Welcome back to ground zero.

Welcome back to ground zero.
It would appear I am off to a slow start. I'm not real big on showing off works in progress. I think Nabokov said it best when he compared such practice to displaying one's sputum in public. Don't worry, that's the only Nabokov I can quote offhand, and I can't even actually quote it, can I? I do know how properly to pronounce his name, though, which is quite an accomplishment these days as I understand things.

There was a time not long ago when even I had very little hope for this game. I've looked to other games to pick up on where Subspace had left off - to the Tribes variants which have now been all but abandoned; to Allegiance with its long, slow conflicts and weird, abstract, Subspace-esque game balances; to the potential Infantry once seemed to have and the promise Hyperspace still holds for some. I look forward to Tribes 2 and to PlanetSide and TeamFortress 2, but over the past year one thing has become clear to me. Subspace has a monopoly. Certainly more sophisticated games have come along in terms of both realism and abstraction - the strategy's been more involving and the combat more intense - the teamplay's become more interesting.

I've been told teamplay is the future; surprise, kids: it isn't. All that philosophy that informs the gaming industry's directions - it is all good, and it creates games that are wonderful in their own way, but I have to wonder if anyone will ever again get the mixture right. The mixture of vastness and close combat; of fast action and cool patience; and indeed of teamplay, mad chaos, and the lone wolf ethic all rolled into one. It's probably bad business, and frankly it's probably not sound design - but Subspace has it, like that or not, and it's what keeps us rolling along.

But you knew that by now, didn't you. :)