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Recent meaning the current decade. I had found this post http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/a/15403/6544 wasnt c++ adopted as the industry standard quite some time back. In what sort of situation does it make sense to go with games written in pure c on established consoles/pc/os

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This pretty much answers it: stackoverflow.com/questions/482574/… – Pubby Mar 29 '12 at 13:58
@Pubby I had read that quite some time back. my question was motivated by lack of understanding of the post i had linked in my post. I am aware of the general differences. – Aditya P Mar 30 '12 at 6:19
This strikes me as a perfectly valid question. When millions of dollars are spent on a decision, the reason is going to be very interesting. As programmers, we are always faced with the choice of which language to use, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. As programmers, we need to be able to learn what they are. I admit, the danger of a religious war is quite real, but I see no hint in the question or answer of anyone trying to proselytize for either C or C++. I haven't used C in 14 years and hope never to see it again and the asker does not sound like a C programmer to me. – RalphChapin Mar 30 '12 at 14:14
Ive used c for backend programming / drivers and c++ for games. and c like scripting languages. The games mentioned in the linked post were pretty famous in their time, hence my curiosity. its more like im looking for a developer blog on it or some kind of post mortem given the paradigm they chose to follow. – Aditya P Mar 31 '12 at 2:39

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C is almost as good as assembly language in putting you in touch with the computer. C++ add all kinds of tricky complications that many programmers love, but it moves you away from the CPU. If you want total control at the expense of OO features and neat gimmicks and assembly language is just a little bit too gritty, C is just the thing. I'm not recommending it, but it was a neat languange when it first arrived, being both a higher level language than FORTRAN and a lower level at the same time. All the advantages and none of the disadvantages.

It fills a certain niche better than anything else. Not too many people use that niche any more, but if they do, C's the language for them.

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That makes no sense. It's a straw man argument used by C-fanatics ("fans") probably since C++ was first invented. If there's a performance critical section in your code that is so performance critical that it's not possible to fully optimize it with C++ like you could with C (and I have a very, very hard time even thinking of an example there), you can simply write C code within that section. You can leave out classes and the like if you "want to read the assembly code", but can still use templates, auto, std algorithms, etc. In my humble opinion, there is no advantage in using pure C99/11. – TravisG Mar 29 '12 at 16:18
@heishe: I don't disagree with you. But if someone (not you or me!) are seriously considering doing something in assembly language, they might find it easier and the results more portable to write it in C. I think most times it's just psychological, some people just have to have control. Gotta have a stick; those automatics never get the right gear! But the question is why do people write in C. I think my answer's the chief reason. – RalphChapin Mar 29 '12 at 17:43

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