RESTORE RESTART QUIT
Episode 03:
“The As-yet Incomplete History of PC Games, Part Two”
with special guest Ben Mansill
About the first part of this podcast: “It was weeks ago now, over a number of beers, that the three of us here at RRQ decided that really, what would make a fascinating podcast, was to go over the history of PC Games. Now, while most of us have at least partially changed our gaming habits to include Consoles, really we’re all PC gamers at heart. We tinker, and we love depth over The Shiny.”
So, as the discussion with our special guest Ben Mansill of Byteside (Hey! That sounds like some kind of Stargate reference) continues in this episode, we delve into different genres, how they affected PC gaming as a whole, and finally discuss the future: where PC gaming is going, and just how we all feel about this.
To be more precise, the topics covered include:
- First-person Shooters
- The development of 3D Acceleration
- Real-time Strategy games
- Turn-based Strategy games
- Simulations (including Elite and its clones)
- Distribution methods & packaging PC Games
- and finally, the future of PC Gaming
We hope you enjoy the episode! If you’d like to help us out, spread the word – let people know what you’re listening to on twitter, facebook, via telegram or smoke signal (although we’d prefer a review on the iTunes store or a good tweet/forum post).
FOOTNOTE: Comments about the Ares launch vehicles were made before the Obama budget was released. Sigh.
Links to things discussed or relating to this show:
- Duke Nukem Forever’s demise – related to the discussion of “unfinished masterpieces”.
- Daikatana – as above.
- Terminator: Future Shock and Skynet – the two true-3D first person shooters, and the first to push players to use mouselook.
- Hardw[a]r (the most creative Elite-esque game ever) on Wikipedia and a still-running and useful fan site.
- Terminus – the other Elite-clone with the scarily complex newtonian physics model.
- Orbiter – the free, space-flight and orbital mechanics simulator by Martin Schweiger.
[...] gave warmth, depth and authenticity to the world, and as fellow RRQ’er Jay said on our recent podcast, really hit home with its near-future world. You’d be fighting small-scale wars in Bosnia [...]