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Game systems in Japan: NEC, Sega and SNK

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Darren Austin - I will not instigate revolution

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Sep 5, 1990, 5:48:53 PM9/5/90
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In article <LEO.90Se...@phoenix.lcs.mit.edu> l...@theory.lcs.mit.edu (John Leo) writes:
I don't see the PC Engine as being a threat to Nintendo, though,
because the games still aren't nearly as good. Of course that's
partly my opinion, but it seems to be reflected in the sales as well.
Whereas the Famicom has Nintendo, one of the best game designers,
behind it, the PC Engine has Hudson Soft, one of the worst.
(Incidentally Hudson designed the PC Engine, and apparently the
Famicom as well.) And the PC Engine lacks any real "hits" like Super
Mario Bros. (or any of dozens of other Famicom titles) or even
"Daimakaimura" for Megadrive (although as mentioned above that came
out for the Supergrafx). It remains to be seen if anyone will make a
truly outstanding game for the PC Engine.

They already have. I thought Bonk's Adventure and Neutopia were
both excellent games that were at least as good as their Nintendo
counterparts (Super Mario Bros, and Legend of Zelda) if not
better.

Most of a person's perception of a game system come directly from
their impressions of the games that they play on them. I have a
lot more fun with my TG-16 than I do with my Genesis, and this is
based strictly on the games that I have seen for both. I know
several people who have the exact opposite opinion, for basically
the same reason. It is probably just that the games that I have
for the Genesis are not the best ones available. I also haven't
bought a lot of games for the TG-16, so it is possible that I
have just bought the best ones, and haven't been bitten by any
bad ones yet.

So what do you think are the best games for the Genesis? I have
(among others) Altered Beast and Golden Axe both of which I find
to be on the easy and dull side. I have heard that Ghosts 'n'
Ghouls is really good, and I will probably get it. Any other
recomendations?

Later,
--Darren
--
Darren Austin | All I have to do is find a
Window Systems Group | one-legged nun walking a
Sun Microsystems, Mountain View | goat and I win!
dmau...@sun.com |

John Leo

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Sep 5, 1990, 3:24:05 PM9/5/90
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Previously I posted about Nintendo's home systems in Japan, as well as
the Gameboy and Lynx. Now it is time to say a bit about NEC's PC
Engine (Turbografx-16), Sega's Megadrive (Genesis) and SNK's Neo Geo
systems. I won't have as much to say about them as the Nintendo
systems as I didn't play them much, but there might be something of
interest here. As usual much of this is just my opinion (along with
Kyoko Watanabe's, who played most of the games with me).

Sometime in the Spring I posted an article from Famicom Tsushin about
the future of the various systems, and the situation in Japan seems to
have followed their predictions so far. So let me summarize
(hopefully not distorting too much) what they said:
* the Famicom (Nintendo) would remain the major system and
expectations are high for the Super Famicom
* the PC Engine would become a fairly major contender
* the PC Engine CD ROM system would continue to become more popular
* there would be little excitement for the PC Engine Supergrafx
* the Megadrive would remain a minor contender
Note that the situation is different in some ways than the US, where
the Genesis is doing better than the TG-16.

PC ENGINE

The PC Engine does seem to be doing quite well in Japan; there are a
lot of games now and apparently a lot of interest. At least two and
probably more magazines are dedicated solely to the PCE. More and
more CD ROM games are coming out and seem to be selling pretty well.
However I don't see much interest in the Supergrafx, a high-end model
with a very high price. So far there are only a couple games
available, and only "Daimakaimura" (Ghouls and Ghosts) seems to be
popular. It was selling surprisingly well for a game for a system
with so few users, but the reviews were unflattering--essentially
saying that although the graphics were better than the Megadrive
version, that was it (and I believe the game price as well is very
high). I'm not sure about the portable PC Engine due to be released,
but I would expect it to be quite popular.

I don't see the PC Engine as being a threat to Nintendo, though,
because the games still aren't nearly as good. Of course that's
partly my opinion, but it seems to be reflected in the sales as well.
Whereas the Famicom has Nintendo, one of the best game designers,
behind it, the PC Engine has Hudson Soft, one of the worst.
(Incidentally Hudson designed the PC Engine, and apparently the
Famicom as well.) And the PC Engine lacks any real "hits" like Super
Mario Bros. (or any of dozens of other Famicom titles) or even
"Daimakaimura" for Megadrive (although as mentioned above that came
out for the Supergrafx). It remains to be seen if anyone will make a
truly outstanding game for the PC Engine.

Kyoko and I weren't too interested in the PC Engine due to the lack of
exciting games and the fact that we don't care much about graphics
compared to other aspects. We played some TG-16 games here (Legendary
Axe, Alien Crush, Keith Courage, etc.) and didn't like them. But
Kyoko's brother Tadashi manages a toy store, is a video game fanatic,
and loves the PC Engine, so one day he brought over the machine and CD
ROM player and about 40 games so we got to give them a try. The games
included most of the ones considered best for the system with the
exception of PC Genjin (Bonk's Adventure) which we would have liked to
have tried.

We didn't get to try them all (especially the role-playing games,
unfortunately) but of all the ones we tried the only one we liked was
R-Type. It wasn't quite as good as the arcade, but close enough that
we didn't mind, and much easier if you use auto-fire (plus Tadashi's
hints). The other shooting games (such as Super Darius) were pretty
dull (just shooting) and had a bad feel. And the action games were
even worse as far as player control went; all of them had a very
slippery, bad feel. So while the graphics were often very nice, we
didn't enjoy playing them, and none seemed very imaginative, even Kato
and Ken (JJ and Jeff). I could say more about each game, but for
example we tried one golf game called Super Albatross. Now this
actually has a sort of RPG aspect to it as well that we didn't look
at, but as far as the golf game went it was terrible! Far worse than
Gameboy Golf (which is an excellent golf game) and even worse than the
NES Golf (a pretty bad golf game).

We tried several other CD ROM games, including Ziria which features a
Sakamoto opening song. That song is fantastic, but the BGM of the
game itself was unmemorable. We also found out something I've never
seen mentioned about the CD ROM that people should be aware of: it is
incredibly slow. It was much more annoying than even the Famicom Disc
System because it loads in data much more often and at less
appropriate places (some games such as Monster Lair use it well,
though, loading only at the end of stages). For example for Ziria it
had to load info before every battle; combat is already my least
favorite aspect of RPGs and this made it unbearable. But the worst
game, and one that should be avoided, was Altered Beast. This one
would stop right in the middle of the action to load in data, making
the game completely unplayable. Even Tadashi was unhappy about that
one.

Of course a lot of people (such as Tadashi) really love the PC Engine
and games for it, so my point is really "try it before you buy it."
Play a lot of games and see if they are what you like. Don't be lured
by the graphics alone. I will say though that there are several good
points about the PC Engine:
* The game cartriges are really small! Tadashi doesn't keep his boxes
so the 40 games took up barely any space.
* Auto-fire works excellently with the games, compared to Famicom
auto-fire which works terribly.
* Although I'm not excited about higher resolution graphics so much,
for one aspect at least they were a real joy: Japanese script is
far prettier in the PC Engine games, and of course they can use
kanji liberally as well.
* The PC Engine version of Pac Land is much better than the Famicom
version.
* The PC Engine mah jong games seem to be much better than the Famicom
ones (and here good graphics are a boon as well).
And I'm sure there are other points I've forgotten at the moment.

MEGADRIVE

Like the PC Engine, we haven't been too interested in the Megadrive
due to lack of good games. Daimakaimura has beautiful graphics and an
interesting world but bad play control. Golden Axe is an excellent
game but so short you might as well play in the arcade. We didn't
have a chance to try any games in Japan, though. Some of my comments
for the PC Engine would apply to the Megadrive as well.

As far as I can tell, the Megadrive is still moving along but without
much excitement. There are two magazines available for it, and games
continue to come out, but still not too many and not a good variety
(mostly arcade action and shooting games). Also it seems the modem,
promised since last year, still isn't out yet; I seem to remember a
reason the recently-released Tel Tel Mah Jong got mediocre reviews was
that they couldn't try it over the phone yet. There's supposed to be
a game network that you can call but without the modem that too is
useless. So I'm not sure what Sega is doing.

NEO GEO

SNK's NEO GEO is a strange idea--you buy the machine and then rent out
games from arcades to play at home (the games can also be played in
the arcade). US magazines are saying this system is drawing a lot of
attention and they are thinking of selling it in the US, but selling
games instead of renting them, at a price of $125 each! I can't
imagine anyone paying that much for a game, especially these ones.
But it seemed to me the system is a bomb in Japan. I don't remember
it being sold in stores (maybe you have to specially ask to see one)
and have no idea how one would rent out games at the arcades. But I
did see the systems come out in the arcades with the initial 4 games
(Magician Lord, Mah Jong, Baseball Stars Professional, and Nam 75).
When they initially came out a few people played (mostly Magician
Lord) but after that I barely remember seeing anyone play at all. I
tried out Magician Lord, and certainly the graphics were very
detailed, but the game was no fun at all--just move along and kill the
bad guys.

In any case I honestly can't imagine the Neo Geo going anywhere;
within a year it should be a memory. Although the specs are better
than any dedicated game system, including the Super Famicom, it seems
SNK will be the only one making games for it, and SNK has never been
known as a maker of great games (although a few seem to be good). But
we'll have to see.

It's a quiet little life with no problems between | John Leo
the stove that smokes and the ever-open window that | l...@theory.lcs.mit.edu
looks out on a landscape becomming daily less |
coherent...But what am I saying? And to whom?...
All questions not worth asking from now on. (Alain Robbe-Grillet)

Gregory James Legowski

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Sep 6, 1990, 11:00:56 PM9/6/90
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>So what do you think are the best games for the Genesis? I have
>(among others) Altered Beast and Golden Axe both of which I find
>to be on the easy and dull side. I have heard that Ghosts 'n'
>Ghouls is really good, and I will probably get it. Any other
>recomendations?
How about the "sleeper game" of the year: Herzog Zwei.
This game (IMHO) is one of the most habit-forming games I have ever run
across. It's an excellent blend of strategy and arcade-action. You
control a plane/robot and the point of the game is to destroy the
computer/other player's home base. Only problem is that your character
can't directly attack the base. Instead you have to build other units
and give them orders. Once a unit has orders, you can't directly
control it (but you can use your plane as a transport to move it to a
different spot). There are other factories on the game field that you
can capture to help you--you can build your units there, and each
factory you own earns you more money (which you need to build the
units.) Overall, one of my favorite games for the Genesis. Other games
that I really like include Zoom! and the incredible Populous (which
plays exactly the same, look and feel, to my brother's Amiga version,
and BETTER than my IBM version).

--Greg gl...@andrew.cmu.edu
Disclaimer: I'm just an insane Computer Engineering-Math/CS double major at
Carnegie Mellon; you expect ME to make any sense?

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