Also in 1985, Nintendo released the Famicom, that is, "Family Computer" chopped down Japanese style. Of course the Americans went with "Nintendo Entertainment System", which is just... Super. Speaking of Super, it came bundled with... With...
Sonic the Hedgehog. Wait, no...Everyone went crazy for Super Mario Bros., it was simple, fun and addicitve like most great games. It was the sort of thing that was just good fun to play, with solid gameplay, simplicity and dinky tunes. Good stuff.
Also in 1985 came the Sega Master System, also known as the...
So the consoles had begun, the Amiga had brill games, IBM Computers were also on the rise, and there were games being released for all of them. Even then there was quite a variety of computer games, and the more popular and grand ones (By today's standards) had arrived such as Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda and Metal Gear. It's interesting that all of these came from Japan, just like Nintendo and Sega consoles. Japan ruled the console market and evidently a large slice of the game market too. Okashii desu ne.
Around this time, Capcom started off the Survival Horror genre with Sweet Home (Which would be followed up by Alone in the Dark some years later) and the Stealth genre with the aforementioned Metal Gear. It'd be a while before anyone thought of crossing genres, but at least we did have new ideas!
The starting pistol had been fired, the racers were off, and all through the 90s games continued to evolve. In the early 90s, point-and-click adventure games recieved their golden era of popularity, only to die as it became too expensive to create so much artwork for them (Among other things. I still lament their death today, but I do also play them to this day. One of my favourite genres, that was...) The Real-Time Strategy genre was re-introduced, starting off with Dune II in 1992, (Not the first - that was Stonkers in 1983) then getting a real foot up with Warcraft and Command and Conquer, which I think was absolutely stunning. It also had KANE, who was...
The best villain ever.
Many peeps in my generation grew up on consoles, but I never had one. My domain was the PC, and I salute all of you who were the same. For that reason I might tend to focus on the PC rather than any consoles. What I do know is that 3D started early on the PC, and it kept making leaps and bounds at a pretty disturbing pace, sadly leaving often beautiful 2D behind in the gutter. The same game formulas were being repeated, each generation bringing about nicer graphics or new gimmicks. For most of the 90s this was more than enough to please everybody, since this was the decade where we went from Wolfenstein 3D to Half-Life. Improvements were taking off so swiftly that it was quite an amazing thing to behold.
On the consoles too, plenty of game-defining titles were released. Nintendo gave the world Super Mario 64 which moved the sucessful platformer genre of the 80s into a 3D environment, and did it well (I remember trying to get to grips with a control stick on a controller. What madness that was...) Although I still thought Rare's Banjo-Kazooie was better. Ahem.
And yes, Rare, those lovable devils down the road from where I'm writing this gave us Goldeneye, also on the Nintendo 64, which we all know full well was a superb game. Everyone except a certain classmate who will remain unnamed. Maybe it was the simplicity, maybe it was the fact that you actually recieved objectives or maybe it was that they used the 007 license very well. Whatever it was, I loved it and so did my friends, and many other people across the world...
Rhythm games appeared, starting with PaRappa the Rapper and then expanding in all directions, giving us titles like Dance Dance Revolution which were immensely popular in Japan to begin with, before eventually spreading into the US and Europe - again down to their simplicity and the fact that they attract a very wide audience. By the way, at the time of writing, I've never played DDR... But I'm sure it's a total blast. Dance on, brothers and sisters.
I suppose to finish off I really ought to mention the game that brought Role-Playing Games' popularity exploding into the West. It was, of course, Final Fantasy VII. You either love it or you hate it, or like me you play it and love it, then hate it for its popularity, then realize that's silly and love it again. Being an RPG nerd myself, I should point out that Japanese style RPGs and Western style RPGs are totally different, but Final Fantasy VII did have a huge impact, and it's still got a shockingly enormous following today. Quite amazing really, considering that it came out almost a decade ago. Yowser...
I like to think that its popularity was down to its plot*, and that games with a superb plot deserve to be successful - but sadly I don't think it's true. Most people I know don't care about a game's plot, because they just want to play it. Not me, plot's one of the most important parts! (Well, unless a plot would be totally pointless - like in a plain 'ol shooter)
*The thing is, FFVII's plot wasn't the greatest masterpiece the world had ever seen, but it was many people's first experience of a game that actually had one. For this reason it seemed to make quite a large impression, or it did to me at least. I always love the art design on the Final Fantasy games, it's really something.
But ne'er mind, I've written enough. Next time is 2000 into the future, where everything goes a bit stale, then hopefully picks up again.
Also in 1985 came the Sega Master System, also known as the...
SG-1000 Mark IIIWhich sounds a bit like either a type of ICBM or a prototype giant fighting robot. It wasn't quite either, and ALAS for Sega, its sales weren't too great in America. Whereas Nintendo had the Super Mario Bros. leading in the mascot position, the Master System had Alex Kidd, who'se games were very similar in arcadey style. It seems that at the time, it's all we wanted. When I was a kid that's all I wanted. The system WORKED.
So the consoles had begun, the Amiga had brill games, IBM Computers were also on the rise, and there were games being released for all of them. Even then there was quite a variety of computer games, and the more popular and grand ones (By today's standards) had arrived such as Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda and Metal Gear. It's interesting that all of these came from Japan, just like Nintendo and Sega consoles. Japan ruled the console market and evidently a large slice of the game market too. Okashii desu ne.
Around this time, Capcom started off the Survival Horror genre with Sweet Home (Which would be followed up by Alone in the Dark some years later) and the Stealth genre with the aforementioned Metal Gear. It'd be a while before anyone thought of crossing genres, but at least we did have new ideas!
The starting pistol had been fired, the racers were off, and all through the 90s games continued to evolve. In the early 90s, point-and-click adventure games recieved their golden era of popularity, only to die as it became too expensive to create so much artwork for them (Among other things. I still lament their death today, but I do also play them to this day. One of my favourite genres, that was...) The Real-Time Strategy genre was re-introduced, starting off with Dune II in 1992, (Not the first - that was Stonkers in 1983) then getting a real foot up with Warcraft and Command and Conquer, which I think was absolutely stunning. It also had KANE, who was...
The best villain ever.Many peeps in my generation grew up on consoles, but I never had one. My domain was the PC, and I salute all of you who were the same. For that reason I might tend to focus on the PC rather than any consoles. What I do know is that 3D started early on the PC, and it kept making leaps and bounds at a pretty disturbing pace, sadly leaving often beautiful 2D behind in the gutter. The same game formulas were being repeated, each generation bringing about nicer graphics or new gimmicks. For most of the 90s this was more than enough to please everybody, since this was the decade where we went from Wolfenstein 3D to Half-Life. Improvements were taking off so swiftly that it was quite an amazing thing to behold.
On the consoles too, plenty of game-defining titles were released. Nintendo gave the world Super Mario 64 which moved the sucessful platformer genre of the 80s into a 3D environment, and did it well (I remember trying to get to grips with a control stick on a controller. What madness that was...) Although I still thought Rare's Banjo-Kazooie was better. Ahem.
And yes, Rare, those lovable devils down the road from where I'm writing this gave us Goldeneye, also on the Nintendo 64, which we all know full well was a superb game. Everyone except a certain classmate who will remain unnamed. Maybe it was the simplicity, maybe it was the fact that you actually recieved objectives or maybe it was that they used the 007 license very well. Whatever it was, I loved it and so did my friends, and many other people across the world...
Rhythm games appeared, starting with PaRappa the Rapper and then expanding in all directions, giving us titles like Dance Dance Revolution which were immensely popular in Japan to begin with, before eventually spreading into the US and Europe - again down to their simplicity and the fact that they attract a very wide audience. By the way, at the time of writing, I've never played DDR... But I'm sure it's a total blast. Dance on, brothers and sisters.
I suppose to finish off I really ought to mention the game that brought Role-Playing Games' popularity exploding into the West. It was, of course, Final Fantasy VII. You either love it or you hate it, or like me you play it and love it, then hate it for its popularity, then realize that's silly and love it again. Being an RPG nerd myself, I should point out that Japanese style RPGs and Western style RPGs are totally different, but Final Fantasy VII did have a huge impact, and it's still got a shockingly enormous following today. Quite amazing really, considering that it came out almost a decade ago. Yowser...
I like to think that its popularity was down to its plot*, and that games with a superb plot deserve to be successful - but sadly I don't think it's true. Most people I know don't care about a game's plot, because they just want to play it. Not me, plot's one of the most important parts! (Well, unless a plot would be totally pointless - like in a plain 'ol shooter)
*The thing is, FFVII's plot wasn't the greatest masterpiece the world had ever seen, but it was many people's first experience of a game that actually had one. For this reason it seemed to make quite a large impression, or it did to me at least. I always love the art design on the Final Fantasy games, it's really something.
But ne'er mind, I've written enough. Next time is 2000 into the future, where everything goes a bit stale, then hopefully picks up again.
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