- This topic has 5 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 19 years ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
-
-
(re: re: Inca Series)
I loved both INCA games … I got through the second one within a single day, though, which was very disappointing since I shelled out about $100 for it. INCA 1 was much more difficult … in fact, I never managed to get through the final space battle in INCA 1, and it drove me nuts. I got so frustrated that at one point I just deleted the entire game from my hard drive, just so I wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore … still a good game. Beautiful graphics and a great score.
-
(re: re: re: Inca Series) I’ve been thinking for a couple of days about how to comment on Inca. It’s not an easy topic, and hopefully my answer won’t upset anyone who worked on the project.
Inca should have been a major hit, but wasn’t. It had the potential, but was missing some key ingredients. The sound track was amazing. Technically, it was ahead of its time. The plot had some flaws (my opinion), and the product was not well play tested. A game such as this needs to start easy, and then add complexity over time. Inca was too difficult in the early levels. It also suffered from being buggy at introduction.
My recollection is that it sold very well in Europe, but that it sold poorly in the US.
Inca was really the first action game, that I can remember, to blend in a story. For those who haven’t seen it – I would compare it to Wing Commander, which was a huge hit.
Overall: I think Inca could have been one of our biggest hits if we had taken the extra months required to really polish the game. I don’t recall if this was an issue with Inca or not, but there were times when a game would be nearing completion, and suddenly find itself over budget, and in danger of missing Christmas. I was often faced with the dilema of whether or not to ship a game, or hold the game, and continue spending. If a product slips past Christmas, its sales forecasts would often be cut in half. Then again, if you ship a product that isn’t ready to go to market, you could lose your customer base. At Sierra, we usually made the right decisions, and became #1 because of it. But unfortunately, “usually” isn’t “always”.
-Ken W -
(re: re: Inca Series)
As far as why the game didn’t do as well in the United States as it did in Europe, IMPO as a European who resides in the United States I can tell subtle differences between both societies. I believe that Europeans to be more forgiving for the “weird”. Games like Inca and Inca II, though excellent…most CERTAINLY are both very strange. Then again, Cocktel Vision was notorious when it came to strange!! 🙂 I also believe that perhaps the games were a little difficult….I generally find the average European to be more patient than the average American (no offence intended here…..just a personal observation) and although Inca II was relatively easy Inca was NOT…..from the start to finish it was ver difficult and this may also have added.
-
(re: Inca Series)
As an IDEA, Inca had a lot of potential. It really was a game of two halves, neither of which was done well enough.
On the one hand you had the utterly confusing, badly designed (as in illogical puzzles, usually no clues as to what to do next) first person adventure bits, while on the other you had the space sim bits which the aforementioned Wing Commander games did far better.
If I remember correctly, WC2 was released not too long before Inca, and that had some of the best writing and character development I’ve ever seen in a computer game. Play it if you can get it.
-
