The Last Express, the nice adventure game developed by DotEmu, is now available for a reduced price on the App Store.
DotEmu are a publisher gamers should pay special attention to. They are similar to Piko Interactive in the way they rescue classics and bring them to modern platforms. They primarily are known for doing this with the Android and iPhone platforms while Piko sticks with physical cartridge platforms and Steam.
Continue Play's Brian Kale takes a retrospective look at Smoking Car Productions' innovative real-time adventure The Last Express.
"It may not have earned the audience it deserved at the time, but 16 years on The Last Express is appreciated by many for its pioneering ideas and unique style. Jordan Mechner set out to create a brand new sort of adventure game, and the result was something so ahead of its time that only now is it being fully appreciated. The Last Express is unique among the genre – pioneering, adventurous in both artstyle and design, and utterly compelling from beginning to end.
Simply put, The Last Express is a masterpiece."
Continue Play's Peter Yankowski looks back at the impact The Great War has had on the gaming industry, as the centennial approaches.
Replies(4)
Antiquated weaponry, a lot of time sitting in trenches.
But there were a few dog fighting aerial games set during the period, mostly on PC.
Maybe antiquated, but the weapons were the precursors to modern weapons. Machine guns (real MG's, not hand cranked gatling guns), tanks and airplanes all made their debut in WWI. Also, antiquated weapons of older wars (Civil War, Napoleonic Wars, Roman Wars, etc.) can be in a good game. I just seems like the farther you get from WWII, though, the more likely those type of war games will be RTS or turn based strategy games rather than the FPS that so dominates the gaming industry.
However, I think your other points are right on. Trench warfare just doesn't make for a good game even for an RTS or turn based strategy game. I also agree that dog fighting makes for a much better game. I enjoy WWI and WWII dog fighting games much more than modern jets with their "fire and forget" missiles. There is more of a skill involved getting into position and getting the kill shot with those old prop planes.
True about all the new tech that made it's debut but from what I remember there wasn't a lot of it in terms of variety. WW2 however had a lot of varied weapons, vehicles, planes etc that it makes it easier to build an interesting game.
WW1 just seems to be darker and duller in comparison. It would be a good setting for a game like Limbo.
It's strange for a lot of people to cite antiquated weaponry to be the reason for the lack of WW1 games when there tons of other popular games with even more primitive weapons like swords and spears. Sometimes a combination of matchlock guns(even more antiquated than WW1 guns) with swords.
Because the years 1865-1914 are more fun and have a lot more personality.
The Wild west and right after had so many different landscapes and stories and ways to fight and guns, and WW1 is just sitting in a muddy trench throwing gas and firing guns trenches. = Era and tech is cool, how they fought was not.
Same reason there aren't many revolutionary war games.
it's not fun really.
Because they sat in trenches and battered each other with artillery fire. Hardly the stuff of great gameplay.
I liked the idea of Homefront where they make up a fictional, yet somewhat believable scenario. The execution was flawed but I'd love to see more games using fictive war settings.
