Enigma Shadow said:
I do see what you mean, Wise Master Furie, perhaps I'd see it differently if I was a teen back then instead of the MD being my very first home console when I was le baby. Perhaps I've been blinded by nostalgia?
It's such a difficult thing to be honest. If you enjoy certain games, then that's fine :lol: It's not only nostalgia, you have to remember that the games you're talking about were played by tens of millions of people worldwide and founded the games industry we have today.
I think what I'm trying to say is that the world has moved on and in a very natural way. I used to play R-Type obsessively and could make my way through about five levels on a good day. That's three lives, two checkpoints per level (the start and halfway through) and no "select skill level". You spent hours upon hours learning the patterns and practising your movement while laying down ridiculous fire (no holding here, every shot made had to be a press of the button). You needed to know what weapons to use in which spot and how to release them. It was all done through repetition and slow learning. The deeper you get into the game, the harder the game gets and the longer it takes to learn (as each time you play, you need to go through all the prior levels again - so to get to level five, you're invested in about 30 minutes of tough gaming already).
It's what we played because it's what there was to play. Like platform games, there were hundreds of versions and copies and some outshone others. Some added in gameplay mechanisms that we still use today (things like Mario's Suits that alter the way you play the basic game, or buying specific weapons upgrades a la Blood Money or Xenon 2).
The problem is that things evolved. Games became less about an "arcade hit of adrenaline" and more about storytelling, or interesting mechanics. Designers offered a lot more in a game than repeating the same levels over and over in (pretty much) the same way that had been presented time and time again.
What interests me are the games that bucked the trend, but nobody ever really knows about.
Games like Dungeon Master and Stunt Car Racer. Both games that ate up massive amounts of time for millions, but have never left any real legacy.
Dungeon Master was superseded by first person games with real time movement (such as the Elder Scrolls games); or by third person RPG adventure games like the Ultima games or, eventually, Baldour's Gate type RPGs. Yet neither new "genre" replicates what made Dungeon Master so engrossing and fun to play. You can download a Java version of Dungeon Master, and I recommend that if you have any interest in "classic gaming" or RPGs that you do. Though also have a look somewhere for the original instructions, the spell casting system was superb, but you need to know what the runes mean before you can start creating your own spells (I know an air rune followed by a fire run created a fireball, but other than that, I couldn't say which rune was air and which one fire :lol: ).
Stunt Car Racer has never been replicated. It's such an oddity of a game. While it's a racing game, it's all about precision and control. It's very tough, but always fun. As a coaster enthusiast, if you've missed Stunt Car Racer (with tracks like "Big Dipper", you're really missing out. Absolute nails and there has never been another game that even comes close to the gameplay offered by it. There isn't even really any game that has arrived since that does what it did. There's a free version of it for Windows (based on the Amiga version) here:
http://stuntcarracerwin32.bravesites.com/
Then you have Lemmings which has already been mentioned by you (Fraser). A game utterly from the left field that (while it's spawned multiple conversations and iterations) is pretty much unique even today. The original Lemmings spawned a puzzle game genre that has never been bettered. The puzzles, the presentation and the "personality" of the game are all perfect. It's also the start of the "you don't have to keep on repeating things" philosophy.
It's worth noting that those three games, and probably the majority of games that actually "changed the world" are from home computers and not consoles. Consoles (with a few exceptions such as Zelda and MGS) were generally your home gateway to the world of the arcade. While home computers had their fair share of arcade conversations (the Spectrum versions of Donkey Kong and Mario Bros were superb), they generally remained the place that the creative mind stayed and developed games for.
Anyone could code for them, so they did. Nintendo and Sega were all about producing games that made you feed cash into a box and the Mega Drive era is the death knell of that kind of gaming (the repeat and rinse cycle kind of gaming).
That was why Sega fell into problems. They thought that all you needed to do was chuck in faster hardware to give the gamer a more pure arcade experience. In reality, the gamer was after the new way of gaming. Progression that is saved, story, the ability to stamp your personality onto a game, longevity where you don't need to do the same level over and over again. The PC led the way to be fair, but even consoles like the Atari Jaguar had games that understood this new evolution of gaming.
So Sega continued to try and sell arcade conversations while Sony came along with new hardware that allowed for much more complex games to be structured. Nintendo understood the change (probably down to the popularity of Zelda) and also made much better, deeper games at a time Sega were still trying to work out why nobody wanted their new arcade games in the home. The obvious high downfall was the Dreamcast, which was fantastic hardware, but without a good games base. There are a few classic Dreamcast games where Sega really showed they were getting the hang of things, but far too few to support the console against the Playstation which was storming ahead with a new set of wannabes (such as Spyro trying to take Super Mario 64's 3D platforming crown or Wipeout with an entire new "cool" approach to arcade racing). Sega were quite simply overwhelmed by a mass of new and innovative games coming from... Ex-home computer developers mostly.
There's also a degree of timing too I've discussed before, but Sega's writing was on the wall the moment they plumped for hardware over new gameplay.
The way I look at it is that the games of the Mega Drive era are like cartoons from the 40's/50's/60's. High quality, brilliant fun (particularly Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng), but ultimately all about some cartoon character hitting another one with something. It's simple slapstick (with occasional reaches of brilliant satire) for the most part. It's great to watch for those five minutes and there's nothing wrong with enjoying them
However, cartoons moved on, and we now have the quality of the likes of Pixar which are seen as much as adult entertainment and as valid a "full film" as anything else produced. You even have Manga where the adult is squarely targeted by the medium of cartoon. This is the equivalent of today's games.
Enigma Shadow said:
I still think many of the soundtracks have stood the test of time and still sound really cool today (Sonic 1 - 3&K and Ristar spring to mind), I personally think that was the main advantage it had over the then-rival SNES...it certainly had funkier music (although let's face it, when Michael Jackson was making the music for Sonic 3 there was never going to be competition).
Sega certainly had some of the best music at the time. It was one area they seemed to really excel in, though again, it wasn't an area Nintendo got left behind on and they really understood the concept of dramatic soundtrack (again, while Sega was left with bit tunes and accompanying tracks).
Enigma Shadow said:
I too have the Ultimate Collection for PS3 but can't see myself sitting through Alex Kidd to get the platinum trophy ha. So I take my hat off to you for that! I actually can't stand playing the games on Ultimate Collection though, Sega kind of screwed up the porting and some games are glitchy compared to the original version.
Yeah, some of the games were a real chore :lol:
Enigma Shadow said:
I just wish Sega didn't get cocky with their consoles...Dreamcast was way ahead of its time and broke the company, and they lost money with obscure consoles like the 32X and Saturn...who ACTUALLY bought those? Makes you wonder how different the games market would be if Sega still made consoles to compete with Sony and Nintendo.
Yeah, covered above, but they couldn't compete and they knew it. They still had a market for their games (and still do), but not enough to sell hardware units as well. Unlike Nintendo who will actually sell millions of units on the back of a new Mario game.
Enigma Shadow said:
Well, I'll take your word about Sega All Stars Racing and buy the new one when it comes out...a lot of people have said it's a definite MarioKart 7 beater. See you on the grid, I guess!
Pick up the original for a fiver instead? I've no idea if the new one will be any good - looks full of gimmicks.
Now I've written all that, the next few posts will be all about the latest rinse and repeat games that took over from R-Type and will likely be (unintentionally) no better than Kim's post above :lol: