Favorite Old School companies

[bluseychris]

Yeah, go on, you had them.

The bulk of my youth was spent with an Amiga so

Team 17

Produced games such as Superfrog, Quack and the Alien Breed Series. They went on to do stuff such as Project X, a Gradius meets R-Type style game, before getting big money with the Worms franchise.

Sensible Software

Fronted by John Hare, this company released games such as Sensible World Of Soccer 95/96 and Cannon Fodder. On top of that they had fun giving us Cannon Soccer, a Christmas version playing off Cannon Fodder against SWOS over two maps. They also took the piss out of Maxis with the seminal SimBrick.

DMA Design

Lemmings and later GTA. Need I say more?

[Garcian Smith]

Definitely agree with Team 17, and I'd add the SNES/Mega Drive era Codemasters with it - I'll never forget wasting hours getting very frustrated with Micro Machines.

[Wasabi]

Lucasarts, back when they made amazingly good and witty p&c Adventure games.

[Swedish Elite]

Ubisoft, When Rayman where at his best.

Shiny, for creating EWJ

[BahamutBBob]

I enjoyed the SNES Final Fantasy games (4 and 6) as well as Secret of Mana (Seiken Desetsu 2) so Squaresoft. I mostly played Nintendo first party games on my SNES though, so Nintendo should go on there too. Oh, and SNK delivered hours of enjoyment with Crystalis. A Zelda clone that might even surpass the original Zelda in awesomeness. Four elemental swords, huge areas to explore, many items to use, a story that was more than "The princess has been captured, save her!" and even more that I don't feel like listing now.

So,
Squaresoft
SNK
Nintendo

For the NES/SNES era.

[Killer_Within]

I enjoyed the SNES Final Fantasy games (4 and 6) as well as Secret of Mana (Seiken Desetsu 2) so Squaresoft. I mostly played Nintendo first party games on my SNES though, so Nintendo should go on there too. Oh, and SNK delivered hours of enjoyment with Crystalis. A Zelda clone that might even surpass the original Zelda in awesomeness. Four elemental swords, huge areas to explore, many items to use, a story that was more than "The princess has been captured, save her!" and even more that I don't feel like listing now.

So,
Squaresoft
SNK
Nintendo

For the NES/SNES era.


I'll go with you on this one, FF ruined my childhood. It was good but the tedious adventures soon crumbled. I can't even play Lost Odyssey, without stating in a dramatic voice, "damn you,...damn you Final Fantasy".
And I couldn't get enough of Crystalis.

I think I'll settle on

Squaresoft
SNK
Anything that was old school Atari rocked..

[Dr.Aaron]

Damn, so many good comapnies from the past... So I'll just list something that hasn't been listed yet.... Game freak for the original pokemon games and the gold and silver ones, it went downhill after that....

[Alex6969]

Shiny, for creating EWJ

Don't forget MDK.

[Cobra951]

If you go back, waay back, Electronic Arts. It was a visionary company in the days of the 8-bit micros. *Sigh* They've succeeded so well after going to the dark side that they have become the dark side.

[zim]

Interplay! They brought the world Descent and Alone in the Dark, then they collapsed.

[rtanger]

Maxis, back in the SimCity, SimFarm, SimEarth, SimTower, SimEtc. days, for making such lovely and addicting time wasters.

I'll also throw in for Squaresoft in their heyday. Pretty much-- not quite-- but pretty much everything on SNES was gold. I suppose Enix is included for the same reason...

Sierra Studios for both developing and publishing such a signifigant amount of A-quality games in years past. Their resume is very decorated.

[lskennedy]

Nintendo strictly because of all the great 2d games they made, god i loved them

EA (Before soul sucking days) For giving me the ability to killWayne Gretzky

SquaresoftThat one little thing called final fantasy......8. And 7 too. Idk which i like more, there both great.


I dont like them, but i am surprised no one has said Westwood yet

[YukoAsho]

You know I have to say Telenet Japan/Wolf Team. Exile, Cosmic Fantasy 2, El Viento, Sol Feace, and of course Valis.

[Swedish Elite]

Also,

The Neverhood

[bluseychris]

Delphine Software

Bestowed us with two wonderful classics. Another World, which can be bought as a 15th Anniversary Edition with a ton of documentary extras, soundtrack, fully remastered graphics and control system. All for a fiver! That's better value than when it came out.

The other classic was Flashback. I love Flashback, namely because, at the age of 9 or 10, I worked out how to get around the security code ;D I recently ran it under WinUAE emulating an A1200. Boy were those graphics fast :D

[jambo]

Team 17 - Worms, say no more.

Lucasarts - Point and Click Adventure game masters

Bullfrog - Created classic games like Hi-Octane

Maxis - SimCity 2000 and 3000 are two of my favourite games.

DMA - GTA, Wild Metal Country and Lemmings.

Volition - FreeSpace 1 and 2, possibly the best space sims ever made.

Cyan Inc. - Myst, nuff said