Here's a question, what retro games do you remember that, above all else, surprised you?
Might be a difficult question to answer without some context. Back in the 2000s, Atari released a Transformers game for the PS2. I think the game was based on Transformers Armada, but they just called it The Transformers, presumably because the Michael Bay movie had just been announced so they probably hoped to sweep up some people who weren't fans of that specific incarnation of the show.
I played it at the time, and the thing I remember more than anything else is how surprised I was at it, because it's something of a marvel when I was just expecting licenced crap. It just seems to have so many things going for it. The environments are huge, the enemies dodge and dive (with shockingly good pathfinding AI at times), the ground has foliage that reminds me of how BotW works today, and it even does this unusual thing where explosions take on the shape of their surroundings, so if you fire a missile into a narrow space, the explosion "fills out" a bit like it would in real life (where most games just use an expanding sphere). Even the performance is decent.
It's one of those games where you just know that the developer could've turned in any old crap, but someone really loved this game. Probably more than one person. There are movements in Optimus Prime's animation that I could swear are rotoscoped from the Transformers G1 movie.
I just put it on tonight, because I was wondering if time had been kind to my memories, but it's still a really solid third-person action game. It's simple, but then it was aimed at kids, and I think it's great when viewed through that lens.
What retro games have surprised you?
Might be a difficult question to answer without some context. Back in the 2000s, Atari released a Transformers game for the PS2. I think the game was based on Transformers Armada, but they just called it The Transformers, presumably because the Michael Bay movie had just been announced so they probably hoped to sweep up some people who weren't fans of that specific incarnation of the show.
I played it at the time, and the thing I remember more than anything else is how surprised I was at it, because it's something of a marvel when I was just expecting licenced crap. It just seems to have so many things going for it. The environments are huge, the enemies dodge and dive (with shockingly good pathfinding AI at times), the ground has foliage that reminds me of how BotW works today, and it even does this unusual thing where explosions take on the shape of their surroundings, so if you fire a missile into a narrow space, the explosion "fills out" a bit like it would in real life (where most games just use an expanding sphere). Even the performance is decent.
It's one of those games where you just know that the developer could've turned in any old crap, but someone really loved this game. Probably more than one person. There are movements in Optimus Prime's animation that I could swear are rotoscoped from the Transformers G1 movie.
I just put it on tonight, because I was wondering if time had been kind to my memories, but it's still a really solid third-person action game. It's simple, but then it was aimed at kids, and I think it's great when viewed through that lens.
What retro games have surprised you?
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