The best developers.
General Gaming

After buying Dragonage the other day, it got me thinking who the top game developers are nowadays. So i thought i\'d get some opinions one it. Because plenty of companies used to be the staple game developers such as Nintendo or Sega, but what would you say are todays top developers.

I\'d have to side with Bioware, considering im finding it hard to find a game that i didn\'t like by them. And maybe blizzard (Being a big fan of Warcraft 3, Diablo, Starcraft, once more they don\'t make bad games.) And obviously Valve.

I\'d be reluctant to say Infinity ward souly based on the no dedicated server issue on the pc version of the game, the new CoD is the first Call of duty i wont be buying on release day and playing online.

I\'d like to say 2k, but that\'d be pretty much entirely on my deep love for bioshock. and thats only 1 game

So yeah, opinions?

( Edited 11.11.2009 02:21 by TaoFire )

So I guess you liked Sonic RPG on DS then?

Naughty Dog (Uncharted 2), Team Ico (Ico), Nintendo EAD Tokyo (Mario Galaxy), Kojima Productions (MGS4), Capcom, Infinity Ward (CoD:MW2), UbiSoft Montreal (SC Conviction) and Sony Santa Monica (Kratos)

Everyone else pales in comparison, although DICE are moving up the ranks this gen.

Atlus, who came up with the Trauma Center series, the ever expanding Shin Megami Tensei series(encompassing tons of spin-offs), and many, MANY others.

You could count 2K. They have both Bioshock and Borderlands, a game on its way to becoming the best seller of 2009. Seriously, I don't know of any of my gamer friends who don't have that game.

And of course, Valve. If you don't know this by now, you're living in the dark ages. I mean, sure they release games on "Valve Time", but it's always a sparkling diamond.

Blizzard - I love all of their games. Starcraft, Warcraft 3 and Diablo, all great games that I still play today. Cannot wait for Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 to come out. Not really a fan of WoW though but I have to admit, it is a very solid MMORPG.

Valve - Half Life 1 and 2 would definitely be in my top 10 games. Counterstrike and Left 4 Dead are also great online games.

Intelligent Systems - the creators of Fire Emblem, Advance Wars and Paper Mario. I love all 3 series deeply.

Rare - Back in the golden age of the N64 I bought and played every one of their games. Definitely the best era of gaming for me. Makes me sad just thinking about those days.

Haven't played it, but im bias to the fact i find Sonic painfully annoying.

GearBox created Borderlands

@ TaoFire

That's STAR material right there. That blue cunt is annoying.

Hmmm I'd Have to say, I'm not sure who's really best imo but Among them: Nintendo, Blizzard, Capcom, mayyyybe SE rather, Enix for Secret of Mana , Valve, Retro, Rare (for their N64, SNES and some GC games (Starfox Adventures) after that they just went downhill for me...
Yeah I guess those are the best imo, Love all their games playes most games from all those companies

True dat Blud. Star'd

Erm, Hello. Bethsda Softworks guys??? Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3!!!!

I quite like Cing as well for their puzzle games such as Hotel Dusk, Another Code DS and Another Code R and.....Little Kings Story!!!

And people will hate me, but Retro are pretty good too!

Level-5 especially with the Professor Layton series, they are pretty ace.

Infinity Ward...For obvious reasons, I haven't played MW2 yet(hasn't arrived), but COD1, COD2 and MW where all really solid games that where immersive and multiplayer is still played to this date on COD2

Theres loads of others, but those are the ones that pop into my head.

One man: Nicklas Nygren.

For creating stuff that's actually relaxing and beautiful and fun to play, simple, touching and original. Without high-tech graphics, orchestrated music, big budgets, complex artifical intelligence, customization or a deep story. (fuck off people who misinterpret this, it's just an observation. Let us not descend into playground fights about gameplay vs graphics, or HD vs SD)

While I don't actually like many FPS or are too keen on any in particular, I have to give kudos to Valve for generally making tons of the world's favourite games in the genre; not the mention so many of them are pretty original, and really funny too. I don't think many companies have a track record like that.

I echo PK's mention of Atlus. As far as I'm concerned they don't make bad games, and their bigger games really have that "this is huge, we put more effort into it than it needed" feel.

Used to really like Square Enix, but they can also be really stupid (Chrono Cross sequel?), whore stuff out a lot and make bad games (FFVII-DoC), as well as not intervene when Tri-Ace makes one of their most well known series' go horribly wrong.

Last but not least, Nintendo's core studio. Even if they sometimes play a part in stuff like Wii Fit, you have to commend them for making casual games that don't suck, because noone else can seem to do it.

PS Sonic RPG was pretty crap. The gameplay was standard RPG and totally outdone by the Mario RPGs, the sound and graphics were incredibly dodgy.

Bioware just weren't trying, maybe they really do have an anti-Nintendo bias. However they seemed pretty keen to make a sequel, so if that turns out well then they're good in my books.

Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development, in particular EAD groups 3 and Tokyo for making games such as Mario Galaxy and Majora's Mask. The other EAD groups are alright but I really don't like the casual games they make.

Retro Studios for making Metroid Prime and because some of their members are ex-members from the Acclaim development team that worked on Turok 1 and 2 on the N64.

HAL Laboratory for the Smash Bros. series which in my opinion is one of the best ever.



Also Capcom, Kojima Productions and Bungie deserve a mention.

Bioware are overated I reckon, their games lack polish or originality, although I still love a lot of their games. I mean KOTOR, BG, NWN and Jade Emire all come to mind as being entertaining.

Nintendo would be up there, but they have way to many dev teams to fairly compete. Thats why I am going to have to go with valve. Everything they touches is gold. Their games are often revolutionary, yet are very polished. They heavily support their games even years after their release date. Their games also tend have a certain charm, like TF2, Portal and L4D. But most of all, their games really suck you in. Hl2 is for computer games to what citizen cane is for movies. Half life unlike most other games, firstly doesn't try to emulate the movie experience into a video game. Secondly, it does not tell you a story, it shows you it. Never is the story spoon fed to you via cutscenes, but merely allows you to make sense of the story through observation of the video game world. Metroid Prime does too, perhaps unsurprisingly since some of retro's staff are ex-valve employees.

Yu Suzuki.

Lionhead

Dickhead, more like.

I wanna bum Gabe Newell in his fat gob.

Also Infinity Ward, Tim Schafer, Retro Studios, Nintendo's various other studios, Lionhead (after playing Fable 2), Ubisoft just about..

I\'m contemplating taking back my IW as a reccomendation. I\'ve been installing the game since 11 AM, it\'s now 8PM, the servers keep cutting out whilst trying to update, telling me to try again. I\'ve got a furthur 3 hours to go.

Edit: 1:30 to go.

( Edited 11.11.2009 20:16 by Echoes221 )

Plus he's creating that pedo sim Milo. Yeah Peda Monyleux is wank. Have you met him Knighty?

Oh Square Enix for their DS games.

Yeah I've spoken to him. Only for 5/10 minutes though.

Was the conversation about children?

No

Monyleux looks like one of those pontsy headmasters who's always friendly..or a drama teacher.

Suda 51 has made some of the most excellent, even if a little pretentious, games in the past while.