Just ran this interesting discussion about the weather in video games. The author, Matt Barton (University of South Florida) worked on this topic for a paper called "How's the Weather?: A Look at Weather and Gaming Environments" (in the "Playing with Mother Nature: Video Games, Space, and Ecology" book).
hat are some examples of good and bad use of weather in videogames? I'd really like a list of games that used weather not just as decoration or "atmosphere" but in ways that really affected gameplay. An example off the top of my head was Weather War, where players controlled hail, sleet, lightning, and rain? to destroy each other's castles. Help me out here, please.
1. What are some games you know of that make interesting use of weather? 2. What were the first games to include weather? How did they use it? 3. What are examples of games that turn the weather into a character, or feature bosses and such that manipulate the weather?
Why do I blog this? I won't enter into the details of the discussion but the questions brings some interesting ideas about the connection between game design and video games weather. The weather is one of the contextual feature of an environment.