In all of gaming, these guys really haven't gotten the play of Gabe Newell, Cliffy B., West & Zampella or even the industry's version of Sandra Bullock: Tim Schafer.
These guys made games that changed what we expect from the medium and have left this culture's landscape with permanent improvements in terms of content, creativity, game play and story telling. They've invented - or at least perfected - the Western RPG as we know it, have given Europe inspiration (Witcher) and Japan a much needed wake up call.
Being as smart as they are, they've gotten out at the right time. Free-to-play, casual gaming and the dwindling relevance of consoles (among other factors) make it much easier for Greg and Ray to exit stage right, I'm sure.
I tip my hat, give thanks and wish them the very best in their future endeavors.
Gotta admit I was tough on them when this all shook out a few years back. It all seemed too soon and appeared to be a monetary exploitation of a very sensitive and topical subject.
Since then I've seen developer after developer go beyond what Atomic proposed and I've wondered why they've been the whipping boy while the big guns of game development thrash about with past and current conflicts in whatever manner they choose. So long as a military veteran consultant is hired and that individual gives the thumbs up - in that professional-grade & trademarked dreary and overly earnest tone, of course - it seems the "War Is Sell" exploitation becomes an easier pill to swallow.
Time has passed. Actual Marines are in the mix and want to see it done. If video games truly are an art form (and they are), let it see the light of day and it's merits will be in the eyes of those who buy it and play it.
I checked this out only because I'm an ARMA fan and after reading many, many posts on the subject I can now ad "extremely touchy" to "habitually late" when describing certain Mediterranean friends of ours.
As I've stated elsewhere: What's the big deal here? Is there really any strategic importance in knowing whether they wind up their tanks and biplanes clockwise or counter clockwise? Acquiring military secrets from these guys is like acquiring culinary secrets from McDonald's.
The games were good, but came during an absolute glut of first person shooters.
To me they did stand out and were excellent in terms of quality, visuals and overall design. Halo wasn't the series chief competition, though; CoD was and like so many other titles, it was dominated by gaming's #1 fps brand.
In the end though, is it really such a terrible tragedy that any series has a beginning, middle and end? Do we really need the graphic novels, a prequel trilogy and an RTS offshoot?
Sony's board might say yes, but I really can't be heart broken about a legacy of five games on three platforms when truly novel and deserving games like Alpha Protocol, Project Snowblind and Psi-Ops never had a whiff of a sequel and probably (certainly) never will.
Yeah, I know: The point of the article is to show what kind of performance can be had with third-string (albeit modern) components and two month's worth of saved lunch money. The results are glorious when one realizes this set up delivers similar performance 2006's top-of-the-line stuff with roughly one tenth of the cost and a quarter of the power usage.
GTX 460's are as common as cold sores on Craigslist and are routinely $50 to $60. 6870's show up less frequently, but the one or two a week I do see are sinking to a sub-$100, asking price.
As a recent PC convert, I still love my consoles for exclusives, but I've certainly seen the light. Ardent consolites should take heed when reading articles like these. The price of entry is lower than ever and the rewards far outstrip any minor technical headaches.
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