By Ramen Junkie
Forward
Way back when, there was Atari. But my Atari Commadore 64 and Apple IIe gaming days are much a blurr, so we won't go into much detail on them. All I really remember is that the games usually had no end, graphics which I once though were great that weren't really very good at all, and that I'd play these games for hours anyway. Also Zork was so boring that even with a step by step walkthrough, I still couldn't complete it.
Before Nintendo...
As for Games, Atari had James bond 007, I only rarely could make it to the second level where the car became a sub, but that didn't matter much because the first level was great anyway. I seem to recall Bond had to deal with many of the obstacles he faced in movies such as lava pits and spikey rocks. It's kind of fuzzy. Then there was River Raid, my favorite Atari game, fly "up" in your jet, dodge the walls and blow shit up. Or when River Raid became too much there was it's companion Chopper Command, which was river raid only side scrolling and completely different. I allways considered these games closely related because they had cartridge stickers that were similar. Oh and for all of you newer younger games, a cartridge is a chunk of clunky plastic that preceedd CDs for gaming media. Some people may recognize it's use in the N64 but I doubt it since no one old enough to read plays the N64 (more on this later). I suppose there are actually lots of cart based game systems still around, so I shouldn't bash it, yet. Anyway, Other classic games I remeber are Park Patrol on C64 and Anti-Grav on Apple IIe. I actually have the least experience on Apple IIe of the three since the only access I had to one was at school or at my grandparents and the only game I had for it to play at my Grandpa's was the copy of Anti-Grav I pirated from the school. Ah yes, even when I was young I was a software pirate. Also technically Apple IIe is a PC anyway, so it doesn't count. For that matter C64 is almost a PC as well.
The Greatest System ever Created
Thn we come to the NES. Purchased for myself and my brother WAY back when by my Grandparents, it now sits proudly displayed in a pile of cables with my SNES and PSX next to my dresser because having half a dozen consoles hooked up at once makes for much clutter. It IS available to play within a minute as the R/F switch (that thing they make you buy now with new systems) is still linked into the cable line poviding hours of fuzzy picture quality for my TV viewing. Anyway, when I was youndr and the NES was still the "hot console" myself and my friends would all play for days to week to years almost continuously. We'd all stay up all night playing Super Off Road four people at a time never quite being able ot make it past level 80 something or so. Of for the two player enjoyment there was Contra and RIVER CITY RANSOME and BUBBLE BOBBLE. River City Ransome would never make it past the Nintendo sensors anymore. Basic plot of the game: Your friends girlfriend has been kidnapped, beat the shit out of every game member in the city to save her. It was so incredibly appealing I think because of it's controls and fast paced action. You see most NES side scroller only allow you to move left to right, and jump. In RCR you could move left to right and "up and down" along the street and despite the NES's limited 2 button controls you could punch kick AND jump (by pushing A and B simultaneously). I mean this was 3D for the NES. Every game anymore is in 3D but this was something really neat back then. Plus instead of beating the crap out of two or three guys a lot like in some games, you'd beat the crap out of 20 guys really quickly each, so the game seemed faster. It was a REALLY GOOD GAME! And then Bubble Bobble, whcih would never be produced today as an original game because such a plot concept would never be expected to sell, but that was how it was done back then. Who cares if the idea sounds good, who cares if the graphics and controls suck, slap a title on it and ship it. And if you look at some of the crazy shit games for the NES you relize that the console industry obviously was responsible for most of the drug use in the world during the eighties.
Going Down in History Forgotten...
Any and all information relating the the SNES days of Nintendo has been cut. The SNES is nothing more than a glorified NES without the fun whacked out games and with more overpricing on the secondary market. Did you know a USED copy of Chrono Trigger, WITHOUT Box, instructions, or anything will cost you EIGHTY DOLLARS at Babbages? Mega Man x2 will put you out almost 50! It's a fucking rip off and I'm going to stop buying used games from them since I can get them for a much more reasonable 10-15 bucks at the used records store where they don't care abut GOUGING THE CUSTOMER.
Fall of the Juggernaut
Then we move to the N64. Now instead of cranking out games as fast as the machines can put the little gray cartriges together they have completely turned to hand crafting each and every game with absolute care and prefection. Also instead of sticking with the audience they had during the NES days, which BTW are all old people with real jobs who an afford games, they target the 2-5 year old bracket, the one with no cash and the parents who would rather spend 50 bucks on Tomb Raider 15 for PSX than Happy Fluffy Bear Games for N64. Ok, I'm sorry, they aren't THAT bad, but still, I have to wonder, where exactly are allt he games. Hell one of the most interesting looking games (Robotech: Crystaline Dreams) will probably never see the light of day due to, something. Evangelion 64 will never be brought over to the US, probably since it wouldn't comply with Nintendo USA's policy that 1) all agmes have to appeal to 5 year olds and 2) all games must feature Mario as a central character. Basically Nintendo dropped the ball. Don't get me wrong, I've owned my N64 a lot longer then my PSX, but my PSX library dwarfs my N64 library almost 2 to 1 in like 1/3rd the time. and I'm VERY PICKY about my games. Plus the N64 has a general lack of RRGs. ZELDA IS NOT AND HAD NOT EVER BEEN AN RPG. Quest 64 I rented once, and while I actually don't recall much more htne being stuck on the first boss forever, it is supposed to be REALLY bad. anyway if you must own an N64 I will reccomend the following: Star Fox 64, Mischief Makers, Super Mario 64 (NONE of it's clones), Zelda 64, and Smash Brothers. Alos, DO NOT, no matter what the price, even if people are PAYING you to take them, get ANY Turok games. They aren't really very good and once you buy one you will be overwelmed by the urge to own them all.
Sony and Square
Ok, Ok, I know, what about thos other makers? What about SEGA and Sony. Now I'm not sure where to start. I guess I'll start with Sony, since it's better to end with a winner. Now once there were two comanies, Ninendo (a playing card manufacturing comany) and SEGA (SErvice GAmes, makers of stuff). Then this evil electonics giant became aware of the lucrative money making oportunities of this industry. First they tried to align with Nintendo only in reality it was just a ploy to find out all the secrets of how to operate within the game industry. Then it broke off and created it's own game system called Playstation. No one beleived that Sony could topple the might that is Nintendo, but then no one quite new the foul corruption that Sony would spread. One of the sealers was when Sony corrupted Square, a previously Nintendo loyal developer and maker of many of the best RPGs around. Square became tainted and altered it's game creation style to appeal more to the mass market, basically it sold out and dumbed itself down to make more money. They also crank out loads of remakes each exactly like the previous. Now they have released the originally nammed Playstation 2, which a clearly hype based and staged shortage or hardware. PSX2 will dominate the headlines for months now. Those fucking corperate idiots can rot in hell.
Rooting for the Underdog
And lastly SEGA. Which I'm not sure why I'm capitalizing but I'm sure I'll forget to at least once in here somewhere. They had the Master System to compete with the NES. I never owned one myself but a friend of mine did. I remember a game called Shinobi that was pretty good. And a snail maze game when you turned the console on without a game inserted. And that's about it. We played the NES more, it was better. Then there was Genesis. The SNES had a better versions of most of the good Genesis games except Aladin, Jurassic Park and Mortal Kombat. Jurrassic Park was great because you could play as the Raptor. None of us ever owned a copy but we rented it all the time. I've heard Aladin named off several times as one of the bes Genesis games by total strangers without even having to suggest it first, which menas it HAS TO BE GOOD. Which is exceptional for a movie liescenced game, ususally those too pathetically bad. Then there is Sonic. SEGA's answer to Mario. Sonic games are actually REALLY good. They are fairly original and quite fun to play. If you haven't played Sonic 2 I reccomend you find a way to do so. Then SEGA released the Saturn, and basically fucked it up the way Nintendo did witht he N64. Also it just couldn' keep up with the PSX monster. One thing htat I would contribute tot he demise of the Saturn is the lack of decent games that were not alos available on the PSX (only better). There were some, Saturn did much better in Japan than in well anywhere and there were a lot of neat sounding games released in Japan that were not released elsewhere. Lets not forget the "success" of the addos for the Genesis. 32X, Sega CD, both doing decent int he eyes of hardcore SEGA fans, both failing misserably in the eyes of everyone else.
The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of
Then there was Dreamcast, and it was good. Basically SEGA took Nintendo's philosophy of making quality over quantity and applied ti to an audience with money, and they threw in a little of the old NES idea of using crack while developing games. Dreamcast is looking more inviting by the day and Sony and it's PS2 are looking less inviting by the minute. And that's the bottom line.
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