Sunday School: Learn, Play, Win
Win Gears of War for the PC, learn about Apogee Software, and share your FPS tendencies.
So you think you know your gaming stuff, huh? Let's find out. Each week in Sunday School you'll receive a quiz, the contents of which will vary in both form and topic. Your quiz score will be recorded and graded accordingly, and instead of a lame gold star or red check-mark, you'll have the chance to win awesome gaming paraphernalia.
Some of these quizzes will be difficult, and some will be easy. Anyone who participates will be eligible for the weekly prize drawing. However, those with the highest grades at the end of the semester will have more of a chance to win the secret grand prize. Keep your grades up, and you might win a fabulous reward.
Only registered Shacknews users will be able to participate, so go create an account if you haven't already done so. Due to the nature of the contest, we ask that you refrain from discussing answers in the comments.
Hanging in the balance for this week's quiz is a copy of Epic Games' Gears of War for the PC. Ready to go? Get quizin'.
Hopscotch and kickball are so last century. Here's what we play at our school: Shadow President.
Few games simulate real-world politics and warfare to a satisfying degree, but Shadow President did it way back in 1994.
You play as the United States, circa Vanilla Ice. The default scenario is pre-Desert Storm 1990, with Kuwait in imminent danger of being invaded. The interface features a graphically simplistic map of the world, but the statistics behind that world are fairly robust. Every country has social, economic, military, and nuclear ambitions and fears.
As the Shadow President, your options for each of those main categories are many, a few of which include: doling out foreign aid, invading countries, regulating trade policies, managing foreign investments, inciting governmental coups, secret weapons funding for rebels, or full-on thermonuclear war.
The impressive thing about Shadow President is its modest attempt at realism. Whereas games like Civilization are more about "what if" worlds, Shadow President is one of the few strategy titles to even come close to an accurate representation of the current--as of 16 years ago--world climate.
For instance, during one game I played in the past, I started out by invading Iraq--the key to any successful presidency. After all, surgical strikes are for real-world pansies. I didn't wait for my full buildup of troops however, and I was soon stuck taking heavy ground losses, while receiving a dismal sub-40% approval rating at home.
Still feeling uninhibited in my virtual war room, I figured I may as well exercise my nuclear option, hoping to end the mess as quickly as possible. I promptly launched a handful of missiles, much to the dismay of my panicked advisers. This lead to a predictable holocaust, along with an obnoxious outcry of condemnation from pretty much the entire world community. France took the opportunity to "punish" me, utilizing their own limited arsenal for a nuclear strike on the US mainland. I responded, but not quite proportionally.
With my nuclear stocks at a minimum, my primary force of troops in transit to Iraq, and the rest of the world in chaos, China thought it'd be a nice time to kick-start their hegemony and finished off the rest of my nuclear capability with their own bombs. What they didn't count on was Russia coming to my aid, albeit conveniently late.
As I watched the world devolve into a radiological wasteland, alone in my bunker (all my advisers having previously resigned, or been vaporized), and as Russia and China fought a ground war to the bitter end with their remaining forces, the last few thousands of US citizens tore me away from my Shadow President computer console, and impeached me, the bastards. I assume this included a crude lynching of some sort, by a man with three eyes, and four big toes, but the game chose not to render this particular sequence.
Shadow President was created by the now-defunct developer DC True--which also did a sequel under the title CyberJudas, as well as John Madden Football II for the PC--with lead designer Robin Antonick having lead the project. The game isn't being sold anymore, but you might be able to find a copy out there if you look hard enough.
Next week's reward will be a copy of BioWare's Xbox 360 RPG Mass Effect. As such, the quiz may involve classic RPGs. Don't you love those impossibly-obvious, teacher-like hints?
My recommendation? Please turn to your local used game shop and look up Earthbound, the cult SNES RPG from Ape/HAL Laboratory and designer Shigesato Itoi.
Actually the second title in the Mother series, Earthbound is a rare gem of an RPG, a perfectly irreverent game that was far ahead of its time. One could imagine Earthbound being released today, a throw-back indie title mocking the RPGs of years past with its hippie-on-child combat, its crayon-like graphics, and its funky, catchy soundtrack. Instead, it did all of this in 1994.
Some might be turned off by its simplistic approach, or its Dragon Quest-style combat system, or its crayon-like graphics and funky soundtrack. Those people will fail this class.
Study its finer points. Lament at Mother 3's lack of an English release.
Turn the page for today's lesson, and show and tell. _PAGE_BREAK_
Many gamers are familiar with 3D Realms, the company that created Duke Nukem, fostered Max Payne, and published Wolfenstein 3D. Some may be surprised to learn that all of this was actually done by a company named Apogee.
The story of Apogee begins in the outback. Scott Miller had been writing games since 1975 while living in Australia, tinkering away on a rudimentary, unfortunately-named Wang 2000 computer. Eventually he gave up life amongst the kangaroos, moving to Dallas with his family, where he befriended another young gamer, George Broussard. The two became fast friends based on their mutual interest, writing a gaming guide together that was published in 1982, "Shootout: Zap the Video Games." Miller was 20; Broussard only 18.
Miller and Broussard moved on to release their own games. Like many young game developers of the time, Miller saw his most successful DOS games published as shareware in monthly disk-distributing magazines like Softdisk, or posted for download on early online bulletin board systems (BBS). At the time, the term "shareware" described an entirely free game, given out in the hope that people would like the software enough to pay for it. This meant that very few designers made much of a profit from their creations.
Looking to start up his own publishing company, Miller created Apogee from the bedroom of his parents' house, circa 1987. The first games released under the name were from his own Kingdom of Kroz series, adventure titles driven by simple, ASCII-like graphics, and distributed as shareware.
However, unlike the standard model, Miller released the Kroz games as pay-to-play episodes. After a certain point in the game, users would have to shell out cash to keep playing. Hungry for more ASCII action, the orders came rolling in. Kroz was a hit, and Miller was making money.
Soon other developers looking for a big return wanted to be published under the Apogee model too. This included a small team of largely unknown, but very talented Softdisk designers. Originally a part-time effort for Miller, Apogee was about to became a full-time reality.
The talented designers were John and Adrian Carmack, John Romero, and Tom Hall. While working at Softdisk, the four had created a working PC port of Super Mario Bros. 3, all in the hope that Nintendo would be interested. Nintendo wasn't, but Miller was. Secretly contacting Romero in the form of fan mail, Miller succeeded in convincing the team to develop a game based on the side-scrolling technology they had created--a game that he would distribute. He gave the team $2,000 for pizza, and the foursome hunkered down in a lake house in Shrevport, Louisiana.
Emerging from the Shrevport sessions was Commander Keen, a side-scrolling shooter that did big business and spawned many sequels. After the game was a hit, the programmers broke off from Softdisk and formed id Software in 1991, moving to Dallas in order to coordinate with Apogee. Around this time, Miller brought on close friend George Broussard to help run an internal development team at Apogee. This division produced Duke Nukem, a popular side-scrolling series in the vein of Commander Keen. Publishing both internally and externally developed projects, Apogee prospered.
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Id Software's next original title was Wolfenstein 3D, the legendary game that revolutionized PC gaming with its then-realistic 3D graphics and texture mapping. Both id and Apogee would never be the same.The two companies would part ways after Wolfenstein, with id self-publishing its next hit, Doom. However, with its core development team intact, Apogee would soon create its own iconic shooter.
In 1994, the company formed a spin-off label, 3D Realms, solely devoted to the internal development of 3D games. The division's first project was Duke Nukem 3D, a first person shooter starring the gregarious character of its earlier side-scrolling titles. Released in 1996, Duke Nukem 3D's graphics stood as a marked step up from Doom, and its focus on adult-oriented, over-the-top presentation made it one of the best selling games of all time.
Due to the popularity of Duke Nukem 3D, a game with the 3D Realms moniker slapped across its box, the Apogee name waned. The last game published under the Apogee label was Remedy Entertainment's Death Rally, released in September of 1996. Though 3D Realms would go on to become the dominant label, publishing Remedy's Max Payne series, Human Head's Prey, and (still) developing the infamous Duke Nukem Forever, Apogee remains the company's technical title, and the reason for its success.
Fun fact: Apogee also created another label for their games, Pinball Wizards, in order to publish the Wildfire Studios-developed pinball title Balls of Steel. The idea was for Apogee to create a new publishing division for every genre of game. Pinball Wizards was only used once, and 3D Realms has been the de facto label ever since.
Because discussion of the quiz is strictly forbidden, we offer a show-and-tell opportunity. Please raise your hands one at a time, come to the front of the class, and give us your gaming anecdotes.
Today's topic: What makes a great first-person shooter for you?
Personally I find myself attached to FPS games with uniquely satisfying weapons. Jedi Knight with its lightsaber, Half-Life 2 and the physics gun, Doom's double-barrel shotgun. Give me a great weapon mechanic and I'm sold.
All things being equal, which element stands out as the deciding factor of a fantastic FPS? Is it the variety of weapons? The design of the enemies? The look of the environments? Do you just like impressive explosions, or are you into quiet sneakers with fancy AI?
Show, tell, and come back next week. Absence will not be tolerated. And you didn't forget to take the quiz, did you? That would be bad.
