Gaming elements that got lost in the limbo

[Kiwi the Tortoise]

Hello fellow VCF-members.

This thread is supposed to honor great ideas in the world of games, which for some reason vanished into oblivion. These elements might be scenarios, gameplay mechanics, battle systems etc.
Some of them might have vanished because the game in which they were used sucked, others just were forgotten for less apparent reasons.

This thread is not for the usual "asking for remake" or "revive a franchise" stuff. It's just about good ideas, that somehow never made it.

An example for a lost scenario:

Worlds of Ultima: Martian Dreams

For those who haven't heard of "Worlds of Ultima" yet, here some background.
There were two WoU-games released. They have no direct connection to the Ultima series whatsoever, exept for the use of the same engine as Ultima 6. The first one of them was set in a stone-age scenario (Savage Empire), the second game went into space.

The setting of Martian Dreams (1991) is quite unique, even till today.
It was loosely based upon Jules Vernes story "From the earth to the moon" & contained elements from Ray Bradburys book "The Martian Chronicles"

It starts out on a science fair in 1893, were a huge cannon is shown. This cannon is able to shoot a shell (containing a plane-like interior) directly to Mars. While a bunch of celebritys inspects the interior, the cannon goes off. Quickly a second shell is prepared to catapult a rescue team to the mars, the player is amongst them.
On your travel to Mars on of the other passengers (Sigmund Freud) will ask you a bunch of questions for character creation (yes, it's a RPG). After landing you first job is to explore the surface & locate the other shell to rescue the others.

While the game wasn't really showered with praise back in 1991, it still had lots of rather positive reviews. It had a very nice atmosphere & it's really fun to have characters like Nikolai Teslar, Mark Twain, Marie Curie or Buffalo Bill around.

I would like to see more, similar creative scenarios in gaming. It's certainly something different than those usual stuff. (WW2/Alien Invasion/Zombie Apocalypse/Dark Fantasy [yes, they call it "Dark" now because people have sex & blood in their face while talking])

[Refa]

Video Game Music

Discounting DS games, a lot of modern games forego video game music, in favor of some "epic" soundtrack. More video games have music that would have a better place in a movie than a game. While there are exceptions (e.g Fallout 3, Super Mario Galaxy), I feel that video game music is dying off as technology progressed (this started with the PS1/PS2).

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

Originally Posted by Refa

Video Game Music

Discounting DS games, a lot of modern games forego video game music, in favor of some "epic" soundtrack. More video games have music that would have a better place in a movie than a game. While there are exceptions (e.g Fallout 3, Super Mario Galaxy), I feel that video game music is dying off as technology progressed (this started with the PS1/PS2).

wut! lolz?

[SKTTR]

Originally Posted by Jogurt the Yogurt

wut! lolz?

he means the peak. cd sound. it all sounds the same. theres no difference listening to xbox, wii or ps3 sound. everyone can make cd sound now. just take a tune and put it on the disc. there's not much creativeness in sound programming itself and every console sounded the same. there are no distinctive uniques like C64 synth, SNES midi or GameBoy peeping anymore, but the most important thing is: there's no future. music/sound quality has reached its peak in videogame history.
you know. there are vynil fans and there are cd fans.
well, at least the tape died out for good. in both senses.

[Kiwi the Tortoise]

To get things rolling again, another one:

Darklands (PC/1992):

Darklands is a RPG set in medieval central europe (mostly Germany and adjacent countries). The producers tried to make the scenario pretty realistic, but added a hint of fantasy (e.g. Dragons or magic spell-like prayers) to it. They put a lot of effort in the design of the different towns, e.g. they use the real names of the towns localities (e.g. names of churches, markets or castles are real).
Fighting took place in a similar fashion as in most Bioware games (I call it pause&play), but suffered from a rather unintuitive & complicated control scheme.
The game itself is pretty much an early sandbox game, theres no epic story around. You simply create a party of four & explore the lands.

This character creation system is the best part about this game.
All character start out as teenagers. You can select their basic attributes (Agility,...,...,etc) and their social origins (Noble, Merchant, Peasent etc.).
But now the good part, there are no classes in the game. But you control their entire career. E.g. he/she had an apprenticeship, or went to the military. This will increase their age by 4 years and affect their attributes & skills. Afterwards you could select another part of the career (new choices open up too, e.g. your recruit might become an officer), which will enhance the skills, but again add 4 years of age.
You could select new jobs as long as you like for each character, but if you'll have to keep in mind that the character might not be as useful since you've created an old geezer that could barely move anymore.
The good thing about this system is, that it feels very natural and doesn't limit your party to just a bunch of unexperienced whippersnappers, but adds the possibilty to have e.g. full-fledged war veterans aboard.

I would really like to see a similar complex & fun character creation system in future games.


PS: My hometown appeared in the game, but the only time my party visited the place the inhabitants turned out to be heretics & tried to sacrifice my band of heroes.

[Pocketim]

One-hit KO's

Most older games tend to go by the rule that if you take one hit, you're done for, especially in old arcade games and shoot-em-ups. I'm guessing we don't see this much in newer games since it's considered too unforgiving.

[Refa]

Originally Posted by Pocketim

One-hit KO's

Most older games tend to go by the rule that if you take one hit, you're done for, especially in old arcade games and shoot-em-ups. I'm guessing we don't see this much in newer games since it's considered too unforgiving.

Most older games?...Not really. And shmups really shouldn't count, since you die in one hit in a lot of modern shmups, so it's not really limited to the old (plus shmups haven't really evolved much at all, if ever).

[LinkFanatic]

Three words for this:

Turn-based RPG's....they really need to bring them back

[Refa]

Originally Posted by LinkFanatic

Three words for this:

Turn-based RPG's....they really need to bring them back

There are plenty of those.

[Turai]

The new ones are few and far between though.
Would love a new turn based PS3 RPG.

[LinkFanatic]

Turn-based with no action elements in the battle whatsoever...haven't seen much of those in years, unless I'm just not looking in the right places

[Refa]

Originally Posted by Turai

The new ones are few and far between though.
Would love a new turn based PS3 RPG.

coughDScough.