Wogan'sTrouserBulge wrote:
Wow, imagine if that'd actually came out in the 8-bit era?
Yeah, but the developers have the advantage of modern dev tools and virtually unlimited CPU power and memory. If you read the making of Zub article on the Pickfords website you soon realise the limitations people worked under in those days. Not only memory and CPU time but the problems associated with tight deadlines and management that considered that games were only for kids. No time was spent playtesting and further developing a game. Games were developed as quickly as possible and then shoved out the door.
One of the reasons Zub is abit special is because the Pickfords worked evenings and weekends on it. But even they admit the problems with it given the fact they had no time.
Even the Oliver Twins suffered from this. Take their first Codemasters game, Super Robin Hood. It's really polished. It was developed just for the CPC and in their own time. But soon after they also started developing for the Speccy (even though they used a CPC to code) and to save time all the CPC games ended up looking like Speccy ports. All the polish and gloss was lost. They then ended up just churning out "Simulator" titles.
Games in the 80's were rarely developed to the machines full capabilities or made as good as they could be. You have the 5% of games like Head Over Heels, Zub and Chase HQ that were really standout titles, and the rest was pretty much dross coded as quickly as possible.
Also some of the themes in GTA are "abit naughty" which goes back to the management thinking games were for kids. Remember the fuss over Rockstar Ate My Hamster and Werewolves of London? Werewolves is abit GTA like in that you can roam freely and kill people. It was easier just to play safe than risk being banned from WH Smiths.