set up like movie trailers, etc. I'm not saying they're the only company to move in a direction where the game industry becomes more like the movie industry ( IE : The Big Budget Blockbusters vs. the smaller, less-hyped games), but they're definitely at the forefront of it. I'm not personally saying it's right or wrong (as long as it's profitable for them, why NOT do it?), just that I can see where it'll turn certain fans off.

When they did publish a smaller budget game (Table Tennis), it seems nobody really paid attention to it.

I'm not going to rip you into shreds for anything. You explained it it well enough. However...just like I don't see why the popularity/budget of a movie or music recording has any bearing on how good or bad it actually is (and there are some people who will fawn over indie music/movies and slag anything with "production" just like here) I don't see how any of that truly hampers the enjoyment of the games. And honestly..Rockstar were a small company at one point. They got the budget to pay those people and do those things because they proved they make money and lots of it.

[N E O G E O B O Y S]

Jan 3, 2011 9:10:29 GMT -5 Allie Kitsune said:

Jan 3, 2011 6:32:55 GMT -5 N E O G E O B O Y S said:

Nintendo, Treasure, Blizzard

Treasure's got plenty of missteps. They just pretend they never made the games that are missteps (Dragon Drive, Advance Guardian Heroes, Stretch Panic, Bangaioh DS. Some people consider PS2 Silpheed a misstep too, but I don't.)

I'm going to nominate PlatinumGames (FKA Clover) on this one.

Viewtiful Joe, Okami, Bayonetta, Vanquish, Madworld, etc...

AM-2 ranks highly, too.

I don't know with clover, lots of viewtiful joe felt meh and god hand was horrible

I will give you AM2, those guys literraly created modern videogames in some way or another

Also I will like to point out SNK within 98 and 99, in that time frame IMO non other company created so many fighting games that were that amazing, RB2, garou, KOF 98, last blade 2, etc

Well, If we make like the hyper neo geo never existed

[N E O G E O B O Y S]

Jan 3, 2011 17:03:33 GMT -5 biafra said:

Jan 3, 2011 16:42:08 GMT -5 Allie Kitsune said:

I'm not the best at explaining, so you're going to rip me to shreds after this, but I'll try anyway.

It seems like the person who doesn't buy into to Rockstar's greatness is a fan of smaller, independent games. Most of what Rockstar publishes are Big-Budget, heavily advertised in multiple ways, have well-known actors to do voice work (Samuel L Jackson, Joe Pantoliano, and many others over the years), tv commercials set up like movie trailers, etc. I'm not saying they're the only company to move in a direction where the game industry becomes more like the movie industry ( IE : The Big Budget Blockbusters vs. the smaller, less-hyped games), but they're definitely at the forefront of it. I'm not personally saying it's right or wrong (as long as it's profitable for them, why NOT do it?), just that I can see where it'll turn certain fans off.

When they did publish a smaller budget game (Table Tennis), it seems nobody really paid attention to it.

I'm not going to rip you into shreds for anything. You explained it it well enough. However...just like I don't see why the popularity/budget of a movie or music recording has any bearing on how good or bad it actually is (and there are some people who will fawn over indie music/movies and slag anything with "production" just like here) I don't see how any of that truly hampers the enjoyment of the games. And honestly..Rockstar were a small company at one point. They got the budget to pay those people and do those things because they proved they make money and lots of it.

I don't know, I love big games, but I can't stand the GTA series, they felt really boring to me

That's why I hate the last page though, tastes are very subjective, none of us had a good reason to justifiy why a game is good or not, hell, I loved Final Fantasy XIII and I know more reasons to hate it than the guys that just trash it just because it ''wasn't FF''

[Gerard Gerard]

Rockstar, really? I mean, artistically speaking, yes they're all stellar, but really, they've just taken to painting over the same game repeatedly and alternating the setting and a few new features e.g. GTA4 gives way to Red Dead, which in turn gives way to next year's L.A. Noire.

[El Cokehead del Knife Fight]

Jan 3, 2011 17:15:52 GMT -5 N E O G E O B O Y S said:

Jan 3, 2011 9:10:29 GMT -5 Allie Kitsune said:

Treasure's got plenty of missteps. They just pretend they never made the games that are missteps (Dragon Drive, Advance Guardian Heroes, Stretch Panic, Bangaioh DS. Some people consider PS2 Silpheed a misstep too, but I don't.)

I'm going to nominate PlatinumGames (FKA Clover) on this one.

Viewtiful Joe, Okami, Bayonetta, Vanquish, Madworld, etc...

AM-2 ranks highly, too.

I don't know with clover, lots of viewtiful joe felt meh and god hand was horrible

Good sir, I'm afraid that we must engage in fisticuffs. Mano-a-mano. Just you and me and MY GORILLA