I don't think we've seen aliens as part of the game, but rather very stylized robots. They remind me of certain robots from Batman: The Animated Series. I wish I could find a reference to it. Maybe I'm wrong about the aliens.
Oddly, one of the oldest "omg it flies" moment in video games I can remember is when the flying ship takes off in Final Fantasy IV (aka FFII). Suddenly, hours into the game (which means hours after the opening where there were flying ships already), seeing the mode 7 induced change in perspective as the ship lifts off was just amazing. I guess the freedom of movement it implies also play a big part in the intensity of the moment. It flies: the world is mine.
As far as gameplay go, I really enjoy flying by repulsion such as the jetpacks in Pilotwings or Super Mario Sunshine (or in 2D: Cave Story with gun recoil). I guess it's easier to involve the player that way and make them feel the acceleration and the trajectory rather than with classic flight controls.
Motion sensing can also work pretty well, like in Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction or Flower.
About freedom of movement it is also important to once again mention Descent and its truly 3D design for both control and levels. I guess it's just too intimidating for modern players and, by extension, modern publishers. #flyinggames
@RicoTheSaboteur: Remember joysticks? They were invented for a reason. Replace the three axes with a joystick and suddenly you've got your finger on the trigger, your other hand on the throttle, and a hell of a thrill ride, all the way back in 1996. #flyinggames
@Chris Parnell: the usual number of axes for a joystick is two, but it's true some also had torsion (which adds an axis) and even a hat (which add another 2) . You need all that plus the throttle on the keyboard to play Descent! With an oddity like Logitech's Cyberman you could steer the ship without a keyboard though. I even know someone who did just that back in the days, but I am not sure how long the Cyberman survived. #flyinggames
@RicoTheSaboteur: Ahh yeah Id forgotten that the torsion thing wasn't all that common. Even so, I played against people who just had pitch and yaw, and made clever use of the up/down and left/right strafing to pull off some decent flying. #flyinggames
true story: I'm a lucid dreamer. I can recall at least five instances of being aware I'm dreaming, allowing me to lift off the ground and fly around. It is the most amazing video game EVER #flyinggames
@Muggs Bigglesworth: I've been experimenting with lucidity while dreaming for about 20 years. Indeed, nothing can compare with the realistic sensation of being free to fly in a dream you're controlling.
Eventually I got over my own boundaries and was able to set my sights on the stars and fly through space and to the moon fast as thought. When you move like that in a dream, the next day when you awaken you get an overwhelming sense of well-being and that nothing can stop you. Liberating, empowering and other big words.
Edited by Sobersean: aka Doctor Aquafresh at 11/09/09 2:37 PM
Sobersean: aka Doctor Aquafresh was starred
Sobersean: aka Doctor Aquafresh was unstarred
@Muggs Bigglesworth: I remember the only time I ever had a lucid dream. I called up a clock, only to discover I couldn't read it. Then I decided to fly. Then it went back to normal dreaming. #flyinggames
I know there are plenty of "A flying piece with no mention of (insert game here)?" comments, but this can't be helped. If you're going to talk about exploring the Z-axis in shooters, how can you not mention Starsiege: Tribes? Released only 2 years after Quake introduced the idea of exploring the Z-axis in shooters, it perfected it. As jetpacks and flying become a common trend in shooters (Red Faction, Dark Void, Section 8, Shattered Horizon), Tribes is still the golden standard to which no other shooter has come close. #flyinggames
@BigMoose is a big moose:
Tribes was amazing. I've had trouble playing "smaller" multiplayer shooters since.
I used to play it all the time on my goddamn 4meg video card.
Learning to "ski" and to duel with a spinfusor are some of my best gaming memories.
Server-side mods were also great, like Renegades with its different classes. Placing tiny super precise laser turrets along the terrain so ski-ing enemies would get bugzapped on their way to our base...
But the Mortar was a fucking overpowered piece of shit :P
The problem now is the fact that many games are the "on rail" type of shooter/arcade games. No physics, no tactics, just turn until he's in front, fire on him next.
I grew up on a very, very old DOS based World War One flight sim called Red Baron, and then later Red Baron 3d. Over speed made your wings break off, engine trouble and gun trouble could come out of nowhere and was at times unfixable. A good career could be cut short by one lucky bullet from nowhere, it could kill you or wound you to the point that your career was over. I lost many a pilot to that fate. Most of the early flight sims required a basic understanding of combat maneuvers, and tactics. And if you weren't flying with a Joystick/Rudder/Throttle combination you were at a disadvantage. Let alone if you were to venture online.
Online combat had a learning curve that was unbelievably steep. Some of the people had been playing since 1997. Last I heard the game still had a dedicated following so it wouldn't be completely unheard of to have someone who had played that game for 12 years.
Heck only reason I stopped playing was because I had to ge a new PC. Old Pentium 1 with 16MB of RAM and Voodoo 3 3000 was becoming too dated lol. Can't get it to run right on my new PC unfortunately.
I played that game for 7 years of my life and still blame it for my flying bug. I did find one very interesting thing when going for my flying lessons though. I did much better then I should have on my first instructed flight. I don't want to say I could jump in a 747 and go from East to West coast but I could fly that Cessna much better then most people on their first flight could.
Now it's all rail shooters, no tactics, powerups floating in the sky. Hopefully with IL2 sturmovik being released and hard games like Demons Souls we'll see actual flight sims make a resurgence #flyinggames
There was a scene in the first transformers movie that I would love to play in a game. You guys remember the scene where starscream totally owns the jet fighters in mid-air? yeah that was epic and I would love to have that ability in a game. To use the physics of gravity to just drop myself on an enemy then fly off to the next one in mid-air. #flyinggames
All we need is a perfect(and I mean perfect) Itano Circus/Macross Missile Massacre style game. I mean just missiles everywhere, super speeds and maneuvers, dodging in and out of the clouds, flipping through hordes of missiles, shooting them down while speeding through the skies, explosions everywhere.
It'd be one of those moments when two hundred missiles are blowing up all around you and you dodged every single one in a display of super ace skills that players gape in awe.
The closest I've had to that is when I managed to dodge and outrun four guys locking on to my Warhawk with the eight micro missile spam flipping over and destroying all four guys speeding right through them taking their missiles back at them. #flyinggames
@Black-Dog-Howls: The deluxe edition of such a game could come with a shiny helmet with the obligatory green or blue coloured visor, made anti-fog but badly ventilated so you sweat like your favourite missile-shootin' heroes. #flyinggames
When I think of flying in video games I think of the first time I enabled the godmode cheat in Duke Nukem 3d which gave infinite jetpack.
I don't know why, but that "gaming moment" really affected me with a sense of flight and I still remember it to this day so many years later. #flyinggames
Flying has always been one of my favourite things to do in games whether it be flying a Hunter and causing mayhem in GTA to flying an airbus in FlightSim.
One of my favourite games for exploring the Z-axis was and still is the Battlefield games. There's nothing like dominating the skies and ground with a jet or gunship and the ability to do loop-de-loops only adds to the exhileration.
I'm looking forward to Dark Void too, it looks like it'll be a really solid game. #flyinggames
@Mancomb Seepgood: lol. Maybe you just haven't played the right games. You should try the Jets in BF2 or the Gunships in BF2142, best flight experience I've had. #flyinggames
@sereal: I was too for a long time but once I got a gaming mouse with high dpi, I just turned it up to it's most sensitive and flying was great. #flyinggames
@-MasterDex-: I figure I would be better off using a joystick. One of these days I want to get two joysticks and foot pedals and try up BSG style flying. (though not in BF) #flyinggames
@-MasterDex-: Indeed battlefield did flight really well considering it wasn't the main focus of the game.
I loved Battlefield Vietnam I used to run over people in that Viet Helicopter. The American Heli I could never get the hang of however.
Really didn't like the flying in 1943 though seemed really cheap. Especially when such perfection was available in other battlefield titles. #flyinggames
@Chrisyoung001: Battlefield did really well with all the vehicle controls I think, though I can't speak for 1943 as I have to wait until next year to enjoy it :( #flyinggames
@Slagathorian: Flying was awesome in Superman 64. You all were just too weak to handle it.
Or it was the fact that my mom got me the game and I was too scared for some reason to tell her it was crap. So I just sat there with a fake smile playing it, telling her it was awesome. Like a slow torture that makes the victim love their captor, I too began to love the rings and the endless green smog.
@Nahir: lol, how do you think I feel when my wife gets me Infinite Undiscovery for my birthday. Every time she walked past the living room, she would ask me why I wasn't playing it.
"I want to savor it" I say.
I felt like a huge jerk.
lol, oh yeah, the "kryptonite fog" that also looks suspiciously like something the developers threw in so they wouldn't have to worry about Z-buffers and draw distances. Oh we remember the green smog and cursed rings. #flyinggames
@Slagathorian: Gifts from significant others like that are always hard to handle. You want to be nice but you have to somehow stop it from happening again.
Makes you think though, what are things that we get that make them think the same thing,
"Why aren't you wearing that necklace I bought you?"
11/19/09
11/19/09
I'm not asking for one of my favorite movies, but maybe one of my favorite game-movies?
11/19/09
Modern Day The Rocketeer
I mean really just replace Nazis with Aliens and there you go.
11/19/09
I don't think we've seen aliens as part of the game, but rather very stylized robots. They remind me of certain robots from Batman: The Animated Series. I wish I could find a reference to it. Maybe I'm wrong about the aliens.
11/19/09
Though I think its robot created by aliens or alien robots or something like that.
#speakup
11/09/09
As far as gameplay go, I really enjoy flying by repulsion such as the jetpacks in Pilotwings or Super Mario Sunshine (or in 2D: Cave Story with gun recoil). I guess it's easier to involve the player that way and make them feel the acceleration and the trajectory rather than with classic flight controls.
Motion sensing can also work pretty well, like in Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction or Flower.
About freedom of movement it is also important to once again mention Descent and its truly 3D design for both control and levels. I guess it's just too intimidating for modern players and, by extension, modern publishers. #flyinggames
11/09/09
@RicoTheSaboteur: Screenshot from Descent 2 key config screen. Yep: 12 (Twelve) buttons just to steer your ship. #flyinggames
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Eventually I got over my own boundaries and was able to set my sights on the stars and fly through space and to the moon fast as thought. When you move like that in a dream, the next day when you awaken you get an overwhelming sense of well-being and that nothing can stop you. Liberating, empowering and other big words.
11/09/09
11/09/09
nuff said #flyinggames
11/09/09
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11/09/09
Tribes was amazing. I've had trouble playing "smaller" multiplayer shooters since.
I used to play it all the time on my goddamn 4meg video card.
Learning to "ski" and to duel with a spinfusor are some of my best gaming memories.
Server-side mods were also great, like Renegades with its different classes. Placing tiny super precise laser turrets along the terrain so ski-ing enemies would get bugzapped on their way to our base...
But the Mortar was a fucking overpowered piece of shit :P
Oh, btw... Tribes will soon be a browser game: [playtribes.com] #flyinggames
11/09/09
I grew up on a very, very old DOS based World War One flight sim called Red Baron, and then later Red Baron 3d. Over speed made your wings break off, engine trouble and gun trouble could come out of nowhere and was at times unfixable. A good career could be cut short by one lucky bullet from nowhere, it could kill you or wound you to the point that your career was over. I lost many a pilot to that fate. Most of the early flight sims required a basic understanding of combat maneuvers, and tactics. And if you weren't flying with a Joystick/Rudder/Throttle combination you were at a disadvantage. Let alone if you were to venture online.
Online combat had a learning curve that was unbelievably steep. Some of the people had been playing since 1997. Last I heard the game still had a dedicated following so it wouldn't be completely unheard of to have someone who had played that game for 12 years.
Heck only reason I stopped playing was because I had to ge a new PC. Old Pentium 1 with 16MB of RAM and Voodoo 3 3000 was becoming too dated lol. Can't get it to run right on my new PC unfortunately.
I played that game for 7 years of my life and still blame it for my flying bug. I did find one very interesting thing when going for my flying lessons though. I did much better then I should have on my first instructed flight. I don't want to say I could jump in a 747 and go from East to West coast but I could fly that Cessna much better then most people on their first flight could.
Now it's all rail shooters, no tactics, powerups floating in the sky. Hopefully with IL2 sturmovik being released and hard games like Demons Souls we'll see actual flight sims make a resurgence #flyinggames
11/09/09
11/09/09
11/09/09
It'd be one of those moments when two hundred missiles are blowing up all around you and you dodged every single one in a display of super ace skills that players gape in awe.
The closest I've had to that is when I managed to dodge and outrun four guys locking on to my Warhawk with the eight micro missile spam flipping over and destroying all four guys speeding right through them taking their missiles back at them. #flyinggames
11/09/09
11/09/09
I don't know why, but that "gaming moment" really affected me with a sense of flight and I still remember it to this day so many years later. #flyinggames
11/09/09
Anyone else share this horror? #flyinggames
11/09/09
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One of my favourite games for exploring the Z-axis was and still is the Battlefield games. There's nothing like dominating the skies and ground with a jet or gunship and the ability to do loop-de-loops only adds to the exhileration.
I'm looking forward to Dark Void too, it looks like it'll be a really solid game. #flyinggames
11/09/09
Give me a gun and someone elses face any day :p #flyinggames
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11/14/09
I loved Battlefield Vietnam I used to run over people in that Viet Helicopter. The American Heli I could never get the hang of however.
Really didn't like the flying in 1943 though seemed really cheap. Especially when such perfection was available in other battlefield titles. #flyinggames
11/14/09
11/14/09
I do want a good flight sim on the ps3 however. Im looking at you Ace Combat! YOU TRAITOR! #flyinggames
11/09/09
Then I remember flying in Superman64... it all gets a little hazy and violent after that...
Then came Star Fox (snes) and with it I regained my air-legs.
Then came ace combat, which made even flying mundane..
I'm now more of a "controlled falling" kinda guy. Be it Spiderman games or Infamous... #flyinggames
11/09/09
How can you forget about:
THE RINGS!
THE RINGS!
THE RINGS!
no seriously..... what did you use to forget it? Therapy? Electric shock therapy? A hammer to your cranium? #flyinggames
11/09/09
@Slagathorian: ...
Changed my life. #flyinggames
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11/09/09
Yes. Yes i did. #flyinggames
11/09/09
Or it was the fact that my mom got me the game and I was too scared for some reason to tell her it was crap. So I just sat there with a fake smile playing it, telling her it was awesome. Like a slow torture that makes the victim love their captor, I too began to love the rings and the endless green smog.
I think I'll take my pills now.
11/09/09
"I want to savor it" I say.
I felt like a huge jerk.
lol, oh yeah, the "kryptonite fog" that also looks suspiciously like something the developers threw in so they wouldn't have to worry about Z-buffers and draw distances. Oh we remember the green smog and cursed rings. #flyinggames
11/09/09
Makes you think though, what are things that we get that make them think the same thing,
"Why aren't you wearing that necklace I bought you?"
"Um, I'm saving it for a speeeeecial day!"
*barfs behind your back* #flyinggames
11/09/09
Flying into an invisible wall, however, cancels that out and dumps you somewhere into negative satisfaction. #flyinggames