4 ms·
That's why SMAC worked so much better in the far future (22nd century) without the burden of explicitly extrapolating current geopolitics and going all in on ag
by mxfh 12y ago
That's why SMAC worked so much better in the far future (22nd century) without the burden of explicitly extrapolating current geopolitics and going all in on agenda/ideology driven factions. The current faction/sponsor selection looks way more nationality based and just seems to cater too much to the respective major digital game markets of today: US, Western Europe, Brazil, Australia, Eastern Europe, plus the token African Union, while all of Asia get's lumped in into one minus the Indian sub-continent. This just all feels like Oprah Winfrey driven game development («You, get a faction, you get a faction, everybody gets a faction»).
Maybe I just miss those cut scenes and quotes, they really set the tone in SMAC; Beyond Earth so far, is sadly enough an OK game, yet forgettable.
- Apocryphon 12y agoWell, SMAC happened in the unspecified 21st century as well, but all of the background pre-Arrival fluff was written very subtly, and all of the factions were based around fundamental human philosophies/ideologies/motivations. The national backgrounds of the faction leaders was purely for flavor. All of the real meat of the story and characters was in the gameplay itself, which all takes place on Planet. You didn't need to know what exactly happened on Earth, except that it was bad stuff, and it helped to shape the faction leaders who are the personifications of those primal ideologies.