In days of yore, UTS hackers ran 3-D "mazewar" on qumes, which
fairly pissed on the likes of Descent, even with termcap glitches
(which eventually became a gameplay feature). I would say the
description of Descent as "80s gameplay with 90s graphics" is
right, since there were certainly a great number of shitty games
in the 1980s.
>These youngsters...
Those who do not know the mistakes of the past are destined
to repeat them, and so we have Descent, which is basically
Asteroids with reduced immediacy and derivative first-person
graphics.
I'm not saying that everyone who grew up with PC "games" is lacking
a clue, but I'm less than impressed with the "gurus" who get
dredged up to speak on such topics. Is the name "Stuart Clarke" familiar
with anyone here? He was the editor of "Vertigo" in 1991, where he
endlessly spewed technophobic drivel and irrational hatred of "spotty
computer nerds" or other non-humanities students. (Now that I look
back on it, Mr. Clarke may have been experiencing some frustration
over his inability to use elementary Macintosh desktop publishing
software.) However, Stuart has now gained some repute as the editor
of two video game magazines, and appears regularly on the Youth
Network, Triple Jay, to present his opinions on the latest games.
If you have a manipulative personality and the right connections,
you too can be an "authority" on absolutely anything! The Internet
is a very popular subject these days. (I found an interesting
first-year essay lying around the graphics lab, which contained
the words, "...Bill Clinton, founder of the Internet"...)
-- Iain Sinclair c/- axolotl@nospam.socs.uts.edu.au