What's your favourite games publisher?

[BowdonUK]

Back in the day there were a couple of games publishers that I always associated with good games. If I saw they were publishing a game I would buy it and know its likely to be good.

For me Microprose was that company. From my days on the C64, then to the Amiga and then on to the PC I always knew their games would be quality.

I looked on the wikipages about the games they published and these are a selection of the most memorable ones from back then;

Airborne Ranger
Covert Action
F-19 Stealth Fighter
Falcon 4.0
Midwinter II
Gunship
Microprose Soccer
Sid Meier's Civilization
Sid Meier's Covert Action
Sid Meier's Pirates!
Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon
Silent Service

Did any of you guys have a favourite publisher back in the day? Or even a favourite game series you liked?

 

[Bubo]

Rainbird. Published all the Magnetic Scrolls games if I recall, as well as the likes of Starglider and a few other classics.
Strategic Simulations Inc, or SSI as they were commonly known. They did all sorts, though probably best known for Eye of the Beholder, and other RPG games.

 

[jsmoke]

Something like bug-byte, elite systems, U.S gold. Speccy days..

 

[Tee Hee Johnson]

I liked all the Bullfrog developed games, published by EA!

 

[TheMightyTen]

Always have a soft spot for SSI and Westwood for their early D&D games

 

[Flibster]

Got to be Bullfrog.

 

[LewisRaz]

Bullfrog, westwood and maxis

 

[DEL 707]

Would have to say EA.

Back on the Mega Drive, those custom carts with their yellow tags, was generally a sign that you had your hands on a good game.

 

[Siver74]

Maxis, Bullfrog, LucasArts.

 

[Ninco!]

Microprose

100% agree BowdenUK, I always felt with Microprose that you got real value for your money! The games on the whole were consistently great (there were a couple of blips but given such a diverse bunch of game genres, it was kind of expected).

Who can forget the door step manuals which accompanied every sim? It's a shame that so few Microprose games feature on GOG (when compared to Steam). In fact with the current summer sale on Steam, resorted to purchasing a few!

Runners up:

Origin

Ultima Underworld 1&2
Ultima VII The Black Gate and Serpent Isle

I was won over with the little trinket and maps! Ultima VII to this day, remains one of the best big box games ever, simply a black slab of cardboard!

Rowans Software

Covering flight sims which were not the usual fast jets or regular theatre of war - Battle of Britain, First World War and Korea.

The sims were also bloody hard, Mig Alley is probably my favourite flight sim of all time (Falcon 3.0 is another) mixing up fast jets with gun fights oh yeah!

Honourable mentions, DID and Papyrus, always released decent sims!

 

[Vexr]

Bullfrog, LucasArts, and Westwood for obvious reasons.

Also got good vibes from Psygnosis (Wipeout 2097, Lemmings!)

 

[jellybeard999]

Hope these are all publishers...

Psygnosis
Team 17
Crystal Dynamics

 

[cheesyboy]

Lucasarts in the old days. Bullfrog, and Westwood too.

These days, probably Adult Swim and Devolver.

E:
Oh, and Renegade, they were great. And I liked quite a lot of Codemasters stuff too

 

[elh_2009]

Lucasarts in the old days. Bullfrog, and Westwood too.

These days, probably Adult Swim and Devolver.

E:
Oh, and Renegade, they were great. And I liked quite a lot of Codemasters stuff too

Bullfrog all the way and agree with devolver, they are one of my faves at the moment, their game style certainly appeals to me

 

[Flibster]

Oh god... I forgot Team17...
How could I do that...

 

[Vexr]

Oh god... I forgot Team17...
How could I do that...

Never saw the appeal much in Worms. I played it enough out of having nothing better to do back in the day, but seeing the AI cluster bomb the heck out of you or bazooka via the wind with impossible accuracy really ticked me off, while with human attempts to do the same with the space bar you'd be lucky to do 1 damage to your target.

Crawling around the special maps in hopes of a great crate drop was fun though.

 

[Flibster]

Never saw the appeal much in Worms. I played it enough out of having nothing better to do back in the day, but seeing the AI cluster bomb the heck out of you or bazooka via the wind with impossible accuracy really ticked me off, while with human attempts to do the same with the space bar you'd be lucky to do 1 damage to your target.

Crawling around the special maps in hopes of a great crate drop was fun though.

Sod Worms...

Alien Breed, Alien Breed II, Alien Breed Tower Assault, Project-X, Superfrog, Super Stardust, ATR....

 

[lokiss]

Tough question to just pick one. Of the 8bit era virtually everything SpecialFX touched for Ocean was pure quality on the spectrum, it's not hard to stick with Ocean for most stuff they released apart from some ropey licenses in the early days.

16/32 bit Psygnosis. The way they kicked on with the PS1 in the first wave of releases was for me one of the standouts in the last 40 odd years of it. Wipeout, Destruction Derby, F1, brand new 3D games that hadn't been done before that looked on another level to everything that'd gone before outside of the arcade.

 

[Bubo]

Team17 were ok until they latched on to their cash cow Worms franchise and didn't bother with developing anything else worthwhile since. They sure did milk that for all it was worth didn't they.

I have to nominate AcornSoft as well, as they were the first publisher I really came across and recognised as a thing, for the quality of their games on the BBC Micro. Snapper (Pacman), Planetoid (Defender), Rocker Raid (Scramble), Starship Command.

 

[hood1971]

Ultimate Play the game had cracking titles. Wore out a couple of Spectrum keyboards playing Jet Pac, and spent many hours of fun mapping Atic Atak and Sabre Wulf