Author Topic: What do you think about games from Eastern Europe ?  (Read 2458 times)

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Offline Viall

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What do you think about games from Eastern Europe ?
« on: February 25, 2015, 09:58:21 AM »
Hi pals !
French student here, I'm currently writing a dissertation and would appreciate if you could take a moment to help me with it.
I'm studying videogames from Eastern Europe and how they are established on the videogame market. Meaning, how games from Ukraine, Poland, Russia and Belarus sell, why, etc.What games do you know from those countries ? (please not just The Witcher)
  • How would you define games from Eastern Europe ?
  • Have you ever played Russian games ?
  • What do those games have in common ?
  • What makes them different from other games ?
  • Do you check where a game is from ?
  • Thanks a lot pals !

Offline azeke

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Re: What do you think about games from Eastern Europe ?
« Reply #1 on: February 25, 2015, 11:35:17 AM »
Oh boy.

Do you want a perspective from "inside"? I live in a post Soviet country and i am russian-speaking.

First of all, all media (not just games) from CIS countries is rooted in a completely different culture and set of values. Another big difference is obviously diiferent history -- like 90s was pretty much the end of the world here, while "civilised world" was enjoying their SNES and Playstations.

The first thing to know about gaming in CIS countries: no consoles past pirated Famicom clones (see "Grey elephant curse" to know the history of Dendy), so no SNES, no N64. Genesis actually got relatively popular and Playstation 1 was common enough but majority of all gamers played on PC and that's what most games were developer for.

As to list of games from Eastern Europe... I am going to list them by genre so it's gonna be all over the place with years of release -- from early 2000s when i started gaming to this day.

RPGs:
Heroes of Might and Magic V and King's Bounty series

HoMM series is really popular here. It got so popular HoMM 5 was even developed by Nival -- russian company. And King's Bounty IP which is technically a precursor HoMM series was even bought out by another russian company wholesale and they're doing new games in that series to this day.

I also tried to get into russian developed Disciples III, but couldn't figure it out. The only kind of RPGs i knew at the time were strategy RPG hybrids like HoMM and KB and i couldn't figure it out.

To this day, HoMM IV is the only RPG-game i managed to finish -- or at least finish one of the campaign. Since then i tried many other kinds of RPGs: W-, J-, S- but it all goes way too slow for me.

Simulator games:
General -- spent a LOT of time in this game. Playing this game with friends taking turns was especially fun (over LAN or in "hotseat" mode). It kinda looks primitive -- you are manipulating abstract numbers and filling bars but there is quite a lot of depth in there.

World of Tanks -- few of my colleagues were really into it. I actually only played 360 version for a little while and found it too shallow.


Space/flying sims:

Space Rangers 1 and 2
IL2-Sturmovik -- IL2 was one of the first game i got with my own money -- way back in 2001 or so. Also got a flying stick just to play this game. Then

I also know of Star Wolves space sim series, but didn't personally played it myself.

I also vaguely remember trying to play game called Parkan which was kind hybrid of mech game and space RTS or something...


Strategy:

Sudden strike -- a series of really cool early 2000s RTS. A cool feature of this series was complete absense of economics and resource management -- you don't build anything

I also remember Paradise Cracked which was XCOM-style tactics game. Or more like "Jagged Alliance" type game, because "jaga" was REALLY popular at the time.

Point and click:

Pilot brothers -- Pilot brothers are cartoon characters and they made two (?) puzzle games based on them, with the same animation studio. Puzzles were complete BS. They re-released first game on mobile platforms recently.

Full Pipe -- yet another point and click game. It was animated by a celebreated animation artist and looks very, very, VERY weird and artsy. Also similar to Full Pipe is...

Samorost -- two point and click games from chech studio Amanita design. I actually managed to finish first one but got stuck in the middle of the second...

Quote
What do those games have in common ?
What makes them different from other games ?
The big difference is as i said completely different background, like compare western first-person shooting game to STALKER or even Metro 2033 series (both sci-fi novel adaptations by the way). The difference in tone is gigantic -- everything is a lot more moody and post-apocalyptic.

Also a lot more emphasis on realism -- often to the detriment of playability.

Because most of japanese console gaming went past us (outside of a very few games) gamer here never really had an experience of a really polished console game like the ones on SNES and stuff. Maybe that's why games from here have so much "jank".

Quite a lot of Eastern European games have "realistic military" theme, especially if it's WWII-themed with games like World of Tanks, Sudden Strike, Death to Spies, IL2-Sturmovik, WarThunder or even chech based Arma II.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2015, 11:37:43 AM by azeke »
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