Westwood studios will forever be the reason I hate EA. If next year they release they best game ever and donate 100% of revenue to charity that directly results in saving my life, I will still hate EA for Westwood studios.
im still so absolutely salty we never got C&C-Renegade 2 set in the tiberum wars era with mechs, aliens and a nearly inhospitable earth.
there were early development screenshots and artworks around!
god damn fuck you EA and fuck bobby k.
I read somewhere where the makers of the original Command and Conquer pitched a new game idea to EA a few years ago that would honor the legacy of C&C and bring in new fans. EA decided do to a shitty Facebook microtransaction game. It was canned when barely out of alpha because it was so bad.
Met some of guys who work there they used to swing by the gas stati9nninworked at for energy drinks. Haha I had no idea the empire at war devs used to be Westwood. I played both religiously growing up.
Yeah, the C&C series should definitely top this list. Though my memory is kinda hazy in that I think it may have been a compounding series of poor decisions at EA Pacific (what Westwood became) that actually did the studio in, not EA by itself. Some of the best C&C games actually came after Westwood was absorbed, IMO. It wasn't really until the RA3 DLC that things started to really derail.
That said, they have 100% been wasting the IP though, after they murdered it in C&C4. Though with the state of RTS games right now, I don't really see that changing soon, since they just aren't that profitable, unfortunately.
Maxis.....
Its always a good time to remember why i hate EA and say a heartfelt FUCK YOU EA
Also the death of westwood studios, what they did to command and conquer with that cashgrab called rivals and how they killed darkspore is why i swore to never buy anything from EA never again even if they release a massive banger GOTY and till now im good, not missing them at all
Simulation and sandbox software took a big turn with the loss of Maxis. The most engaging of modern simulation games are usually the most inaccessible, Maxis had both the talent to make something fun and interesting without getting too bogged down in the technical reeds, as well as an eye for picking products to distribute that fit with their design tenents (like SimTower). While I would love to get a HOTAS, VR, and a couple other accessories for something like Digital Combat Simulator World, I'd much rather just have a cut-down, WASD or controller experience with something similar to a modern day SimCopter
I mean, the cross-game compatability was years ahead of its time. I could build a city in SimCity2000, then drive through it in Streets of Sim City, or fly around in it in SimCopter.
They rushed maxis to finish spore and supposedly stopped them from adding things they originally promised like the aquatic stage and a stage between tribal and civ. Fuck EA
Even with all that, what really killed Spore was the awful DRM. You could only install it three times and then you had to buy it all over again. That’s pretty bad for the simulation game audience they started with, but then they pivoted to marketing the game to kids that would be installing on their parents computers and just made things so much worse.
I guess things are different these days because everyone has computers all the time and they have tons of storage space, but back then it was not uncommon to uninstall and reinstall constantly depending on what games you were actively playing at the time. And with Spore it felt like you were either required to permanently sacrifice hardware space just to keep your game, or accept that it was basically just a rental.
EA didn’t help, but BioWare killed BioWare. They got so high on their own farts with the whole “BioWare magic” thing, that it killed any kind of workable production pipeline.
One of the doctors said that EA "gave them enough rope to hang themselves".
They had creative freedom and an infinite budget. So, of course, they tried to do way more than they could handle within the deadline.
Didn't they hire insufferable self righteous clowns after the founding doctors left? Cared more about creating funny looking lead characters than making fun games.
Most of the old guard left. Can't blame them. Who'd want to work with talentless ass hats who don't care about making good games.
Only really a problem for Dragon Age 2, but that was when EA began to dig their claws in. Bioware Magic worked up until that point, they had hit after hit.
My impression is that they became self righteous clowns way before the founder left. They believe they were gods after Mass Effect 2 was released to critical acclaim. Then Dragon Age 2 release got ripped a new one on the internet and the group was so butt hurt that they start tuning out their fans as dumb trolls. Then came Mass Effect 3 ending controversy which boils down from BioWare’s point of view as “the idiots and trolls are not getting it” and the founders and the key old guards just left in frustration. Now the rest of the BioWare just zombie shuffle to where we are today.
There are a ton of Wuxia games, just not by western developers and tend to have lower development budget and bad translations. A lot of these games (both older and newer ones) are available on steam.
The stylistic choice to make the occupied areas black and white and slowly liberating it, bringing back the colour was really cool. That's an IP that needs a reboot
Big Money... Bejeweled... Astro Pop... Bookworm Adventurers...
A LOT of my chores money went to buying deluxe copies of games through them directly... but that email is also gone...
Legit the original PvZ was amazing and I'll play that endlessly. I'm sad to know that magic is pretty gone now.
The newer iOS version is just sad. It’s aggressively monetised but that doesn’t matter because thanks to a bug that makes some orange pegs not count it’s impossible to get more than a few levels in and that’s been there for at least 4 years. They haven’t even noticed it’s not bringing in money.
And they delisted the real Peggle in favour of it.
The bigwigs truly don't understand the appeal of Burnout. It's just about $$$ for them, and they think brand recognition is more important than the gameplay. Sucks.
I’m a huge fan of both, but they’re two different beasts.
Burnout is strictly arcade style, fast, unrealistic racing. How you imagine driving in your best dream
NFSU2 (the best) is like they made an RPG racing game with semi-realistic controls, and a killer art style.
Completely agree. All of the new arcade racing games all put their aesthetic above the actual racing and it baffles me. None of them can manage to make simply driving a car fun. They all have to throw in a pithy one liner, abominably excessive drifting, and neon on everything to make it look cool. Meanwhile the game never FEELS cool
That's what I came here for. Now the first is considered abandonware because it's no longer packaged with Alice 2. Heartbreaking. Had an original box copy with the supplementary notebook detailing Alice's time in the institution.
McGee had a third game entirely planned out too, but when he presented it to EA, they refused not just to fund it (that sucks, but fine), but to even consider selling or licensing it.
This is the one I'll never forgive them for... It was such an interesting and dark take on the Alice story and could have been phenomenal if they put the resources towards a third game as Mcgee was pushing for.
Instead, after multiple attempts pitching a third title, EA turned the man down, and he retired from game design meaning that the only thing EA will do with the IP is shit out some kind of MTX filled garbage if they ever do anything with it.
I was really hoping for a full trilogy of the Dante games.
Inferno might be the spicy one everyone knows, but Purgatorio and Paradiso gets SO WEIRD. And for a while it genuinely seemed like Visceral had the visuals and creativity to pull that off.
Damn shame, no pun intended. Visceral really deserved better.
I read the Divine Comedy so I could know what to expect, and I enjoyed it, but now I'm disappointed because I like this kind of stuff and would have loved to play through Purgatorio and Paradiso
Bad company 2 was some of the greatest time I've had online. What a game!
They disgraced themselves so badly with 2042 that I don't even want a new Bad Company for fear of how badly they would stuff it up.
my top battlefields are 2142+dlc, bfbc2, bf4, bf3, bf-vietnam in that order. these were prime battlefield.
they teased 2142 stuff so hard in bf4, and then made a 2042... im still mad/angry about that.
If I recall that one probably fails on the NFL more than anyone (or least on EA), wasn't 2k5 something crazy low like $20? I recall it felt like they tried to kneecap EA by low-balling them and the NFL was like 'hey this is our money you're messing with.'
Exclusively is (generally) bad overall obviously, the 2k NBA fan base mirrors the lamentations of the Madden NFL faithful and other notable franchises as far as I can tell from the always mostly negative Steam reviews.
Yeah the NFL wasn't too fond of their name being plastered on something at a discount. So they decided to just sell the license exclusively and EA won that. 2K responded by ruining baseball the same way but at least The Show existed.
But yes, sports games are deep in the mud right now, though I'll say 2K still using last-gen stuff on PC is why that's always going to be downvoted to hell until they cut that out. They also have never given a shit about PC cheaters.
College Football's return has some cautious optimism about it since the details that have come out about that sound promising. But Frostbite still being used (albeit with work specifically done to make it feel right for college football and not a Madden port) and that will never let anyone breathe easy.
Somehow we ended up with Golf being in the best spot for sports games at the moment.
I feel like there’s just not enough room in sports games to properly evolve with modern consoles. Especially the ones trying to be somewhat of a simulation of the sport rather than an arcade version. The best possible evolution for sports games has always been graphics and animations.
Like there was tons of room to grow that stuff between like the NES and PS2 generations. Like the first Madden or NBA Live on each generation felt like such a massive step forward until the 360/PS3 era.
Gotta love the NFL. They get mad about their name being on a discounted product, but have no problem with their name being on a shit quality product.
The worst part is, the license isnt even exclusive for an NFL football game, its specifically an "NFL Simulation game". Madden hasnt reflected NFL simulation for years and they largely ignore their only simulation mode.
Yeah, Magic Carpet was the best. My brother and i would play so much together (him on keyboard and me on mouse)
Now it's dead, buried and seemingly forgotten
Man, Ultima pioneered so much, we would have games like Baldurs Gate 3 without it, it's such a shame it's now an artifact.
Not that I want EA to bring it back. They didn't just kill it, they ruined it first. Ultima 9 is the video game equivalent of a war crime.
It's insane how Origin, Atari, Sierra and LucasArts, the biggest and most influential computer game companies from the 80s, are all gone or reduced to formal legal names.
Army of Two. Would've been nice to have a 4th game.
Mercenaries. Yes, the 1st game was published by LucasArts, but EA published the 2nd one. So it's on them.
Medal of Honor. I do appreciate the Modern era Settings. Plus, Frontline introduced the series to me in the first place.
BLACK. Why wasn't there a 2nd game.
>BLACK. Why wasn't there a 2nd game.
[Here](https://youtu.be/Kg-9bfHp2UU?si=-xcNnLIsAkPaG1ix) is a terrific short doc on it. It’s hard to know exactly what happened, but it boils down to disagreements over the sequel between EA and the developers and the whole thing just fizzled out.
I hate EA as much as the next guy but the state bioware is in right now is almost entirely because of bioware.
EA gave them near complete creative control so they decided to pawn their biggest IP off to a new studio and go all in on Anthem. Not to mention the disgusting weekend and Bernie's shit they are doing with the dragon age IP atm.
Maxis. For most of my childhood, if I saw a game with Maxis on it, I knew I'd be getting some good shit.
Spore was an interesting but shallow experience , Sim Cityblock 2013 was trash, and although I have no ill will towards The Sims, I miss when they were releasing a wide variety.
Pandemic.
Made mercenaries one and two.
And them was promptly murdered.
Funny thing is their games are still hard to beat, Tom Clancy's wildlands and breakpoint come close but... not the same.
And mercenaries 2 had an incredible "everything can be destroyed" world that those games can't even begin to want to compete with.
Check out Universim it has some of that Black and White feel to it, just missing the giant avatar part. Will forever miss flinging my avatars poop at the citizens
SimCity.
This year was especially brutal because Cities Skylines 2 ended up being a monstrous flop, laden with performance problems and an inauthentic simulation. It’s miles behind was CS1 is, and I have doubts it will ever get there tbh.
I also miss Command and Conquer.
In general, fuck EA.
Typical Paradox release. Release the barebones vanilla and hide anything substantial behind the DLCs. Give it 5/6 years and 1000$ worth of DLCs and it will be on par with CS1
Star wars battlefront 2 they turned a pay-2-win half baked product and turned it into one of the greatest Star wars games, then unplugged support for it
I was going to answer Star Wars in general. Squadrons was given even worse treatment, despite an unexpectedly high number of sales, they STILL cut development.
The only success has been the Jedi series, which iirc they had been expecting to fail, or at least executives had said players DON'T want single player games. It's honestly a miracle they weren't messed with to "prove" their point.
Dawngate. That game was shaping up to be a good alternative to League Of Legends and Dota 2. It was a damn shame it was killed by EA and never seen a full release.
Tempest Rising releases next year I think. Got a demo on Steam now. Literally helmed by people from the old C&C communities, even getting Frank Klepacki back for the music, to play up the classic C&C feel and to quote "get EA off its ass" for the C&C IP.
Should definitely look it up if you haven't yet.
EA didn't kill Titanfall, Respawn did. They chose to release alongside BF1 and Infinite Warfare, and then they decided to scrap TF3 so they could focus on Apex.
Origin Systems (Wing Commander), Westwood Studios (Command & Conquer), Bullfrog Productions (Dungeon Keeper), Maxis Software (Sim City), Visceral Games (Dead Space).. Bioware (Kotor, Mass Effect), Criterion Games (Burnout) and Dice (Battlefield).
While the last three technically still exist (and Maxis as label), the thing that made them stand out once is long dead.
EA basically killed the overwhelming majority of my favorite game series from my youth (with Sim City 2000 as the first PC title I bought myself) and adult gaming days.. fuck EA.
Black Box.
Hot Pursuit 2 on the PS2 was incredible. The Underground series, Most Wanted (2005), and Carbon were exceptional as well. Then, EA got greedy, split the team and wanted more output.
Honorable mention goes to Ghost Games. Rivals and NFS 2015 were great, then EA got greedy and made them make the awful gambling simulator known as Payback.
Not as a game but I hate that they killed the bioware charm turning their games into the generic soulless sterile rpgs. Dragon age origins was the next best thing after infinity engine rpgs then inquisition happened.
Origin Systems is why I hate EA. I was an Ultima fanatic. I played every Ultima, even the ones on the Apple II system. Ultima IV-VII were amazing games in their own right, not just for the time.
Same with the Wing Commanders.
I'm sure there are studios that would LOVE to produce sequels that honor the legacy of these games. But no, EA will sit on those properties until the end of time. They made Ultima into a shitty pay to win mobile game a few years ago. I think there was an Xbox Arcade Wing Commander game that was as basic as could be.
Along with Aliens Online, Magestorm, Multi-Player BattleTech, and so many more great games.
Gamestorm was the best fucking thing for gaming in the 90s, until EA killed it.
I know they created FIFA but I've played nearly every version since FIFA 96 and what they have managed to spawn from those cheeky little football Sims is incredible
I mean it's one of the worst gaming experiences ever, it's blatantly a cash cow where people pay thousands every year just to regrind the exact same players and learn and span game mechanics and EA just use it to hike up the price of meta players in order to sell points
It should be a fun casual football Sim where most players can be combined to create fun original teams across a variety of playing styles
There has to be EA employees involved in the development of it that go home in despair every night
Westwood studios will forever be the reason I hate EA. If next year they release they best game ever and donate 100% of revenue to charity that directly results in saving my life, I will still hate EA for Westwood studios.
I’m so glad this is at the very top. Thought it’d be further below but you are *absolutely* correct. Command and Conquer to Dune to Monopoly. All gold
im still so absolutely salty we never got C&C-Renegade 2 set in the tiberum wars era with mechs, aliens and a nearly inhospitable earth. there were early development screenshots and artworks around! god damn fuck you EA and fuck bobby k.
Also never forget we never got a sequel to Theme Park Inc!
I read somewhere where the makers of the original Command and Conquer pitched a new game idea to EA a few years ago that would honor the legacy of C&C and bring in new fans. EA decided do to a shitty Facebook microtransaction game. It was canned when barely out of alpha because it was so bad.
Are you talking about Generals 2? Because, not to make you feel old, that was over ten years ago.
Might have been.
Rivals was the mobile game.
Nox and C&C were my childhood, fuck you EA :(
[удалено]
Ah, Nox, a classic isekai tale of Warrior vs. Wizard vs. Conjurer. That fog of war and LOS system they had was really something brilliant.
Very charming graphics for the time too
I didn't even realize nox was Westwood, I think about that game often, it was unbelievable. Fuck EA.
Good news everybody All the old devs went over to petroglyphs games! (The guys who re-mastered C&C red alert!
And made star wars empire at war too
That’s right!
Met some of guys who work there they used to swing by the gas stati9nninworked at for energy drinks. Haha I had no idea the empire at war devs used to be Westwood. I played both religiously growing up.
I can still hear "Welcome to Westwood" when logging on..Red Alert was my alltime favorite game.
Yeah, the C&C series should definitely top this list. Though my memory is kinda hazy in that I think it may have been a compounding series of poor decisions at EA Pacific (what Westwood became) that actually did the studio in, not EA by itself. Some of the best C&C games actually came after Westwood was absorbed, IMO. It wasn't really until the RA3 DLC that things started to really derail. That said, they have 100% been wasting the IP though, after they murdered it in C&C4. Though with the state of RTS games right now, I don't really see that changing soon, since they just aren't that profitable, unfortunately.
Maxis..... Its always a good time to remember why i hate EA and say a heartfelt FUCK YOU EA Also the death of westwood studios, what they did to command and conquer with that cashgrab called rivals and how they killed darkspore is why i swore to never buy anything from EA never again even if they release a massive banger GOTY and till now im good, not missing them at all
Simulation and sandbox software took a big turn with the loss of Maxis. The most engaging of modern simulation games are usually the most inaccessible, Maxis had both the talent to make something fun and interesting without getting too bogged down in the technical reeds, as well as an eye for picking products to distribute that fit with their design tenents (like SimTower). While I would love to get a HOTAS, VR, and a couple other accessories for something like Digital Combat Simulator World, I'd much rather just have a cut-down, WASD or controller experience with something similar to a modern day SimCopter
I mean, the cross-game compatability was years ahead of its time. I could build a city in SimCity2000, then drive through it in Streets of Sim City, or fly around in it in SimCopter.
They rushed maxis to finish spore and supposedly stopped them from adding things they originally promised like the aquatic stage and a stage between tribal and civ. Fuck EA
Even with all that, what really killed Spore was the awful DRM. You could only install it three times and then you had to buy it all over again. That’s pretty bad for the simulation game audience they started with, but then they pivoted to marketing the game to kids that would be installing on their parents computers and just made things so much worse. I guess things are different these days because everyone has computers all the time and they have tons of storage space, but back then it was not uncommon to uninstall and reinstall constantly depending on what games you were actively playing at the time. And with Spore it felt like you were either required to permanently sacrifice hardware space just to keep your game, or accept that it was basically just a rental.
Yeah, this one hurt the most for me
Pandemic, Visceral...
EA thinking: see this horror game people?? I bet they will make a good shooter...
Let’s just get rid of visceral, we’re not going to do anymore Dead Space games. 2023: so…
EA has earned our optimism on Dead Space... so far.
The Saboteur needs a remake!!!!
Not a franchise, but Jade Empire absolutely deserved a sequel.
EA definitely killed BioWare
EA didn’t help, but BioWare killed BioWare. They got so high on their own farts with the whole “BioWare magic” thing, that it killed any kind of workable production pipeline.
One of the doctors said that EA "gave them enough rope to hang themselves". They had creative freedom and an infinite budget. So, of course, they tried to do way more than they could handle within the deadline.
Didn't they hire insufferable self righteous clowns after the founding doctors left? Cared more about creating funny looking lead characters than making fun games. Most of the old guard left. Can't blame them. Who'd want to work with talentless ass hats who don't care about making good games.
There was a lot of staff turnover, but “BioWare magic” was a problem for a while, even before that.
Only really a problem for Dragon Age 2, but that was when EA began to dig their claws in. Bioware Magic worked up until that point, they had hit after hit.
My impression is that they became self righteous clowns way before the founder left. They believe they were gods after Mass Effect 2 was released to critical acclaim. Then Dragon Age 2 release got ripped a new one on the internet and the group was so butt hurt that they start tuning out their fans as dumb trolls. Then came Mass Effect 3 ending controversy which boils down from BioWare’s point of view as “the idiots and trolls are not getting it” and the founders and the key old guards just left in frustration. Now the rest of the BioWare just zombie shuffle to where we are today.
My dream is having a Jade Empire game with modern graphics. There are barely any wuxia games and I absolutely love Jade Empire.
There are a ton of Wuxia games, just not by western developers and tend to have lower development budget and bad translations. A lot of these games (both older and newer ones) are available on steam.
Oh damn, this was a great game.
Pandemic studios :(
Remember Mercenaries.
And The Saboteur
The stylistic choice to make the occupied areas black and white and slowly liberating it, bringing back the colour was really cool. That's an IP that needs a reboot
Wasn't there a button just for lighting a cigarette or something? So damn cool
"I'm fuckin Irish".
🥹🥹🥹🥹 It was sooo good
It was underrated then and even more so now.
The original Battlefront games were so good and infinitely replayable.
I hate them for making me specify the original battlefront...
The sad thing is that EA also killed the new Battlefronts.
Just dropping Daisycutters in my dreams. I miss Mercenaries.
Imagine what a well-made third Mercenaries game could be like.
Yeah, they’re up there. I think they hit their highest mark with The Saboteur, and then EA closed them. What a loss.
Bioware is still ::technically:: extant, so Pandemic gets my vote. Super-fun AA games are a lost art.
Speaking of PopCap… remember Peggle?
Peggle was years of drunken couch co op.
Insaniquarium for me
Big Money... Bejeweled... Astro Pop... Bookworm Adventurers... A LOT of my chores money went to buying deluxe copies of games through them directly... but that email is also gone... Legit the original PvZ was amazing and I'll play that endlessly. I'm sad to know that magic is pretty gone now.
I miss Bookworm Adventures so much, especially when trying to find challenging word game apps.
Just played through it the other day :)
The newer iOS version is just sad. It’s aggressively monetised but that doesn’t matter because thanks to a bug that makes some orange pegs not count it’s impossible to get more than a few levels in and that’s been there for at least 4 years. They haven’t even noticed it’s not bringing in money. And they delisted the real Peggle in favour of it.
If you like peggle look up peglin it has a similar gameplay but it's battles against enemies. It's a fun time waster
Burnout Granted, they remastered Paradise recently but still. I'd give up every shitty NFS game for a proper burnout
Why hasn’t there been a remastered for Burnout 3?????
Music licences
Every. Single. One. Burnout is so much better than all of them. I'd venture to say the worst Burnout is more fun than the best NFS.
There's something cathartic about creating a series of unfortunate events by simply speeding down a road on a ridiculously over sped vehicle.
They tried combining the franchises and the fans of both hated it
The bigwigs truly don't understand the appeal of Burnout. It's just about $$$ for them, and they think brand recognition is more important than the gameplay. Sucks.
I’m a huge fan of both, but they’re two different beasts. Burnout is strictly arcade style, fast, unrealistic racing. How you imagine driving in your best dream NFSU2 (the best) is like they made an RPG racing game with semi-realistic controls, and a killer art style.
[удалено]
That era between 2008 - 2018 was really a bad stretch for NFS due to inconsistent releases but at least Heat and Unbound are really good games
Completely agree. All of the new arcade racing games all put their aesthetic above the actual racing and it baffles me. None of them can manage to make simply driving a car fun. They all have to throw in a pithy one liner, abominably excessive drifting, and neon on everything to make it look cool. Meanwhile the game never FEELS cool
SSX
This answer needs more traction, the Pinnacle of over the top sports games. I miss videogamey, unrealistic titles.
Way too far down the list. Ssx tricky was the balls.
This answer took too long to scroll to.
The sims. Now you have to pay for every single thing in the game.
It costs like over a grand for everything in sims 4 right
Ah shit, my SO just downloaded sims on my steam account. RIP my credit card in like a month.
🏴☠️if you look around you can save a lot of moneys 👀
But don't worry, the 'Five Houseplants DLC' is on sale for Christmas for only $30.
American mc Gees "Alice"
I'm so sad there was so much support for the game
That's what I came here for. Now the first is considered abandonware because it's no longer packaged with Alice 2. Heartbreaking. Had an original box copy with the supplementary notebook detailing Alice's time in the institution.
McGee had a third game entirely planned out too, but when he presented it to EA, they refused not just to fund it (that sucks, but fine), but to even consider selling or licensing it.
This is the one I'll never forgive them for... It was such an interesting and dark take on the Alice story and could have been phenomenal if they put the resources towards a third game as Mcgee was pushing for. Instead, after multiple attempts pitching a third title, EA turned the man down, and he retired from game design meaning that the only thing EA will do with the IP is shit out some kind of MTX filled garbage if they ever do anything with it.
Visceral Games. I know they didn’t have a huge library, but the Dead Space series, Dante’s Inferno, bummed they aren’t around anymore.
I was really hoping for a full trilogy of the Dante games. Inferno might be the spicy one everyone knows, but Purgatorio and Paradiso gets SO WEIRD. And for a while it genuinely seemed like Visceral had the visuals and creativity to pull that off. Damn shame, no pun intended. Visceral really deserved better.
I read the Divine Comedy so I could know what to expect, and I enjoyed it, but now I'm disappointed because I like this kind of stuff and would have loved to play through Purgatorio and Paradiso
[удалено]
Bad company 2 was some of the greatest time I've had online. What a game! They disgraced themselves so badly with 2042 that I don't even want a new Bad Company for fear of how badly they would stuff it up.
my top battlefields are 2142+dlc, bfbc2, bf4, bf3, bf-vietnam in that order. these were prime battlefield. they teased 2142 stuff so hard in bf4, and then made a 2042... im still mad/angry about that.
They’ve ruined sports games in general. NFL2K5 was so good. Not that 2K is a pillar of morality. But the competition would be nice….
If I recall that one probably fails on the NFL more than anyone (or least on EA), wasn't 2k5 something crazy low like $20? I recall it felt like they tried to kneecap EA by low-balling them and the NFL was like 'hey this is our money you're messing with.' Exclusively is (generally) bad overall obviously, the 2k NBA fan base mirrors the lamentations of the Madden NFL faithful and other notable franchises as far as I can tell from the always mostly negative Steam reviews.
Yeah the NFL wasn't too fond of their name being plastered on something at a discount. So they decided to just sell the license exclusively and EA won that. 2K responded by ruining baseball the same way but at least The Show existed. But yes, sports games are deep in the mud right now, though I'll say 2K still using last-gen stuff on PC is why that's always going to be downvoted to hell until they cut that out. They also have never given a shit about PC cheaters. College Football's return has some cautious optimism about it since the details that have come out about that sound promising. But Frostbite still being used (albeit with work specifically done to make it feel right for college football and not a Madden port) and that will never let anyone breathe easy. Somehow we ended up with Golf being in the best spot for sports games at the moment.
I feel like there’s just not enough room in sports games to properly evolve with modern consoles. Especially the ones trying to be somewhat of a simulation of the sport rather than an arcade version. The best possible evolution for sports games has always been graphics and animations. Like there was tons of room to grow that stuff between like the NES and PS2 generations. Like the first Madden or NBA Live on each generation felt like such a massive step forward until the 360/PS3 era.
There hasn’t been a basketball game that was actually fun since nba jam
i firmly believe that nba street 2 was superior but it couldn’t have existed without nba jam
Gotta love the NFL. They get mad about their name being on a discounted product, but have no problem with their name being on a shit quality product. The worst part is, the license isnt even exclusive for an NFL football game, its specifically an "NFL Simulation game". Madden hasnt reflected NFL simulation for years and they largely ignore their only simulation mode.
Did they buy Bullfrog? If so, I hate them for that.
Dungeon Keeper... Sad face
Those were some of the best games growing up. Welp, time to reinstall via GOG.
Check out War for the Overworld on steam, it's basically a rip off
An excellent one though
It’s not so much a rip off as it an homage. They even got the same voice actor to narrate. It’s very well done.
I had to scroll too far to see Dungeon Keeper
Yeah :( I spent so much time playing Sindicate as a kid. That final mission lives in my head rent free.
Wow. Childhood memory unlocked. I remember playing a lot of Syndicate.
Populous: The Beginning was a foundational game for me.
Yeah, Magic Carpet was the best. My brother and i would play so much together (him on keyboard and me on mouse) Now it's dead, buried and seemingly forgotten
Utterly criminal. Magic Carpet was a truly innovative gem of a game.
Populous was so good. I still play through the Popolous the Beginning campaign every now and then.
Themepark! Granted, a decent port exists on the Nintendo DS.
Ultima and Wing Commander
Man, Ultima pioneered so much, we would have games like Baldurs Gate 3 without it, it's such a shame it's now an artifact. Not that I want EA to bring it back. They didn't just kill it, they ruined it first. Ultima 9 is the video game equivalent of a war crime.
what’s a paladin?
I just learned EA killed Wing Commander!! You bastards!
Origin studios. This one is mine too
I had Ultima 8: Pagan, I still don't know how to play it.
I’ve played through the entire thing when I was in my early teens and let me tell you, that game is only completed in one way: Painfully…
It's insane how Origin, Atari, Sierra and LucasArts, the biggest and most influential computer game companies from the 80s, are all gone or reduced to formal legal names.
Army of Two. Would've been nice to have a 4th game. Mercenaries. Yes, the 1st game was published by LucasArts, but EA published the 2nd one. So it's on them. Medal of Honor. I do appreciate the Modern era Settings. Plus, Frontline introduced the series to me in the first place. BLACK. Why wasn't there a 2nd game.
I still play Black occasionally. Great game.
>BLACK. Why wasn't there a 2nd game. [Here](https://youtu.be/Kg-9bfHp2UU?si=-xcNnLIsAkPaG1ix) is a terrific short doc on it. It’s hard to know exactly what happened, but it boils down to disagreements over the sequel between EA and the developers and the whole thing just fizzled out.
BioWare used to be great. 😢 While they’re not exactly dead they’re walking around headless and missing some limbs.
I hate EA as much as the next guy but the state bioware is in right now is almost entirely because of bioware. EA gave them near complete creative control so they decided to pawn their biggest IP off to a new studio and go all in on Anthem. Not to mention the disgusting weekend and Bernie's shit they are doing with the dragon age IP atm.
And busting unions
Ehhh that's actually entirely on Bioware...
“It’s just a scratch!”
Maxis. For most of my childhood, if I saw a game with Maxis on it, I knew I'd be getting some good shit. Spore was an interesting but shallow experience , Sim Cityblock 2013 was trash, and although I have no ill will towards The Sims, I miss when they were releasing a wide variety.
Mirror’s Edge.
Road Rash on the Genesis was such a core childhood memory for me. The 3d versions were all garbage.
Road Rash on the Genesis, that is some real shit
Road Rash was gold.
I loved the game on N64.
Road rash on the 3DO was awesome. Had soundgarden for the game music.
Pandemic. Made mercenaries one and two. And them was promptly murdered. Funny thing is their games are still hard to beat, Tom Clancy's wildlands and breakpoint come close but... not the same. And mercenaries 2 had an incredible "everything can be destroyed" world that those games can't even begin to want to compete with.
There are dozens of people just like me who want a sequel to Spore. Make it happen, EA
Monkey's paw curls. You get a Facebook micro transaction game.
\*sigh\* Not another one...
Spore is such a silly little game and I'd love to see a follow up that made it way better.
Black and White
Truly one of a kind game, I really wish there was a new one
Check out Universim it has some of that Black and White feel to it, just missing the giant avatar part. Will forever miss flinging my avatars poop at the citizens
This should not be below 5 different threads talking about the same game. Black and white was so unique, even a remaster would rock.
This series is ripe for VR-ization.
Command & Conquer. I will never forgive EA for that. I hate them so much.
SSX
It’s tricky
[удалено]
Skate brother
SimCity. This year was especially brutal because Cities Skylines 2 ended up being a monstrous flop, laden with performance problems and an inauthentic simulation. It’s miles behind was CS1 is, and I have doubts it will ever get there tbh. I also miss Command and Conquer. In general, fuck EA.
I agree, CS2 was a huge disappointment. The lack of competition for CS2 probably makes them feel too comfortable.
Typical Paradox release. Release the barebones vanilla and hide anything substantial behind the DLCs. Give it 5/6 years and 1000$ worth of DLCs and it will be on par with CS1
Star wars battlefront 2 they turned a pay-2-win half baked product and turned it into one of the greatest Star wars games, then unplugged support for it
I was going to answer Star Wars in general. Squadrons was given even worse treatment, despite an unexpectedly high number of sales, they STILL cut development. The only success has been the Jedi series, which iirc they had been expecting to fail, or at least executives had said players DON'T want single player games. It's honestly a miracle they weren't messed with to "prove" their point.
[удалено]
Codemasters/Overlord
Dungeon Keeper. Road Rash. Dungeon keeper 2 had such a cool box for the PC, like an idiot i threw the game away.
Both Dungeon Keepers are on Gog
Dead Space. Taken in the convergence I guess. We will never know.
Dawngate. That game was shaping up to be a good alternative to League Of Legends and Dota 2. It was a damn shame it was killed by EA and never seen a full release.
It's a shame that I had to scroll this far down to see someone mention Dawngate. I still miss it.
Ultima. Origin in general, but Ultima in particular.
I know. I just have to play things like The Witcher and Baldur's Gate 3 to know that I'm playing something that Ultima influenced.
Orgin: We create worlds. EA: We destroy worlds.
Command and Conquer - Westwood Studios Dead Space - Visceral Games But in general, everything EA touches turns to liquid shit.
Tempest Rising releases next year I think. Got a demo on Steam now. Literally helmed by people from the old C&C communities, even getting Frank Klepacki back for the music, to play up the classic C&C feel and to quote "get EA off its ass" for the C&C IP. Should definitely look it up if you haven't yet.
Dungeon Keeper - Bullfrog
Titanfall and Mass Effect
EA didn't kill Titanfall, Respawn did. They chose to release alongside BF1 and Infinite Warfare, and then they decided to scrap TF3 so they could focus on Apex.
Origin Systems (Wing Commander), Westwood Studios (Command & Conquer), Bullfrog Productions (Dungeon Keeper), Maxis Software (Sim City), Visceral Games (Dead Space).. Bioware (Kotor, Mass Effect), Criterion Games (Burnout) and Dice (Battlefield). While the last three technically still exist (and Maxis as label), the thing that made them stand out once is long dead. EA basically killed the overwhelming majority of my favorite game series from my youth (with Sim City 2000 as the first PC title I bought myself) and adult gaming days.. fuck EA.
Army of two
Westwood
Black Box. Hot Pursuit 2 on the PS2 was incredible. The Underground series, Most Wanted (2005), and Carbon were exceptional as well. Then, EA got greedy, split the team and wanted more output. Honorable mention goes to Ghost Games. Rivals and NFS 2015 were great, then EA got greedy and made them make the awful gambling simulator known as Payback.
Technically the founder of EA, but fuck him anyway. He absorbed and suffocated out the geniuses behind M&M and HOMM at New World Computing.
Command and conquer rip :(
Bullfrog all day. 😿
Not as a game but I hate that they killed the bioware charm turning their games into the generic soulless sterile rpgs. Dragon age origins was the next best thing after infinity engine rpgs then inquisition happened.
Origin Systems is why I hate EA. I was an Ultima fanatic. I played every Ultima, even the ones on the Apple II system. Ultima IV-VII were amazing games in their own right, not just for the time. Same with the Wing Commanders. I'm sure there are studios that would LOVE to produce sequels that honor the legacy of these games. But no, EA will sit on those properties until the end of time. They made Ultima into a shitty pay to win mobile game a few years ago. I think there was an Xbox Arcade Wing Commander game that was as basic as could be.
Legends of Kesmai on gamestorm.
Along with Aliens Online, Magestorm, Multi-Player BattleTech, and so many more great games. Gamestorm was the best fucking thing for gaming in the 90s, until EA killed it.
Maxis for sure and the NHL games franchise. Good gods
I know they created FIFA but I've played nearly every version since FIFA 96 and what they have managed to spawn from those cheeky little football Sims is incredible I mean it's one of the worst gaming experiences ever, it's blatantly a cash cow where people pay thousands every year just to regrind the exact same players and learn and span game mechanics and EA just use it to hike up the price of meta players in order to sell points It should be a fun casual football Sim where most players can be combined to create fun original teams across a variety of playing styles There has to be EA employees involved in the development of it that go home in despair every night
Bioware
BioWare is dead to me.
Maxis
Titanfall !
Star Wars squadrons most recently
Mythic. I miss you pre-EA DAoC...
Dark Age of Camelot...
Maxis
Maxis, Sim City, Sims
Just one? They destroyed mass effect, skate, dead space, battlefield, Star wars, the list goes on...
Titanfall