Taking into account the rose-tinred specs, I miss the really thick manuals/background books, seemed like you were getting an all-round package for your hard-earned. I remember thinking the CFS2 Corsair (modded sounds) was as good as it was ever going to get. Loved setting up EAW, pressing the 'action cam' (F12?) and watching a virtual movie, and the spinning newspaper that would stop to reveal my latest exploit in Knights of the Sky. Chasing a couple of pixels for hours on end over an 8 colour background ahd thinking "This is just what it was like", finally getting a multi floppy Aces of the Pacific to run (thanks to a computer-nerdy friend, and it nearly beat him), not buying into CFS3 and thinking Flying Corps Gold was over-hyped and poor. Being blown away by the original Il-2 and thinking (yet again) it's never going to get better than this...all sounding like confessions of a flight sim geek, eh?
Well, now I flit between RoF, FSX, CLoD and occaisional (modded) 1946 (yes, yes, there's goblin botherin' and Playstation Yakuza mayhem as well) and wonder what it all could have been like if today's devs had yesterday's way of doing things. Do we only remember the good times? There was some bloody awful offerings about then, weren't there? There's some bloody awful ones about now, but on the whole, I think the atmosphere was different then, and for the better - maybe like the latter chapters of Richey's 'Fighter Pilot', there's an air of lost innocence about the whole thing. Today's devs are trying to be all things to all men - and it ain't a cheap business to get involved in. The simple fact is they're going to have to follow the markets, and the sad truth is flashy, unrealistic, joystick-virgin friendly games (rather than simulations) appeal a lot more to spotty 'erberts weaned on Harry Potter,Transformers and Pokemon. We are a minority.
Now, lots of businesses do very well, thank you, out of catering for minorities, so the hope that our little minority will be catered for in the future always remains. There will be frustrations and setbacks for sure, compromises and contention will litter the path ahead - a path that can only exist if enough customers walk it.
CLoD? So much potential. Will anybody pick up the ball and run with it? I hope so. Either way, I've had my money's worth. I sincerely hope there's a next installment and it's handled better - but then we all do, don't we?
Think positive, chums!
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