Microsoft Game Studios

another great thread NeoZE

Yea I'm going to have to say that I too enjoyed the Banjo games, the first more than the second.

And Blast Corps was and still is fantastic. Heck, Perfect Dark was a lot of fun too IMO.

I had totally forgotten that Access made those Tex Murphy games... I got a big kick out of Under a Killing Moon when that came out, at the height of those FMV adventure games (like the 7th Guest and such).

I believe Oni was only half finished when Rockstar got the rights to it, and I remember hearing that Rockstar (or some developer under their control) finished the game while Bungie was busy doing the Halo thing. Thus the disappointment.

But as usual, great write up by NeoZeedeater. I love reading these.

And oh yea, opinion on DK64... I thought the game would have been decent fun, if you weren't forced to play through each level FIVE TIMES (basically). That just ruined it completely.

And, uhh, the opening rap song, made me want to slice off my ears every time I heard it. And I can sing every cursed word somehow (GG SSBM)

Thanks guys. :)

What I read about the Oni/Halo thing is that there were two development teams within Bungie, one for Oni and one for Halo.

But did that Oni team finish work on the game once MS bought Bungie? I thought I remember them losing the rights to Myth and Oni when that happened. Just piecing together random memories so my being wrong is far from unlikely.

I'm sure they still have the rights to Myth since the games were self-published unlike Oni. Who knows if Microsoft is interested in the Myth franchise.

My thoughts:

Oni tried too hard to be this slick anime game, and in the end sucked... it reminded me a shitload of Burning Rangers for some reason... maybe it was the bad camera, or the way the game trained you at the start...

After Sin and Punishment, Blast Corps was the only N64 game I played long enough to make my N64 warm. And people shouldn't rag on the Banjo-Kazooies, despite their short comings, they were a fun diversion. Perfect Dark was as good as GoldenEye, IMHO. And Elvis was TEH SHIZNIT! But the best rare games are still Battletoads and Snake Rattle n' Roll.

Bungie should be able to pump out some good games for MicroSoft, but I think Rare are a gutted company... StarFox Adventures was an excercise in suckiness. But maybe MicroSoft payed them to make it sucky?

Yea, Starfox Adventures was just bad. And I've played and enjoyed a lot of the corny Rare platformers, but listening to the dialogue in SFA and that dino-language (very well thought out Rare, lets make all the important words like "Dinosaur Planet" and "General Scales" be pronounced in plain English) was gut-wrenchingly bad. And the gameplay was just super stale.

They still can make a very pretty looking game though, that's for sure. That being said though, I too have to wonder if any of their upcoming games will impress Microsoft with their sales numbers. Of the three titles they've shown (Ghoulies, Kameo, Conker), I think the only one that has the potential to sell decently is Conker, and that's iffy. Perfect Dark Zero needs to be something fantastic, and with a lot of the Rare FPS talent working over at Free Radical Design, that seems to be a task easier said than done.

It's going to be interesting to say the least.

I'd like to see Bungie give Oni another go, the game was very flawed but the premise (ala Dead to Rights) is still one of the best of it's kind. It's just that it's kind sorta sucks right now. I'd think they'd do better one more time around (playing it on PC with a controler was really kinda fun I thought).

NeoZ: I thought there were more developers in Microsoft. I'm thinking of games like Mechassault and Amped - were these simply published by MS and not developed internally within one of thier developers? Also, on the PC they've got thier Age of Empires/Mythology business and whats-thier-name behind Asheron's Call (Darktide was really fun, shame AC2 is a pile, nice looking for sure... stable and and lag free too.. but not fun). I understand the intent is to focus on the Console efforts, but perchance you missed some?

Oh, I know I missed a bunch. I was originally going to try and include all of them but since there's only so much the board will let you fit into a single post, I settled on three that have long histories. I already had to shrink it to get it to fit.

The guys who do Asheron's Call aren't owned by Microsoft. MS needed to have an MMORPG, and they picked Turbine to make them one (and then another). Turbine is branching out now, free of MS's clutches. Middle Earth Online looks fantastic, and there's obviously great potential there. Also a D&D game is being done by them. I hear they're working on something interally that's going to be very impressive as well.

And I think NeoZeedeater just chose to focus on those three developers for this thread. Given the knowledge level shown, I'm sure he knows MS's game studio is far deeper than three developers.