Comments on: Sitrep: Unoriginal Visions, or The Games That Almost Were

By: elfalot

elfalot — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 07:10:28 +0000

I heard HL2 also changed a bit, I heard it was a lot darker atmosphere in the beginning in place of City17 (thought not sure about much else).
Then there was that story a month or so back with some footage which was supposedly a Prince of Persia Game that, again supposedly, laid some ground work for Assassin’s Creed.
TimeShift had a change of game design, I remember I played a demo one year (from GON, when it had Internode the title), then played a demo newly released a year later that had gone through a design overhaul. From memory one version was more ‘steam punk’ in desgin.
I can’t think of anymore now, but I’m sure there have been a few games that made a change

By: ElectroTyrian

ElectroTyrian — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 00:36:22 +0000

Another game which changed a fair bit in development was Half-Life. I recall videos when it was first announced, it looked kinda similar to what was finally released but there was some significant differences. In early versions of the game, no-one was your ally. The security guards would shoot you for whatever reason and the scientists were basically an excuse to shoot at something helpless (to be fair they served the same role in the finished version, except that now they’re needed to unlock doors and give you back some health if you’re really low on it).

Basically the story was kinda generic, and Gabe was worried that it wouldn’t be noticed in the sea of other shooters exploding at the time. So Valve hired Marc Laidlaw to actually develop a story and flesh out the creatures and level design, and the rest is history. If the game was released the way it was without this extra year of polish, I doubt it would have had the classic status it does today.

By: gmcleod

gmcleod — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 00:31:45 +0000

stoibs, I loved Res 4. Res 5 amped up the BRAHness though. At least it wasn't a cover shooter.

By: nekosan

nekosan — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:27:27 +0000

pinothyj: TF2 was made cartoony because it did not make sense if it was to be realistic. The example giving is the ‘Capture the Intelligence’ maps where two oposing forces would have their base so close to one another and would spend all their resources trying to steal the other team’s intelligence. As a realistic military FPS the premise wears thin very quickly, but make it a cartoony FPS with each classes overflowing with off-the-wall personality and suddenly everything comes together.

I think they restarted the game so many times because it just ended up looking terrible every time, there was a long period there when the kind of graphics they wanted to use just came out looking dated.

By: pinothyj

pinothyj — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:06:51 +0000

ytnim, TF2 was made cartoony because it did not make sense if it was to be realistic. The example giving is the 'Capture the Intelligence' maps where two oposing forces would have their base so close to one another and would spend all their resources trying to steal the other team's intelligence. As a realistic military FPS the premise wears thin very quickly, but make it a cartoony FPS with each classes overflowing with off-the-wall personality and suddenly everything comes together. Considering the content of Borderlands I would be surprised in the slightest if the same idea governed the art and design choices made for their final release…

By: ytnim

ytnim — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:16:38 +0000

mugsy: nekosan, I remember seeing articles of Halo in PC Powerplay… it was suppose to be Unreal Tournament with a more militaristic, larger scale feel and vehicles to boot. But then MS bought Bungie and my bro and I just stuck to Battlefield 1942 for our large scale combat. Halo’s campaign co-op is meant to rock… but I wouldn’t know much about that. Never owned an X-box, nor did Gearbox add co-op to the PC port which was disappointing. And Duke Nukem Forever should have been in here as well. Just the various engine changes alone changed the way this game looked throughout the 13yr dev.

I personally wouldn't put DNF here. These are all design choices deliberately made to change the game in some big way, whether it be aesthetic, story or game mechanics. Although the game engine changed so many times, DNF's goals and design decisions seemed to remain the same, they just wanted a higher fidelity game, not a different aesthetic. If Halo did end up being an open world, 4 player co-op class based game (aka Borderlands) would that mean every other shooter from then on would try to perfect the Halo formula? Would that mean Borderlands would have been a realistic military shooter that we all loved because it was different? That would be weird world to live in.

By: pinothyj

pinothyj — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 09:07:23 +0000

Anyone else still want to play the Bioshock with the original story?

It better not be just me…

By: vencha88

vencha88 — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 07:36:20 +0000

Yeah I first read a Halo preview in one of my old N64 mags, that thing did a massive turn around.

By: mugsy

mugsy — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 07:18:57 +0000

nekosan, I remember seeing articles of Halo in PC Powerplay... it was suppose to be Unreal Tournament with a more militaristic, larger scale feel and vehicles to boot. But then MS bought Bungie and my bro and I just stuck to Battlefield 1942 for our large scale combat. Halo's campaign co-op is meant to rock... but I wouldn't know much about that. Never owned an X-box, nor did Gearbox add co-op to the PC port which was disappointing. And Duke Nukem Forever should have been in here as well. Just the various engine changes alone changed the way this game looked throughout the 13yr dev.

By: jez

jez — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 07:10:44 +0000

Would have been some interesting meetings for the Bioshock dev team.

So you know that game about cults in the US in the 21st century with the secret nazi lab? Well it’s now in the 1950s; underwater.

By: elliotengi

elliotengi — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 06:30:35 +0000

And more recently, Overstrike, in the opposite fashion to Borderlands, has about faced from exaggerated fun to realistic sci-fi crap titled FUSE.

By: Toby McCasker

Toby McCasker — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 06:26:00 +0000

Tim please don't read this comment it makes me look bad

nekosan: What, no mention of the biggest turn around of them all? Halo was meant to be an open world, class based, 4 player co-op game, the original pitches sounded AWESOME compared to what we got.

By: nekosan

nekosan — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 06:21:17 +0000

What, no mention of the biggest turn around of them all?

Halo was meant to be an open world, class based, 4 player co-op game, the original pitches sounded AWESOME compared to what we got.

By: stoibs

stoibs — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 03:31:42 +0000

I cry a little inside everytime I see that Resi evil 4 Beta footage, and what it could have been, as opposed to the “lol Brah gamer third person shooter” that the series has degenerated into to :(

By: jenkins

jenkins — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 03:12:52 +0000

CRACKED!
Also cool article.