PopTop. Railroad Tycoon 2&3 and Tropico 1&2. They got bought by 2K, which eventually killed the studio. The Railroad Tycoon series is dead. Tropico is still around, but I’m not excited about the latest interation. Some of the guys tried to kickstart a new Railroad Tycoon but it didn’t fund. Phil Steinmeyer was an underrated developer, though I believe he’s retired today.
It’s too bad it worked out that way. I think they could have been on the level with Paradox as far as strategy games are concerned, but focusing more on economic games, city builders, and the like. On Steinmeyer’s blog he said he didn’t think there was demand for heavier games anymore about mid 00s. That might have been true then, but so many games out now prove that wrong.
I just looked at my Steam stats today and 52% is RT3. There may be plenty of games that surpass it in visuals, but game mechanics are a different story, and without a stock market I don’t see much of a point.
I played Tropico 3-5, but gave up after they refused to give us highways and overpasses.
I was super into Sierra as a publisher. They seemed to back some of the highest quality games no one knew about. Ground Control, Gunman Chronicles, Homeworld, Aliens vs Predators 2, Empire Earth, Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza, and of course Half-Life. They published some quality games.
I loved the Quest games! They were my first real introduction to the English language. Simple phrases like Open Door and feed chickens were a great way to build my basic vocabulary. I kept pestering my dad for translations until he got fed up and taught me how to use a dictionary :)
I have so many great memories playing those games, on my own and together with my dad. It really was a bonding experience.
Haha, that’s exactly the kind of game I want to make but with graphics and a little less dry. Didn’t even know about that one. Also I should probably actually figure out how to start that once I’m settled in here. It’s amazing how much planning and thought goes into getting one truck across the country. It’s like Oregon trail but you die of stupidity, yours or others, rather than dysentery.
The only thing I can remember from inquisition is trudging through some high level desert looking for high level rocks (which very blatantly cut their drop rate from earlier zones) so that I could make an armor and weapon that still sucked and looked like pajamas.
I’ll skip the skins, because I assume you’ll want to pick your own that fit your tastes, but you can find all of these at NexusMods. Some of my favorites are:
Speed Launch
60 fps in cutscenes
No fall damage
Infinite Respec Amulet
Party At The Winter Palace
Shorter War Table Missions (75%)
Party Banter Time (5-10min)
All Bard songs for CC Music
Stay still in CC - Natural Edition
Face Ash Begone
Bugs Be Gone
Skills Enhanced by NinjaReborn
Inventory Capacity
You’ll also need Frosty Mod Manager to set all those up (they seem to work for me in the order I listed) and Frosty Fix.
Set up the mods and load order in FrostyMM, and close.
Launch Frosty Fix.
Choose the profile/pack you want.
Mash go.
FrostyMM should open back up.
Open the pack you created.
The game should launch automatically with the mods correctly enabled.
All these mods feel “vanilla-ish” and shouldn’t spoil the original experience to any significant degree.
Dynamix’ Earthsiege was such a magical thing back then. So were Bullfrog’s Syndicate, Theme Hospital and Dungeon Keeper. Many, many years ago when Peter Molyneux was not a dumbass but gave us gems like Populous and Black&White.
I loved Earthsiege! IIRC I got the game with an expansion card (STI Lightning 128?), and it really was fun playing with my first flight stick, a CH Products flight stick.
I worked for Interplay back in the 90s. It was pretty great for me, launching my IT career. Working in QA did temporarily ruin my ability to play games for fun though.
Valve is the only one of mine that’s still around as more than just a brand name used by EA.
Bioware, Maxis, Bullfrog, Westwood, and more… All gobbled up and turned into shit by Electronic Farts.
Others that just died on their own include Black Isle and Interplay, Sierra and LucasArts. Some of these might be around in some capacity, though afaik they’re just used for the names.
Westwood, but not for Command & Conquer or Dune 2. I still remember them fondly for their Kyrandia games. I loved the art design, the music and the jokes.
Kyrandia 2 being one of my all time favorite adventure games, Zanthia was an awesome protagonist. Especially for her time.
It’s nice that their strategy games picked up the way they did, but part of me wishes they stuck with their fantasy games.
Squaresoft, Bioware, and Bethesda are three companies whose logos I once considered a seal of quality. None of the three really exist anymore, although there are new much larger companies using their names.
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