Fri, Nov 12, 2010 | 21:19 GMT

Game developers name games that had an influence on them

ico

Eurogamer has a really interesting piece up on its site where game developers chat about what games helped “define” their careers and what influenced them creatively.

There’s all sorts of folks you may be familiar with in the feature, like Peter Molyneux, Tim Willits, Jonathan Blow, Keita Takahashi, the BioWare doctors, Dave Perry, and Tameem Antoniades to name but a few.

Here’s an excerpt from it featuring Peter Molyneux, who has doted on his “inspiration” choice more than once:

I think it’s probably ICO. You go back to that title and have a look at it – there were no icons on screen to speak of, the story was told in such an amazing way, it was told without language, it was incredibly iconic, the environment still is one of the most mystical, enchanting environments ever made, its gameplay with the hand-holding mechanic was brilliant.

It broke every rule of gaming when you think it didn’t have tangible foes, it only introduced the baddie very late on, mystery was part of its mechanic, it didn’t have real power-ups or anything. It was genius and it still remains a work of genius.

If I made something like ICO, I’d be very happy to die.

Read the full thing through here.

8 comments

#1

Kuwabara
12/11/10, 10:35 pm

Thats right xbots, no fable game is as good as ico, and the upcoming last guarding, coming to ps3.

#2

YoungZer0
12/11/10, 10:36 pm

@1: Well Peter would be pretty much an asshole if he’d announce that Fable is much better than ICO.

And asshole and wrong.

#3

Mike Honcho
12/11/10, 11:17 pm

First time I heard Molyneux say something sensible.

ICO is an all-time classic …. still have a mint copy stored in the attic somewhere.

#4

vodka-bull
13/11/10, 1:59 am

He is a respectful man who knows what he did wrong and what he did right, and he doesn’t avoid praising other games as other developers tend to do. Honestly, that’s why I think he’s one of the best developer this industry has to offer and he’s absolutely the right man for the position of creative director of microsoft game studios europe.

#5

Crysis
13/11/10, 2:07 am

I don’t mind Molyneux, but his plans when developing a game are always much bigger than the developing team is able to implement in the short amount of time they have, which is why all of his games fall flat of expectations.

#6

freedoms_stain
13/11/10, 3:59 am

And not one of them mentioned pac-man.

#7

endgame
13/11/10, 6:08 am

what vodka said.

#8

DaMan
13/11/10, 4:40 pm

Molyneux has been making games better than Ico up until he left Bullfrog. I had no desire to play anything he designed since then.

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