Link to the Future Gamer website

Front Page

News
Previews
Reviews
Features
Gamer Life
• The Language Of Videogaming
• Great Videogames Through The Ages
• A Site For Sore Eyes
• Game Kid
• Retro
• The Hacker
• Score Card
• Future Gamer Recommends
• Back at the Ranch

Feedback
Charts
Release Schedule
Next Week

Paper View


On the website

Chat forum
Demos and Patches
Hints and Tips...
   PC
   PlayStation
   N64

Voodoo 3 for your PC
Issue 32 - June 17, 1999
 
Back at the Ranch
What people in the industry really play... page 2 of 2
Richard Garriott

So is there any chance that you would be tempted to do a remake?
Good odds, as a matter of fact.

Online maybe?
Of course online!

What has been the biggest videogaming let-down for you in the last year?
Probably the biggest let-down for me recently, has been the realisation that 3D cards are not compatible. I've been really disappointed with Direct 3D and it's implementations on the 3D hardware. Years ago we used to develop for the Apple, the Amiga, the Macintosh, etc. That was a real nightmare, so we were really pleased when everybody pretty much either owned a console or a PC - everything became reasonably standardised. 3D hardware is so important to the future of our games, that we were very excited when it started coming out with the promise of Direct 3D-style plug and play. This was not the case - we ended up having to support each card uniquely. Quite frankly, I much prefer Glide and so my wish would be that everybody dumps all these D3D cards and uses Glide. But it probably won't happen.

Any titles you're really looking forward to in the near future?
There's one called Loose Cannon from Digital Anvil that I think looks cool. I haven't played it but I watched it at E3 and I just thought it looked beautiful, so I have high hopes for that one. And then there's Vampire: The Masquerade, which was also shown at E3. Those are probably the two that I'm looking forward to the most.

When all's said and done, what's your favourite game ever?
My favourite game ever is still probably Sundog. That's clearly my number one fondest memory of any game down through time.

And the worst?
Obviously there have been lots of bad games, but what I'll probably pick would be one that I had really high hopes for and was disappointed by. For me that was Riven. I am one of the rare game developers that really loved the original, Myst - a lot of people in my office dissed me for it, they think of it as a simpleton's game. I took Riven home and played it for about eight hours and tried to figure it out but I solved exactly zero puzzles. And then I gave up on it.