New Genesis Games Out (Longish)
Larry J Brackney
By now, it should become painfully obvious that Sega is gearing up
for all out war with Nintendo! I am amazed at the number of new games
which have been released in the last two weeks or so! Our local Kaybee
Toy and Hobby got in Storm Lord, Midnight Resistance, Twin Cobra,
and all (I think) of the new EA titles which were due out this Summer.
Where were all these games a year ago when I was dying for new carts?!?!
A lot of people have been asking for info. about some of the new
games. I'll pass along some quick thoughts I have, from playing the
MD versions as well as what I've heard from a friend who attended
the CES in Chicago...
Storm Lord - Nice graphics, repetitive (boring) game play. A friend
who played this @ the CES grew bored w/ it in a hurry.
Midnight Resistance - I've played this one as a MD cart, and I was
not impressed. This one sure didn't look like an 8
meg cart! Just another Contra rip-off, and not a
good one at that! (Poor graphics & sound plus no
two player option!) Wait for this one to go on sale!
Batman - Once again, played the MD version. Maybe I expected
to much from this one, with so much hype - I was
a bit dissapointed. Nice graphics, but the game play
just didn't involve me. Revenge of Shinobi has all
the play elements found in Batman, plus some extras
and it does it all much better.
Ultimate QIX - I like this one. I bought Volfiev (the MD version)
a few months back, and was not dissapointed. If you
liked QIX, you'll love Ultimate QIX. The game is
rather spartan by Genesis standards, but the game
play is excellent. I had hoped for more levels though...
An amusing side note: my friend at the CES was talking
to a Taito rep. about how happy he was to see some older
games being revamped. (i.e. Space Invaders & QIX) The
rep. insisted that QIX was an all new game. Apparently,
my friend and the rep. almost came to blows over whether
QIX really existed as a coin-op in 1981! Well, I thought
it was funny!
I would be interested in mini-reviews/opinions on the new EA games.
I'm particularly interested in Faery Tale Adventure, Might & Magic II,
and Centurion. Please refrain from saying things like: "EA sucks, so
EA games suck!" and "Well, the amiga/pc version is pretty good!"
Also, any word on a release date for PS III? I've heard this week
or next...
- Larry
p.s. Sorry for the length. So much to say, so little space!
--
/ Larry J. Brackney | E-Mail: brac...@mn.ecn.purdue.edu \
|-------------------------| S-Mail: 3116 Hilltop Dr. W. Lafayette IN 47906 |
| Mechanical Engineering | Phone : (317)-463-1602 (Home) |
\ Purdue University | (317)-494-6552 (Office) /
George McBay
>
>
> Midnight Resistance - I've played this one as a MD cart, and I was
> not impressed. This one sure didn't look like an 8
> meg cart! Just another Contra rip-off, and not a
> good one at that! (Poor graphics & sound plus no
> two player option!) Wait for this one to go on sale!
>
otherwise) are really bad) of this arcade game was quite good, and did include
two player option (Two players at the same time, no less)
Teh Kao Yang
>
> not impressed. This one sure didn't look like an 8
> meg cart! Just another Contra rip-off, and not a
> good one at that! (Poor graphics & sound plus no
> two player option!) Wait for this one to go on sale!
Hey this game is not that bad! I agree that the graphics are rather poor,
but the sound in my opinion is one of the best of any game!! IT probably
has the best sounding music of any game, even better than Sword of
Vermillion! I think the game is really fun to play, even if it is only
one player. You have really awesome weapons and the bosses are huge. I
think it's worth the money.
BTW, after playing some more Sonic and having seen more of the game, I feel
that whoever was saying that Mario was better than Sonic has got to be
kidding!!!!!
Jim Omura
>
>for all out war with Nintendo! I am amazed at the number of new games
>which have been released in the last two weeks or so! Our local Kaybee
...
>Where were all these games a year ago when I was dying for new carts?!?!
>
I've been saying for over a year now that this is what you could
expect in terms of development time. Nintendo started writing their
programs for the Super NES over 2 years ago. Companies that don't have
a program to "port" and thus have to start a program essentially from
scratch are going to find this out. That's why most of the games
we've seen on the Genesis are ported from other platforms and *very*
few actually started out on the Genesis. To get the most out of the
hardware now could take 1 - 2 years of programming for a small team.
Take music for example. A mediocre musician can create a reasonably
bouncy background tune with 3 - 4 voices all of which don't do much
more than go "beep", but now with significant fidelity, you need
*real* musicians to do something impressive. If you can't hire a
musician, then you could take a half a year or so just working on
music, assuming you can do something acceptable at all even with
*infinite* time. Some people can't do it no matter how long you give
them, and no matter what tools they have to work with.
--
Jim Omura, 2A King George's Drive, Toronto, (416) 652-3880
lsuc!jimomura
Byte Information eXchange: jimomura
david r watters
>In article <1991Jul13....@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> brac...@author.ecn.purdue.edu (Larry J Brackney) writes:
>>
>> By now, it should become painfully obvious that Sega is gearing up
>>for all out war with Nintendo! I am amazed at the number of new games
>>which have been released in the last two weeks or so! Our local Kaybee
>...
>>Where were all these games a year ago when I was dying for new carts?!?!
>
> I've been saying for over a year now that this is what you could
>expect in terms of development time. Nintendo started writing their
>programs for the Super NES over 2 years ago.
I would say that, the above is a bad sign for the SNES, except for a few early
ones such as S.M.W. and F-Zero, the majority of the new SuperFamicom games
have been a disapointment. I think the hardware advancements of the SF/SNES
have been overestimated by a long shot. The sound is the only thing that
wasn't overestimated. If the current games coming out for the SF were
rushed out, I would understand, but if what you say is true about their
development being underway for a while, then it seems that the games for the
SNES aren't going to get much better.
>Companies that don't have
>a program to "port" and thus have to start a program essentially from
>scratch are going to find this out. That's why most of the games
>we've seen on the Genesis are ported from other platforms and *very*
>few actually started out on the Genesis.
Yeah, right! :-\
Aside from a majority of the Tengen and Electronic Arts games, this is
not even CLOSE to being true. I am not even sure if you can count the Tengen
games as ports, because Cyberbal and Klax certainly surpass the half-ass port
that the Amiga had to suffer with from Domark!
>To get the most out of the
>hardware now could take 1 - 2 years of programming for a small team.
>Take music for example. A mediocre musician can create a reasonably
>bouncy background tune with 3 - 4 voices all of which don't do much
>more than go "beep", but now with significant fidelity, you need
>*real* musicians to do something impressive. If you can't hire a
>musician, then you could take a half a year or so just working on
>music, assuming you can do something acceptable at all even with
>*infinite* time. Some people can't do it no matter how long you give
>them, and no matter what tools they have to work with.
If you are trying to say that the music on the Genesis won't compare to the
scores that get put out by Nintendo, I would have to disagree. Look at
Stider for example.... totally amazing. I do agree that the SNES/SF has
impressive audio, but the Genesis is a VERY close second, and if what Han
Says about the Genesis CD-ROM is true, it will get even more impressive.
As far as hiring a musician.... It's not as if they were an rare commodity.
I do have to say that it is totally justified that Sega is getting it's time
in the spotlight. It is widely excepted that the SMS was the superior piece of
hardware and didn't get it's fair shake of the market.
I think the Genesis is top of the hill at the moment, and it is nice to see it
being the most popular. While the introduction of the SNES will certainly
cloud the issue, I think the momentum the Genesis has, the unbelievable price
reduction and Sonic giveaway, and the intro of the Genesis CD-ROM will finally
put Nintendo in the possition of giving chase.
James Hague
hardware extras will make game PROGRAMMING a bit simpler, they do
nothing at all for making game DESIGN anything less than the difficult
task that it is. When was the last time you thought a game was fun
simply because of the GRAPHICS? If a game is fun then nice graphics
are only icing on the cake. If a game sucks Froot Loops though a crazy
straw then pretty pictures aren't going to make up for this even a wee
bit. In a nutshell, great graphics cannot hide poor design. Period.
That aside, the importance of the SNES's graphics & sound is still way
overrated. Some games just don't need fancy graphics (Qix, Tetris).
Some games could take advantage of hardware scaling/rotation, but it is
not an absolute requirement. Sonic the Hedgehog for the Genesis shows
a very nice, fast example of software rotation. Similarly, having such
a feature in hardware does not mean that it will always be used in a
pleasing fashion.
But still, everything comes down to game design. Several games for the
SNES (Pilotwings comes to mind) seem to have been written as
interactive graphics demos, not actual games. Super Mario World may
very well be a great game, but that has nothing to do with its being
available for the SNES. I'm sure a TurboGrafx-16 or Genesis port would
be just as much fun. The "greatness" of SMW is a credit to the game's
designers, not the the hardware abilities of the SNES. And Sonic would
be great fun on the SNES? Get the picture?
(BTW, many of the great arcade "classics" use 8-bit processors and very
little hardware graphics support, if any. Defender doesn't even have
hardware sprites or scrolling--everything was done with the CPU.
Robotron, Sinistar, and Blaster all use an 8-bit 6809. Just check out
any of these if you want to see what can be done without fancy
hardware.)
James Hague
>designers, not the the hardware abilities of the SNES. And Sonic would
>be great fun on the SNES? Get the picture?
|
Oops! That should be a period, not a question mark. I meant to say
"yes, Sonic would be fun on the SNES." The "?" kind of changes the
meaning around...
Teh Kao Yang
about the Lynx v.s. Turboexpress!!!
But seriously, I think that it's too early to predict anything about the
Sega-Super NES war. We'll all find out what happens by the end of the year.
If the Super NES has sold more than 1 million machines by then, it could be
considered as having won the battle. But I don't think the Super NES could
ever seriously threaten the Genesis - it is already too late for that.
I think that the market is capable of supporting two 16-bit machines...there
are enough mature game freaks out there with the money. So I think what will
end up happening will be one of two scenarios.... the Genesis and Super NES
end up sharing sizeable portions of the market... or the Super NES totally
bombing and die like the Turbo did.....
Speaking of the Turbo, I think the true sign that a system is dead is the
fact that no new games have come out for a month... or months?? Or that
very few, or no new games are being announced...
Larry J Brackney
>AAHHHH!!! No!! Not another X v.s Y thread starting!!! I still have nightmares
>about the Lynx v.s. Turboexpress!!!
>
>But seriously, I think that it's too early to predict anything about the
>Sega-Super NES war. We'll all find out what happens by the end of the year.
>If the Super NES has sold more than 1 million machines by then, it could be
>considered as having won the battle. But I don't think the Super NES could
>ever seriously threaten the Genesis - it is already too late for that.
>I think that the market is capable of supporting two 16-bit machines...there
>are enough mature game freaks out there with the money. So I think what will
>end up happening will be one of two scenarios.... the Genesis and Super NES
>end up sharing sizeable portions of the market... or the Super NES totally
>bombing and die like the Turbo did.....
>
I'm thinking that the second scenario is more likely. A friend who
attended the CES was not overly impressed w/ the initial releases for
the SNES. (Mario 4, Actraiser and F-0 were exceptional though...)
Reading a copy of EGM produced for the CES, I got the same impression -
a poor collection of initial softs, with more of the same on the way.
Given this small sample of opinions, the outlook for the SNES is
not overly optimistic. (Not to mention Sega's efforts to expand
their share of the market before the SNES even hits the shelves!)
>Speaking of the Turbo, I think the true sign that a system is dead is the
>fact that no new games have come out for a month... or months?? Or that
>very few, or no new games are being announced...
This seems to be a reasonable assessment of what has happened. It's
a shame, because the TG-16 never seemed to get off the ground. Lord
knows the software base is there, they just couldn't (or wouldn't) get
it over here to market.
- Larry
--
Eric Glover
>In article <1991Jul15.2...@agate.berkeley.edu> teh...@headcrash.Berkeley.EDU (Teh Kao Yang) writes:
>>AAHHHH!!! No!! Not another X v.s Y thread starting!!! I still have nightmares
>>about the Lynx v.s. Turboexpress!!!
>>
>>But seriously, I think that it's too early to predict anything about the
>>Sega-Super NES war. We'll all find out what happens by the end of the year.
>>If the Super NES has sold more than 1 million machines by then, it could be
>>considered as having won the battle. But I don't think the Super NES could
>>ever seriously threaten the Genesis - it is already too late for that.
Id have to agree here. After this great flood of 90 and what
I predict will be the great famine of 92, Id say you'll see
alot of families start pouring into the low end PCs/STs and Assort. home
computers just like '84.
>>I think that the market is capable of supporting two 16-bit machines...there
>>are enough mature game freaks out there with the money. So I think what will
>>end up happening will be one of two scenarios.... the Genesis and Super NES
>>end up sharing sizeable portions of the market... or the Super NES totally
>>bombing and die like the Turbo did.....
>>
>
> I'm thinking that the second scenario is more likely. A friend who
>attended the CES was not overly impressed w/ the initial releases for
>the SNES. (Mario 4, Actraiser and F-0 were exceptional though...)
>Reading a copy of EGM produced for the CES, I got the same impression -
>a poor collection of initial softs, with more of the same on the way.
>Given this small sample of opinions, the outlook for the SNES is
>not overly optimistic. (Not to mention Sega's efforts to expand
>their share of the market before the SNES even hits the shelves!)
As Ive posted before the SNES at CES was *SAD*, Only HyperZone left me
even remotely impressed. SMB4 was just lame.
>>Speaking of the Turbo, I think the true sign that a system is dead is the
>>fact that no new games have come out for a month... or months?? Or that
>>very few, or no new games are being announced...
>
> This seems to be a reasonable assessment of what has happened. It's
>a shame, because the TG-16 never seemed to get off the ground. Lord
>knows the software base is there, they just couldn't (or wouldn't) get
>it over here to market.
No, you know what really is the telling sign is the Turbo Price Cut.
When a company is the first to make a price cut you know they're in
trouble. You didnt see the Big N making price adjustments until well
after the sales of base units was starting to slip.
Other examples.
1. 2600 first at $79 bucks in its second time around
then the new, UNDER 50 BUCKS revival campaign.
2. Sega Master System 2. $49.50 at my local Toys R Us. Down just a bit
from the 149.95 I bught my SMS at.
The Big N is going to buy it, almost as bad as Turbo when they even TRY
to bring a hefty 200 dollar system into a saturated 16 bit market.
To the lyrics of a popular song, whos time has come and gone as fast and
hard as the 8 bit era...
Toast, Toast, Baby. :).
l...@hpljdw.hpl.hp.com
of the Super NES. I guess there's still a lot of insecurity about the future
of the Genesis now that the release date of Nintendo's machine is drawing
near. However although I would be very surprised if the Super NES doesn't
outsell the Genesis in a short time, I don't think the Genesis will die. It's
reasonably well established with a good number of games out, and there still
seems room enough in the game business for two home consoles, perhaps more.
In Japan the Super Famicom came out last November, and I believe it has
already outsold the Megadrive (Genesis, which came out a year or two earlier)
there. What's more the games are selling enormously well, competing with
Gameboy games for the top spots, while only a couple Megadrive games appear on
the top 30 charts, and not very high. Of course this is the US and the
situation may be different. I'm not sure the Super NES will do quite so well
here, but it still should do excellently. I'll say something about why later
on.
Why did the Genesis do well here, and why did the TG-16 (PC Engine in Japan)
fail? Especially since the PC Engine does much better than the Megadrive in
Japan (although that too may be lessening)? Well, let me give in hindsight a
few naive reasons. The PC Engine came out earlier in Japan than the
Megadrive, it had and has a much larger base of games, and was aimed more at a
Japanese audience. None of these advantages transferred to the US. The
machines came out at about the same time, and the TG-16 fell behind in games.
Sega made a brilliant decision to make the Megadrive and Genesis cartridges
compatible, allowing them to bring out games here very quickly after release
in Japan and build up a large base. NEC, on the other hand, not only
redesigned the PC Engine into an extremely ugly box, but made cartridges
incompatible. On top of that since many of their games were designed for a
Japanese audience they had to be modified for release here, or simply not
released at all. Sega and it's third-party companies on the other hand
concentrated on games that would appeal more to Americans.
There are other reasons too, I'm sure. Sega seems to have found a niche among
mainly high school and college boys disenchanted with Nintendo. But I don't
give such marketing reasons very high priority. Sega did well primarily
because they were able to bring out a lot of games, and among them a few quite
good games, whereas the TG-16 was less successful in that regard.
Now comes the Super NES. This machine is going to succeed here, just as it
did in Japan, because there are a lot of great games for it. Even at the
beginning there will be Super Mario World, F-ZERO, Sim City, Final Fight,
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Super R-TYPE, Gambare Goemon (not sure what the US
name will be), UN Squadron, Final Fantasy IV (II in the US) etc., to be
followed by Dragon Warrior V, New Legend of Zelda, Magic Sword, Earthbound II
and many others. This lineup alone, in my opinion, is much stronger than the
better games available for either the Genesis or TG-16. Furthermore this is
just the beginning! So I don't see the Super NES having any problems here.
Ironically, perhaps, the machine to suffer is going to be the NES. It held up
well against the 16 bit machines thanks to a lot of good games (unfortunatly
amongst a lot of trash, but the Genesis and TG-16 are quickly catching up in
that category too), but the Super NES will be the death blow. A few companies
are still coming out with promising titles for it (such as Capcom with Mega
Man IV and Gargoyle's Quest II), but more telling is the withdrawal of
support, such as Square's announcement that it was cancelling Final Fantasy IV
for the Famicom, and also that it won't bring out FF2 and 3 in the US, as well
as Nintendo cancelling the NES Sim City. Nintendo and its best third-party
companies are shifting their emphasis to the Super NES and Gameboy, and the
last great titles to come out for the NES may be games already done in Japan
such as Earthbound and Dragon Warrior III.
So the Super NES will be the continuation of the NES tradition. Those fans of
Nintendo will probably get the Super NES eventually, and those non-fans will
go for the Genesis most likely. Both machines should have their audience.
John Leo
l...@hpljdw.hpl.hp.com
James Hague
>The Big N is going to buy it, almost as bad as Turbo when they even TRY
>to bring a hefty 200 dollar system into a saturated 16 bit market.
Ah, but remember the N-word still carries a lot of weight with those
people who haven't been annoyed by Nintendo's policies--mostly crazed
ten year olds. You have to realize that for millions of people
NINTENDO = GAME SYSTEM. Period. Either they've never heard of any
other system or they just think of them as Nintendo clones, etc. I've
even heard several SMS owners & their parents refer to their systems as
"Nintendos." So when a "new Nintendo" comes out with lots better
graphics & sound, people are gonna want one. Even if the games really
stink, most people won't find this out until *after* they have plunked
down their $200.
I really don't think that we need another game system out there, be it
8 or 16 or whatever bit. It just splinters up the target audience and
makes development more difficult. But even so, don't count the SNES
out yet...
Vu Doo
Isn't this follow-up a little bias. I remember you being an avid TG-16
fan pointing out the faults of the Genesis during the Battle of
the 16 -bit machines(Genesis and TG-16). Now that Genesis has beaten
the ** out TG-16 you go over to the Super Nes to bash the Genesis.
Vu
ps This is just an observation of the "Who has the best system sydrome."
Larry J Brackney
>It's quite funny to read all these postings by Sega fans predicting the death
>of the Super NES. I guess there's still a lot of insecurity about the future
>of the Genesis now that the release date of Nintendo's machine is drawing
>near. However although I would be very surprised if the Super NES doesn't
>outsell the Genesis in a short time, I don't think the Genesis will die. It's
>reasonably well established with a good number of games out, and there still
>seems room enough in the game business for two home consoles, perhaps more.
>
Hey, I won't deny I'm a Genesis fan! I'm not insecure about the future
of my system though. Realistically, I see software support lasting for
the Genesis for another 2 or 3 years - when a better system will come
along. Typically, systems last about 3 or 4 years before they are
replaced.
As far as a rosy outlook for SNES though, I must disagree. EGM's CES
issue painted a grim picture of the systems prospects. (Few good softs
right away.) The one item I found particularly amusing though - a graph
presented by Nintendo (of course) depicting game units sold versus time
for the Genesis, TG16 and SNES. The predicted growth of the SNES was
ridiculous. (Doubling the number of Genesis units sold within one
year, I'll believe that when I see it!)
If the SNES were sold as an add-on or expansion for the NES, then I
might see it as a contender. IMHO though, it is naive to think that
parents are going to fork over $150+ for a system to replace the one
they already have. (Especially considering the current recession.)
If the SNES can weather its first year in the market place, it will
probably make it. (I figure it will take six months to a year before
software starts flowing and the system can establish itself.)
Sorry if this seems to wander about, but I've been a bit scatter
brained today! (Some people may think that I usually am that way
though...)
- Larry
p.s. If someone thinks I'm picking a fight here, maybe I am!
Anything to liven the group up a bit!
James Hague
>Nintendo will probably get the Super NES eventually, and those non-fans will
>go for the Genesis most likely. Both machines should have their audience.
The whole concept of being a "fan" of a company that produces video
game systems is beyond me. Maybe you could be a fan of a particular
game designer or group of designers, but a multi-billion dollar
corporation like Nintendo? Genesis owners say the Game Gear is
better. NES owners say the Game Boy is better. Atari computer owners
like the Lynx. This is all very silly...
James Hague
>of my system though. Realistically, I see software support lasting for
>the Genesis for another 2 or 3 years - when a better system will come
>along. Typically, systems last about 3 or 4 years before they are
>replaced.
Game systems & home computers don't "die" easily. The venerable Atari
2600 is still being produced and still has new games coming out for it
(albeit very few) after all these years. (When did it first hit the
market, 1977?) Ditto for the ColecoVison. The NES, SMS, and even the
TurboGrafx-16 won't completely disappear for quite some time. The
death of the Genesis is way over the horizon. (Quick aside: There is
still LOTS of money to be made in the NES market. It's a safe bet that
several million NES owners will not get a SNES for whatever reason.)
The public really doesn't care about moderate improvements in graphics
and sound. The good 'ole NES has graphics good enough to play most
games. The graphics of the SNES and Genesis are WAY more than adequate
to play games for a heck of a long time to come. The graphics of
almost any arcade game can be passably duplicated on either system.
Future improvements won't be very drastic. For example, the Neo-Geo's
graphics are better than both systems', but not THAT much better,
especially considering the huge difference in price.
Remember, game systems are for playing GAMES. How many times do I have
to say it: the GAMES are what's important. GAMES, GAMES, GAMES!
Drew Johnson
>In article <LEO.91Ju...@hpljdw.hpl.hp.com> l...@hpljdw.hpl.hp.com writes:
>>It's quite funny to read all these postings by Sega fans predicting the death
>>of the Super NES. I guess there's still a lot of insecurity about the future
>>of the Genesis now that the release date of Nintendo's machine is drawing
>>near. However although I would be very surprised if the Super NES doesn't
>>outsell the Genesis in a short time, I don't think the Genesis will die. It's
>>reasonably well established with a good number of games out, and there still
>>seems room enough in the game business for two home consoles, perhaps more.
>
> As far as a rosy outlook for SNES though, I must disagree. EGM's CES
>issue painted a grim picture of the systems prospects. (Few good softs
>right away.) The one item I found particularly amusing though - a graph
>presented by Nintendo (of course) depicting game units sold versus time
>for the Genesis, TG16 and SNES. The predicted growth of the SNES was
>ridiculous. (Doubling the number of Genesis units sold within one
>year, I'll believe that when I see it!)
While I am an avid Genesis fan as well, I am afraid that the SNES is going to
be a tough competitor. How many average consumers even know what CES stands
for? Two things are going to make the SNES instantly popular: any game with
'Mario' in its name, and any game with 'Zelda' in its name. Every kid
that owns an NES now will be sold. As long as the game prices are not
totally unreasonable, stores will not be able to keep it on the shelves for
a while.
If the SNES is as 'average' as several netters make it out to be, then there
will definitely be a large market for the Genesis as well. If the Genesis
CD system is released in the USA, that should solidify the market for Sega
as a 'mid-to-high end' system (as long as CD games are relatively plentiful
and not too expensive). It should also be the final blow for the TG-16
system (which would piss me off, since I shelled out big bucks for the
TE. My only hope is that they lower the price on the TE and continue to
bring out games in competition with the other handhelds).
The really big loser in this race will be Atari, if they try to bring the
Panther to market. At least NEC made some quick $$ by being the first out
in Japan -- the Panther will have a tough time making a dent anywhere. I just
don't see any feature that Atari could hold up that would make the average
video enthusiast stray from the established systems. Of course, if they
were to make an arcade-quality version of APB for it, they would have at
least one sale :).
On a side note, does anybody know if there will be a version of Smash TV
done for any of the systems around?
Drew Johnson
dr...@verdix.com
Milton W. Kuo
>It's quite funny to read all these postings by Sega fans predicting the death
>of the Super NES. I guess there's still a lot of insecurity about the future
>of the Genesis now that the release date of Nintendo's machine is drawing
>near. However although I would be very surprised if the Super NES doesn't
>outsell the Genesis in a short time, I don't think the Genesis will die. It's
>reasonably well established with a good number of games out, and there still
>seems room enough in the game business for two home consoles, perhaps more.
I also do not think that the Super NES will die here in the US. There
is a great deal of brand loyalty and Nintendo will be able to survive on
that alone. Furthermore, a lot of people who own Genesis will probably al-
so get a Super NES (although they probably won't get one until some better
games com out). I think the most likely scenario in the US market would be
the co-existence of two 16-bit consoles (Genesis and SNES). Unless Ninten-
do can really come up with a large software library that is clearly better
than Sega's, Nintendo will never be as dominant as they were with the NES.
I think Sega's release of the CD-ROM is supposed to combat the SNES since
most of the games for the Genesis are shooting games. If Sega is to com-
pete with Nintendo, they're going to have to have a MUCH greater variety of
games. I just recently noticed that 60% of my games are shooting games and
as much as I like my Mega Drive, I'm sick of shooting games. I think Sega
realizes this and the "Coming Soon" lineup reflects this.
I also think that the SNES will sell extremely well. I don't really
remember the numbers anymore, (and this was a few months back) but a Sega
person stated that over million Master Systems had been sold and the Gene-
sis hadn't sold that many yet. Contrast this with Nintendo who sold many
times that number (I don't know exactly how many, but I know it sold MUCH
better than the Master System). I figure at least half of the NES owners
are loyal to Nintendo and sales to these people alone will allow the SNES
to outsell the Genesis.
>In Japan the Super Famicom came out last November, and I believe it has
>already outsold the Megadrive (Genesis, which came out a year or two earlier)
>there. What's more the games are selling enormously well, competing with
>Gameboy games for the top spots, while only a couple Megadrive games appear on
>the top 30 charts, and not very high. Of course this is the US and the
>situation may be different. I'm not sure the Super NES will do quite so well
>here, but it still should do excellently. I'll say something about why later
>on.
I don't think the SNES will be able to survive very long on the current
library of SF cartridges. All of the games I've played are boring and just
aren't fun. However, the future SF software line-up looks a bit better and
it's up to the developers to make them playable.
[stuff why TurboGrafx-16 failed here]
I think the main reason the TurboGrafx-16 failed is because of the lack
of games and the fact that NEC was selling an inferior piece of hardward at
roughly the same price as the Genesis. Couple that with the fact that the
TurboGrafx-16 is probably the ugliest console I've ever seen and I'm sur-
prised that it lasted as long as it did. Software was also grossly over-
priced. I saw most TurboGrafx-16 software selling for an average of $60 be-
fore NEC decided to cut the prices.
>There are other reasons too, I'm sure. Sega seems to have found a niche among
>mainly high school and college boys disenchanted with Nintendo. But I don't
>give such marketing reasons very high priority. Sega did well primarily
>because they were able to bring out a lot of games, and among them a few quite
>good games, whereas the TG-16 was less successful in that regard.
This is where brand loyalty comes in. I think that many of the Ninten-
dos are sold to little kids because they don't really need a 16-bit machine.
They don't understand how more advanced hardware can offer more advanced
games. It turns out that the NES has a lot of games which appeal to young
children because they are simple to understand. Just look at the Nintendo
cartoon shows. They are definitely aimed at children (maybe 10 and under?).
The trick now, for Nintendo, is to convince these children's parents to give
them the money to get a SNES. High school and college kids don't need to
ask their parents for money (we just tell them we need money for books :-)
This makes Sega's job easier when it comes to selling a system. They don't
have to worry about parents not wanting to buy a kid a very expensive toy.
If the SNES does fail in the US, it will be because that much of the people
who will want one (little kids) cannot afford one (Mom and Dad say no).
[impressive new games list for SF deleted]
>
>Ironically, perhaps, the machine to suffer is going to be the NES. It held up
>well against the 16 bit machines thanks to a lot of good games (unfortunatly
>amongst a lot of trash, but the Genesis and TG-16 are quickly catching up in
>that category too), but the Super NES will be the death blow. A few companies
>are still coming out with promising titles for it (such as Capcom with Mega
>Man IV and Gargoyle's Quest II), but more telling is the withdrawal of
>support, such as Square's announcement that it was cancelling Final Fantasy IV
>for the Famicom, and also that it won't bring out FF2 and 3 in the US, as well
>as Nintendo cancelling the NES Sim City. Nintendo and its best third-party
>companies are shifting their emphasis to the Super NES and Gameboy, and the
>last great titles to come out for the NES may be games already done in Japan
>such as Earthbound and Dragon Warrior III.
This is definitely true. In the event that the SNES does succeed, the
NES will go the way of the Sega Master System since it will be clear which
system Nintendo will really support. I think that while the NES will "suf-
fer" the most, the system that will really be hurt by a successful SNES will
be the TurboGrafx-16. In such a situation, I wouldn't be surprised to see
NEC withdraw from the market. I figure NEC is barely squeaking by as it is
and with another major force to contend with, they may just throw in the to-
wel.
And by the way, the chaff of Genesis games is not coming from Sega. It
is coming the the US-based companies such as Electronic Arts (there's that
name again!). The only company that doesn't do computer ports but still
sucks is Taito.
>So the Super NES will be the continuation of the NES tradition. Those fans of
>Nintendo will probably get the Super NES eventually, and those non-fans will
>go for the Genesis most likely. Both machines should have their audience.
Agreed.
>John Leo
>l...@hpljdw.hpl.hp.com
Milton W. Kuo
mil...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
Bryan Newell
>
> I would be interested in mini-reviews/opinions on the new EA games.
>I'm particularly interested in Faery Tale Adventure, Might & Magic II,
>and Centurion. Please refrain from saying things like: "EA sucks, so
>EA games suck!" and "Well, the amiga/pc version is pretty good!"
Okay. Here goes.
Faery Tale Adventure - Well, I'm not usually too fond of this type of rpg
(it reminds me a lot of Sword of Vermillion), but it has pretty nice
graphics, not too bad of a story line, and is a fairly complex world.
I only played it for about an hour before getting tired of it, but like
I said, I don't like these psuedo-rps's, where combat consists of running
up to an enemy and hitting the A button a lot. Now that I think of it,
this game is a lot like Super Hylide(sp?).
Centurion - HARD! I played this one a *lot* last night, and couldn't get
past "Tribune" level (the third level your "character" can get to). This
game revolves around the formation of the Roman Empire. You play an
ambitious Officer trying to become the Caesar. You can invade other
countries, try to use diplomacy to get allies, and such to increase
the size of your Empire. If your subjects are getting Restless, thrill
them with Games, especially Chariot Races you can bet money (Talents) on.
The hardest thing about this game is the Marauding Armies. ONce the
first one appears (usually around the 4th Game Turn (which happens to be a
year)), look out! They'll soon be followed by more & more & more MAs.
The combat system in this game is cool. For each battle, you choose
a Formation (how your troops line up) and a Tactic (what they do once
battle begins). This game is richly detailed game mechanic wise (your
various leaders have a Chrisma and Voice scores, which determine how
well they control the troops (who are rated for Morale among other
things). Actually, this game was so hard, I kept quitting to play my
favorite game I rented that night,
King's Bounty - I really liked this one. This game has only one major
problem: It's too easy. Here's the plot: You are one of four characters
(Paladin, Knight, Sorceress, or Barbarian), sent out by the dying King
to recover his stolen Sceptre, the source of his strength. The Sceptre
was stolen by one Arec Dragonsbreath (or some such), who for some odd
reason hid the Sceptre, and dewq a map to its whereabouts, which he then
tore up into 25 pieces, giving one to each of his 16 henchmen, hiding
1 each with the Eight Relics of the Land, and keeping the last (center)
piece for himself. Your quest? Gather an Army made up of up to Five
different creatures, and find the Relics and Conquer the Henchmen, thus
assembling a "map" of where the Sceptre is hidden. Kinda like glorified
Concentration. This "map" is actually a screen shot you have to match to a
location on one of the Four Continents. If you think you've found the
right place, start diggin'. The amount of time (in days) you have to
solve your quest is determined by the diffuculty. Normal level is 600
days. I solved the quest twice last night in about 6 hours, the first
time it took me 550 days, the second 380 (these are approximates).
The various creatures you can recruit include Vampires (the regenerate
1 hit point for every point of damage they do), Ghosts (any creatures
they kill join them), Druids (have a way cool lightning attack),
and about 30 others. Every game has the Sceptre hidden in a different
location. I imagine this game would get boring after a while, but
I enjoyed all the time I spent playing it.
> p.s. Sorry for the length. So much to say, so little space!
>
I totally agree.
>
>--
>/ Larry J. Brackney | E-Mail: brac...@mn.ecn.purdue.edu \
>|-------------------------| S-Mail: 3116 Hilltop Dr. W. Lafayette IN 47906 |
>| Mechanical Engineering | Phone : (317)-463-1602 (Home) |
>\ Purdue University | (317)-494-6552 (Office) /
Well, that's all for now.
-----
Bryan Newell (v...@mentor.cc.purdue.edu)
ObCheat:
Midnight Resistance Level Advance - At the Title Screen, hilite the "Start
Game" option, press and hold C, and press START. Now, anytime during a
stage, PAUSE the game, and press A to advance to the next level. Advancing
past the last stage gives you the High Scores screen.
James Hague
>On a side note, does anybody know if there will be a version of Smash TV
>done for any of the systems around?
Ugh. Hopefully not. Two major problems: buttons instead of
joysticks, and you need two controllers. Once upon a time there were
versions of Robotron (which has very similar play mechanics) for the
Apple ][, IBM PC, and Atari 800, but they were a HUGE pain to play.
They felt like entirely different games. Let's see how the Lynx
version of Robotron goes before we start worrying about Smash TV.
Dave Arlington
about why one or the other will do well in the marketplace. It has nothing
to do that much with technical capability since to the average Joe Schmoe,
the SNES and the Genesis will be for all intents and purposes,
indistinguishable. (Of course, even to the average Joe Schmoe, the difference
between the Genesis and the regular NES was enough to get the Genesis a
foothold in the market for Sega.)
No, I think the whole key to the NES sucess in the States had nothing to do
with the number of games it had available. They came after the success. No, the
NES became a mega-hit becuase of one game (and its sequels) Mario Bros.
Mario became more than a game and went into being a cultural phenomenon.
People had to have an NES just so they could get that one game and its sequels.
And once everyone has a NES, it became a status symbol and THEN all the
multitude of games followed.
So, to me, the key to SNES vs. Genesis, is one of Sonic vs. Mario 4. If Sonic
can become a super breakway hit like Mario did for the NES (and it was sold
out at every single store in the mall this last weekend), then the Genesis
can bury the SNES. But, if the pull of Mario 4 is strong enough (and I don't
think it is, for instance, Super Mario Land didn't work for Gameboy, they
had to go to Tetris.), then the SNES can dominate like the NES did.
Dave Arlington
Bryan Parker
|> In article <1991Jul16....@noose.ecn.purdue.edu>
|> > Hey, I won't deny I'm a Genesis fan! I'm not insecure about the future
|> >of my system though. Realistically, I see software support lasting for
|> >the Genesis for another 2 or 3 years - when a better system will come
|> >along. Typically, systems last about 3 or 4 years before they are
|> >replaced.
|>
|> Game systems & home computers don't "die" easily. The venerable Atari
|> 2600 is still being produced and still has new games coming out for it
HAHAHA.... I don't think so! Still being produced? No way.
l...@hpljdw.hpl.hp.com
out different aspects of what is after all a very complex situation. Why was
the NES popular? Why is the Genesis doing well? How will the SNES do? These
are too tough to answer in a few thousand words, but with different viewpoints
we can get an approximation.
To continue something a couple people brought up, I agree a large part of the
success of the NES was due to a few truly great games. Namely the Super Mario
series and Zelda series, which interestingly enough were produced by the same
man, Shigeru Miyamoto, who in my opinion is by far the most brilliant game
designer around. He's very famous in Japan, and even outside; Paul McCartney
is a big fan and invited him to a concert. I'm also a huge fan, and his works
(MOTHER (Earthbound) is another) are primarily what got and keeps me so
interested in video games. I could go on for quite a while about how
revolutionary his games are, and how filled they are with great ideas.
Miyamoto is mainly a producer now; he was in charge of Super Mario World, will
be doing New Legend of Zelda, and also worked on the Nintendo version of Sim
City, earning praise from the original designer. There are a lot of other
really talented designers, composers, programmers and so forth at Nintendo,
and their games are almost always excellent or better, in my opinion.
So I really do believe that the most significant factor of Nintendo's success
was their own games. And if you look at the best-sellers you'll see most of
them were in fact made by Nintendo itself. This is the biggest problem for
other companies competing with Nintendo. No matter what third-party companies
do, Nintendo is never going to release a game for a system they don't make.
It's the software the sells the hardware, and as long as Nintendo keeps making
great games they're going to have no problem selling their machines.
Of course things are more complicated than that. I'd like to believe Nintendo
could have done so well if they didn't allow people to write games for the NES
at all and did it all themselves. But I think number of games available and
variety are also very important. In Japan Enix, Square, and other companies
have been very influencial; in the US Konami is probably the next most
popular.
But this is still a problem for Sega, NEC, and Atari, as almost all of the
best third-party companies are also loyal to Nintendo. I can only think of a
few exceptions, for example Capcom made "Ghouls 'n Ghosts" and "Strider" for
the Genesis and NEC SuperGrafx; Irem did "R-TYPE" and "Ninja Spirit" for the
TG-16; Tecmo did a couple games for the Lynx. With Nintendo and the best
third-party companies writing for Nintendo's machines, the other companies
have resorted to copying; the most outrageous example is probably Hudson's
"Neutopia," which they didn't even both to disguise from Zelda. Recently Sega
and SNK have announced clones of Capcom's great "Final Fight" for their
machines that show similar absence of imagination. It's particularly telling
that the games now to be packaged with the TG-16 and Genesis, the games trying
to sell the machines, are rip-offs of Super Mario itself. If NEC and Sega are
trying to distinguish themselves from Nintendo then they are going in the
wrong direction.
Sega, NEC and the others are still searching for a hit game. As I mentioned
in a previous posting the best selling TG-16 game in Japan is R-TYPE
(deservedly so), and best for the Genesis there is Super Monaco GP. But
neither of these has sold particularly well. Capcom's Genesis games (mainly
GnG) seem to have done fairly well and in fact they're the main reason I
bought that machine. Now Sega is pushing Sonic as their hit game; we'll see
how that goes.
Meanwhile New Legend of Zelda is due out in a couple months, and Miyamoto is
apparently not the producer of MOTHER II, so I'm hoping he'll be starting a
new series for Nintendo soon. And anxiously waiting to play.
John Leo
l...@hpljdw.hpl.hp.com
Jim Omura
>of the Super NES. I guess there's still a lot of insecurity about the future
>of the Genesis now that the release date of Nintendo's machine is drawing
>near. However although I would be very surprised if the Super NES doesn't
>outsell the Genesis in a short time, I don't think the Genesis will die. It's
>reasonably well established with a good number of games out, and there still
>seems room enough in the game business for two home consoles, perhaps more.
>
>In Japan the Super Famicom came out last November, and I believe it has
>already outsold the Megadrive (Genesis, which came out a year or two earlier)
No sign of this in terms of end user sales. But it doesn't
matter that much. (See below)
>there. What's more the games are selling enormously well, competing with
>Gameboy games for the top spots, while only a couple Megadrive games appear on
>the top 30 charts, and not very high. Of course this is the US and the
>situation may be different. I'm not sure the Super NES will do quite so well
>here, but it still should do excellently. I'll say something about why later
As you say, this is North America. Let me give you a bit of
history: In Japan, the Beta system was so entrenched that VHS didn't
catch on for years after it had become popular in North America.
Laser Discs in Japan have *always* been popular whereas they are still
essentially dead in North America. This latter may change as CD's
continue to grow in North America and people are starting to rediscover
flat round things. :-) Adult animation (yay! :-) with complex characters
and plots, on a wide variety of subjects have been popular in Japan
for more than 10 years, with a substantial market for Original Video
Animation -- no such thing in North America. In North America, the
most commonly owned video machine is probably really the Atari 2600 --
yes, still. Does it matter? Not that much since most of them are
door stops.
My only "safe" prediction: 1990 will not be a happy year for
Nintendo in North America. As I said before, for this year, they have
all the wrong products, at all the wrong prices. Oops. I mean that's
my prediction for 1991. They will not meet their projected sales
figures. As for 1992, who know?
>Why did the Genesis do well here, and why did the TG-16 (PC Engine in Japan)
>fail? Especially since the PC Engine does much better than the Megadrive in
>Japan (although that too may be lessening)? Well, let me give in hindsight a
>few naive reasons. The PC Engine came out earlier in Japan than the
>Megadrive, it had and has a much larger base of games, and was aimed more at a
>Japanese audience. None of these advantages transferred to the US. The
>machines came out at about the same time, and the TG-16 fell behind in games.
>Sega made a brilliant decision to make the Megadrive and Genesis cartridges
>compatible, allowing them to bring out games here very quickly after release
>in Japan and build up a large base. NEC, on the other hand, not only
>redesigned the PC Engine into an extremely ugly box, but made cartridges
>incompatible. On top of that since many of their games were designed for a
>Japanese audience they had to be modified for release here, or simply not
>released at all. Sega and it's third-party companies on the other hand
>concentrated on games that would appeal more to Americans.
Actually, I'll disagree with most of what you've said. The
MegaDrive cartridges are not significantly more compatible than
the NEC cartridges. Ask David Shadoff about NEC game adapters.
I think Kitts in Toronto sells them among other places. As for
games, there were many NEC games that were not brought over that
could have been -- no cultural problems and reasonably minor translations
were possible. Nor do I feel that the Turbografx-16 box is "ugly".
Though I would not say that it seemed to have any advantage over
the Japanese packaging. All in all, the problem with NEC was
more a matter of lack of corporate confidence in the product, or
lack of knowledge of how much money to spend on the project and how
to spend it (a lot of which is advertising, but not just advertising).
>There are other reasons too, I'm sure. Sega seems to have found a niche among
>mainly high school and college boys disenchanted with Nintendo. But I don't
>give such marketing reasons very high priority. Sega did well primarily
>because they were able to bring out a lot of games, and among them a few quite
>good games, whereas the TG-16 was less successful in that regard.
>
>Now comes the Super NES. This machine is going to succeed here, just as it
>did in Japan, because there are a lot of great games for it. Even at the
>beginning there will be Super Mario World, F-ZERO, Sim City, Final Fight,
>Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Super R-TYPE, Gambare Goemon (not sure what the US
>name will be), UN Squadron, Final Fantasy IV (II in the US) etc., to be
>followed by Dragon Warrior V, New Legend of Zelda, Magic Sword, Earthbound II
>and many others. This lineup alone, in my opinion, is much stronger than the
>better games available for either the Genesis or TG-16. Furthermore this is
>just the beginning! So I don't see the Super NES having any problems here.
Well, that's a problem. You see, from the messages I've read,
the only people who seem to be all that impressed with these games
are you -- personally, and the magazine writers. Your taste seems
to coincide with the SNES product line. That's not a matter of right
or wrong. Looking at the Ng game rating votes brings this out. While
there are a number of games that tend to show a narrow cluster of votes
there's also a fairly common tendency for many games to have votes
all over the place. Some even have 2 peaks in the votes, one high
and one low. Nor does it mean that the Net community is a great
indicator of the future of these machines. I have a feeling that the
people who write the messages on Usenet and vote for the game ratings
are probably unusual people generally. Most of us have at least
*some* technical background (even the students are mainly sciences)
and are generally well informed.
So when I read this, your opinion is clearly in the minority, but
that's within a group of opinions that are also a minority.
Inconclusive. . . . :-)
>Ironically, perhaps, the machine to suffer is going to be the NES. It held up
>well against the 16 bit machines thanks to a lot of good games (unfortunatly
>amongst a lot of trash, but the Genesis and TG-16 are quickly catching up in
>that category too), but the Super NES will be the death blow. A few companies
>are still coming out with promising titles for it (such as Capcom with Mega
>Man IV and Gargoyle's Quest II), but more telling is the withdrawal of
>support, such as Square's announcement that it was cancelling Final Fantasy IV
>for the Famicom, and also that it won't bring out FF2 and 3 in the US, as well
>as Nintendo cancelling the NES Sim City. Nintendo and its best third-party
>companies are shifting their emphasis to the Super NES and Gameboy, and the
>last great titles to come out for the NES may be games already done in Japan
>such as Earthbound and Dragon Warrior III.
Maybe 1 more prediction (which I've also made before): Support
for the Gameboy will have "peaked" this year. IE, next year there will
be less and it'll dwindle rapidly. The Lynx is already selling for *less*
than the original price of the Gameboy. And now with the HP-95LX, the
adult market has a *much* better portable toy. :-)
>So the Super NES will be the continuation of the NES tradition. Those fans of
>Nintendo will probably get the Super NES eventually, and those non-fans will
>go for the Genesis most likely. Both machines should have their audience.
Teh Kao Yang
>In article <1991Jul16.0...@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> glo...@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Eric Glover) writes:
>>The Big N is going to buy it, almost as bad as Turbo when they even TRY
>>to bring a hefty 200 dollar system into a saturated 16 bit market.
True, true, but only if the Big N is targeting the 16-bit market, which I
don't think they are.... read on....
>Ah, but remember the N-word still carries a lot of weight with those
>people who haven't been annoyed by Nintendo's policies--mostly crazed
>ten year olds.
I don't think 10-year olds are THAT crazed to spend $200 of their allowance
or whatever on a new system they know little about just because of the big
"N" word. Give kids these days some credit.
> You have to realize that for millions of people
>NINTENDO = GAME SYSTEM. Period. Either they've never heard of any
>other system or they just think of them as Nintendo clones, etc. I've
>even heard several SMS owners & their parents refer to their systems as
>"Nintendos."
So what? These people who've never heard of any system but the Nintendo
probably never played a video game in their lives . Come on, do you
think its possible for a 10-year old who's into video game to not have
heard of the Genesis?!? I know that Sega doesn't advertise much, but
their marketing isn't THAT bad!!
>So when a "new Nintendo" comes out with lots better
>graphics & sound, people are gonna want one. Even if the games really
>stink, most people won't find this out until *after* they have plunked
>down their $200.
>
Uh-uh. I don't think so. As I said before, most kids know about the Genesis.
Why are their so many NES's and why does its number keep growing? For a
while it was the only system around. But even when the Genesis came out,
kids still bought Nintendos. Why? I've talked to several kids about this,
and they said that they prefer the NES's simpler graphics, simpler gameply.
They find the Genesis's graphics to be too confusing and complicated. None
of them mentioned anything about Mario or Zelda. So when the Super NES comes
out, it will appear to the kids as something like the Genesis... flashy, but
too hard to understand... and too expensive. They'll stick to the good ole'
8-bit NES. If Nintendo markets their Super NES in a way similar to the
Genesis... i.e. as a graphically and technically superior system, they'll
be in big trouble. And if they try to challenge Sega's 16-bit market,
they'll be in even bigger trouble. I think you all know why.
As I see it, either way, Nintendo will get screwed. What I think the big N
will do is stop supporting the NES to force people to buy the Super NES. I
think you all know what'll happen if they try THAT....
Still, I guess that there will be a lot of people buying Super NES's.
People with a lot of money and more mature and sophisticated gamers(i.e.
Genesis owners.) I even think that most people who will buy the Super NES
already own a Genesis... am I right? But no way will the Super NES be
as successful as the Nintendo executives are predicting.... What I think
Nintendo should have done is make the Super NES $150 or less... and make
it compatible with current NES carts....it was a really HUGE mistake to
not have done that....
As for the Super NES doing phenomenally well in Japan...well, heck, there
are much more video game freaks with much more money over there than here.
Most of the sales are also due to the inital hype. Let's see how well the
Super Famicom sells in the next few months....
Of course, I could be wrong about all this....
Nintendo did manage to sell some couple million Gameboys mostly due to
the name "Nintendo".
Arthur Joe Narvaez
some way either hard or soft wares) could really get into the home
console market. Nintendo is making a big gamble on its name, though it
probably is safe one. Atari has opted to develop the Jaguar in place of
the Panther.
Tom Westberg
hardware, even that of the NES.
In article <1991Jul15.1...@exurchn1.ericsson.se> exu...@s095.ericsson.se (James Hague) writes:
>Face it, the SNES is just another game system. While its nice little
>hardware extras will make game PROGRAMMING a bit simpler, they do
>nothing at all for making game DESIGN anything less than the difficult
>task that it is.
...
In other words, the hardware is superfluous. A sufficiently clever programmer
could implement a fun version of Hard Drivin' on an Atari 2600?
> Some games just don't need fancy graphics (Qix, Tetris).
Absolutely. (Although the 2600 would have a hard time doing a decent Qix.)
But some very fun games would have a distractingly bad implementation on even
current home game hardware.
>Some games could take advantage of hardware scaling/rotation, but it is
>not an absolute requirement.
As a counter-example, I submit the Namco/Atari coin-op game "Assault." It is
a tank game with a complex raster playfield which rotates underneath the player.
I don't know if the SNES could do it, but I doubt it. I'm quite certain that the
poor 8MHz 68K could not do it in a Genesis. This was a fun game, and one of its
differences from all of the other drive/shoot games was that hardware rotation.
Try it any other way and it isn't Assault.
>But still, everything comes down to game design.
A lot, but not everything. The cleverest programmer in the
world isn't going to implement some games if he/she doesn't have enough bandwidth
to the video system, or computer power to do the proper math. The alternative will
simply be a different game, which may still be very fun, but...
>
>(BTW, many of the great arcade "classics" use 8-bit processors and very
>little hardware graphics support, if any. Defender doesn't even have
>hardware sprites or scrolling--everything was done with the CPU.
>Robotron, Sinistar, and Blaster all use an 8-bit 6809. Just check out
>any of these if you want to see what can be done without fancy
>hardware.)
(Robotron, Sinistar, and Blaster all had an additional custom blit chip
which wrote to the bitmap. And as much as I still appreciate Robotron
as a video game, it would not survive in the market today. Compare "Smash TV"
to see what hardware can be thrown at the same game.)
James Hague
Yep, I didn't believe it either. Just head on over to Toys 'R Us.
They sell the much smaller "new" model 2600 for only $30. At least
they did in Dallas back in March...
James Hague
>Uh-uh. I don't think so. As I said before, most kids know about the Genesis.
>Why are their so many NES's and why does its number keep growing? For a
>while it was the only system around. But even when the Genesis came out,
>kids still bought Nintendos. Why? I've talked to several kids about this,
>and they said that they prefer the NES's simpler graphics, simpler gameply.
>They find the Genesis's graphics to be too confusing and complicated. None
>of them mentioned anything about Mario or Zelda. So when the Super NES comes
>out, it will appear to the kids as something like the Genesis... flashy, but
>too hard to understand... and too expensive. They'll stick to the good ole'
>8-bit NES. If Nintendo markets their Super NES in a way similar to the
>Genesis... i.e. as a graphically and technically superior system, they'll
>be in big trouble. And if they try to challenge Sega's 16-bit market,
>they'll be in even bigger trouble. I think you all know why.
Excellent points! The NES has a variety of fun & entertaining games,
and as a bonus is inexpensive. And it's the games that matter--not the
underlying technology. Nintendo is going to have a hard time
convinvcing anyone that the reverse it true...
Edcon Chang
are the people who convinced their parents to buy the NES. Their parents
are going to have a tough time justifying an additional $200:
1. in the current state of the economy. Economists are predicting a rebound
now, but I haven't seen any evidence that there's been a turnaround.
2. for a machine that cannot play NES games. While people can continue to
use their NES (1 in 3 homes) to play NES games, instead of the justifi-
cation that the SNES is an "upgrade" to enhance their previous purchase
it's now "You want ANOTHER game machine??"
3. $200 is just too expensive. Kids can't afford it and their parents aren't
willing to. At the very best, SNES will grab a good market share, but not
even CLOSE to what Nintendo of America has projected for 1991 - 1992.
BTW, most of the games for the Super Famicom (SNES) are dogs. I'd say more
than 60 percent are absolute garbage.
Lawrence Chiu
John Mazzocchi
l...@hpljdw.hpl.hp.com writes:
>It's nice to see many people posting about this, because everyone is pointing
>out different aspects of what is after all a very complex situation. Why was
>the NES popular? Why is the Genesis doing well? How will the SNES do? These
>are too tough to answer in a few thousand words, but with different viewpoints
>we can get an approximation.
Here in Australia, the retailers will only import games and machines that are
*guaranteed* to sell well. We have the Master System, we have the MegaDrive and
we have the Nintendo 8-bit. Nothing else. No PC-Engines, no Super NES (I asked
at a large retailer whether they would get any. Answer: Maybe, probably not.)
no TurboGrafx, no SuperGrafx, and I've seen Atari Lynxes at one shop - once -
and then never again. No one bought them, they sent them back. If this is any
indication, Nintendo will not do well in Aus this year or next.
--
+ John Mazzocchi + "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, +
+ Melbourne, Victoria + but a fire to be lighted" - Plutarch +
+ Australia +
+ rx...@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au +
Pete Ashdown
>BTW, most of the games for the Super Famicom (SNES) are dogs. I'd say more
>than 60 percent are absolute garbage.
Isn't this always the case when a new machine comes out? I picked up a Genesis
as soon as it hit the shelves but later sold it because the early games were
so lame. I wish I still had it now, because the games have become
significantly better. SNES has got better graphics and sound hardware than
the Genesis, this can't be denied. Isn't it only a matter of time before the
programmers get 'used' to it and start amazing us with great games?
--
"I wish I could make love to the sky and drink molten lava"
DISCLAIMER: My writings have NOTHING to do with my employer. Keep it that way.
Pete Ashdown pash...@javelin.sim.es.com ...uunet!javelin.sim.es.com!pashdown
Milton W. Kuo
>ed...@tsunami.Berkeley.EDU (Edcon Chang) writes:
>
>>BTW, most of the games for the Super Famicom (SNES) are dogs. I'd say more
>>than 60 percent are absolute garbage.
>
>Isn't this always the case when a new machine comes out? I picked up a Genesis
>as soon as it hit the shelves but later sold it because the early games were
>so lame. I wish I still had it now, because the games have become
>significantly better. SNES has got better graphics and sound hardware than
>the Genesis, this can't be denied. Isn't it only a matter of time before the
>programmers get 'used' to it and start amazing us with great games?
I don't think this is true. I used to own an NES and my friend had a
Sega Master System. During that time, I saw the Sega Master System get
destroyed. A while later, the Sega Genesis came out. I scoffed at the
machine thinking it would be nothing more than a Sega Master System with
better graphics. Well, my friend bought one and I tried it. I loved it.
It was SUBSTANTIALLY better than ANYTHING on the market at the time. The
game play was better and the graphics were just unbelievable. After play-
ing the Genesis just once (I only played Space Harrier II and Alter Beast)
I knew I had to get one for myself. Despite the fact that the early Gene-
sis games weren't fantastic by today's standards, they were incredible for
when they first came out.
This is not the case with the Super Famicom. I've seen a good por-
tion of the games for Super Famicom and none of them blow me away like
Ghouls 'n' Ghosts for the Genesis first blew me away. If the Super Fami-
com sells, it'll be because of the Nintendo name alone. The Genesis won
me over with excellent games -- I used to hate Sega. If Nintendo intends
to succeed according to their projections (Which I don't think they will.
The Super NES will sell well but I don't think 2 million units by the end
of this year), they'd better pray that the programmers "get used" to the
hardware sometime really soon.
[part of signature deleted]
>Pete Ashdown pash...@javelin.sim.es.com ...uunet!javelin.sim.es.com!pashdown
Milton W. Kuo
mil...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
Jim Omura
>out different aspects of what is after all a very complex situation. Why was
>the NES popular? Why is the Genesis doing well? How will the SNES do? These
>are too tough to answer in a few thousand words, but with different viewpoints
>we can get an approximation.
>
>To continue something a couple people brought up, I agree a large part of the
>success of the NES was due to a few truly great games. Namely the Super Mario
>series and Zelda series, which interestingly enough were produced by the same
>man, Shigeru Miyamoto, who in my opinion is by far the most brilliant game
>designer around. He's very famous in Japan, and even outside; Paul McCartney
>is a big fan and invited him to a concert. I'm also a huge fan, and his works
>(MOTHER (Earthbound) is another) are primarily what got and keeps me so
>interested in video games. I could go on for quite a while about how
>revolutionary his games are, and how filled they are with great ideas.
Maybe. But I have to question how "revolutionary" his games
are. The first hit that Nintendo had, as far as I can recall was a
game called "Donkey Kong". The play action for "Donkey Kong" was
substantially inspired by a number of well known existing computer
games. I remember one with "Killer Tomatoes" that actually started
out on the Apple II with apples chasing a fellow who dug holes to
trap them and jumped on them. Also, there was Miner 2049'er. The
"cute character" idea was artistically a common short chubby type
similar to ones that have been in Japanese magazines for years.
The only thing relatively unique about the original Mario was that
he was based on an Italian ethnic type rather than an Anglo or
Japanese. But the general style, well, King's Quest had a short
bumpkin hero. . . . And of course, "Donkey Kong" overall was thematically
a rip off of one of the most popular Sci-Fi flicks in movie history.
I think it was called "King Kong" wasn't it?
Was "Donkey Kong" highly original? Well, it was about as
original as most of the better games of its day. As for the
success of Nintendo, overall, I'm afraid there's a lot that simply
can't be said unless it goes to court. The accusations are vague
and I want to see them ajudicated so we have a chance to find out
what really happened regarding some of them.
>Miyamoto is mainly a producer now; he was in charge of Super Mario World, will
>be doing New Legend of Zelda, and also worked on the Nintendo version of Sim
>City, earning praise from the original designer. There are a lot of other
>really talented designers, composers, programmers and so forth at Nintendo,
>and their games are almost always excellent or better, in my opinion.
Well yeah, like I said, it's been quite noticeable that this
is commonly your opinion. :-)
>So I really do believe that the most significant factor of Nintendo's success
I don't doubt your sincerety.
>was their own games. And if you look at the best-sellers you'll see most of
>them were in fact made by Nintendo itself. This is the biggest problem for
>other companies competing with Nintendo. No matter what third-party companies
>do, Nintendo is never going to release a game for a system they don't make.
>It's the software the sells the hardware, and as long as Nintendo keeps making
>great games they're going to have no problem selling their machines.
>
>Of course things are more complicated than that. I'd like to believe Nintendo
>could have done so well if they didn't allow people to write games for the NES
>at all and did it all themselves. But I think number of games available and
>variety are also very important. In Japan Enix, Square, and other companies
>have been very influencial; in the US Konami is probably the next most
>popular.
>
>But this is still a problem for Sega, NEC, and Atari, as almost all of the
>best third-party companies are also loyal to Nintendo. I can only think of a
Well "loyal" is a strange word to use in this respect. I
wonder if you mean by this that they *like* Nintendo as a company?
Is that what you're saying? I'm not criticizing the comment. It
just surprises me. Do you really think that?
>few exceptions, for example Capcom made "Ghouls 'n Ghosts" and "Strider" for
>the Genesis and NEC SuperGrafx; Irem did "R-TYPE" and "Ninja Spirit" for the
>TG-16; Tecmo did a couple games for the Lynx. With Nintendo and the best
>third-party companies writing for Nintendo's machines, the other companies
>have resorted to copying; the most outrageous example is probably Hudson's
>"Neutopia," which they didn't even both to disguise from Zelda. Recently Sega
>and SNK have announced clones of Capcom's great "Final Fight" for their
>machines that show similar absence of imagination. It's particularly telling
>that the games now to be packaged with the TG-16 and Genesis, the games trying
>to sell the machines, are rip-offs of Super Mario itself. If NEC and Sega are
>trying to distinguish themselves from Nintendo then they are going in the
>wrong direction.
The history of game design is an interesting one as seen from
the eyes of a "true believer". Nintendo did some really good work and
was about as original as anybody else, but no more so. In terms of
originality, maybe you should look at some of the works or some other
companies in the videogame and computer game market for a while. The
name Williams has always looked good on a box. But then that's *my*
opinion. :-)
>Sega, NEC and the others are still searching for a hit game. As I mentioned
>in a previous posting the best selling TG-16 game in Japan is R-TYPE
>(deservedly so), and best for the Genesis there is Super Monaco GP. But
>neither of these has sold particularly well. Capcom's Genesis games (mainly
>GnG) seem to have done fairly well and in fact they're the main reason I
>bought that machine. Now Sega is pushing Sonic as their hit game; we'll see
>how that goes.
>
>Meanwhile New Legend of Zelda is due out in a couple months, and Miyamoto is
>apparently not the producer of MOTHER II, so I'm hoping he'll be starting a
>new series for Nintendo soon. And anxiously waiting to play.
Robert Jung
>game systems is beyond me. Maybe you could be a fan of a particular
>game designer or group of designers, but a multi-billion dollar
>corporation like Nintendo?
My guess is that it's at least partially psychological. After sinking
God-knows-how-much money into your particular game/computer system, you are
less willing to say bad things about the firm. This is because (a) you've
had a good time with Company X's product [how often do you criticize a
friend who plays with you, for a rough analogy], and (b) to say that
Company X is not "the best" implies that your system is somehow flawed.
> Genesis owners say the Game Gear is
>better. NES owners say the Game Boy is better. Atari computer owners
>like the Lynx. This is all very silly...
Yep. I thought the Atari 5200 and 7800 were clunkers, myself (okay, the
7800 had those cool joysticks, but that was it).
--R.J.
B-)
//////////////////////////////////////|\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Send whatevers to jj...@nunki.usc.edu | If it has pixels, I'm for it.
--------------------------------------+----------------------------Lynx me up!
"If it moves, shoot it. If it doesn't move, shoot it anyway."
Robert Jung
>In article <1991Jul16.1...@verdix.com> dr...@verdix.com (Drew Johnson) writes:
>>On a side note, does anybody know if there will be a version of Smash TV
>>done for any of the systems around?
>
>Ugh. Hopefully not. Two major problems: buttons instead of
>joysticks, and you need two controllers.
Reportedly, the Nintendo version of SMASH TV requires you to use two
controllers to play. If you have the Nintendo 4-player hardware box, you
can play SMASH TV with two players (two controllers per player).
No word on how it feels this way...
call me anything but late for dinner
>So I really do believe that the most significant factor of Nintendo's success
>was their own games.
Some of the other significant factors of Nintendo's success were the early
absence of any real competition, good marketing, and monopolistic predatory
market practices. Once Nintendo established the majority market share,
momentum (fueled by the largest software base) and monopolistic practices
(to maintain the largest software base) carried them.
> It's particularly telling
>that the games now to be packaged with the TG-16 and Genesis, the games trying
>to sell the machines, are rip-offs of Super Mario itself.
Thankfully, Nintendo would never rip-off a game, just the consumer.
I wouldn't write the SNES off just yet. Despite Nintendo's scummy
businesses practices, they posses the marketing skill to sell condoms to a
Nun.
BS
--
/ "It's a jelly" - Bob McKenzie \
| Internet: sa...@paul.rutgers.edu uucp: ..!rutgers!paul!samit |
| snail: Cryptologics 428 Wall St Princeton, NJ 08540 |
| These opinions are solely mine and in no way reflect those of my employer. |
James Hague
>BTW, most of the games for the Super Famicom (SNES) are dogs. I'd say more
>than 60 percent are absolute garbage.
As has already been mentioned, it only takes ONE or TWO great games to
really make a system. It's trite, but quality is more important than
quantity. The number of available games is a meaningless statistic...
Milton W. Kuo
Not wanting to put words into anyone's mouth, but, I suspect that
60% of SF stuff is absolute garbage while the remaining 40% is just bet-
ter garbage :-) Whatever the case, I'll get a chance soon to play some
of the newer SF games and I can see if that's true. Out of all of the
stuff I've played so far, none of it has been impressive. And I haven't
even played the "real stinkers" yet! :-) Of course, I haven't played
Super Mario World either. I'll get my chance soon -- can't wait to see
if it's any good.
Milton W. Kuo
mil...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
Ed Goldman
>The really big loser in this race will be Atari, if they try to bring the
>Panther to market. At least NEC made some quick $$ by being the first out
>in Japan -- the Panther will have a tough time making a dent anywhere.
>
>Drew Johnson
>dr...@verdix.com
I read this in a fairly high-quality UK games Mag (_The One_, I think): The
head Atari UK rep confirmed rumours that work on the Panther is scrapped.
Another project, called Jaguar - a 64 bit console, will be the focus of their
full development effort. He said further Panther development would just delay
the Jaguar. He was mum on any further info on the Jaguar other than to
mention a vague 92 release date.
Believe it... or not. I'm just reporting what I read.
-edg-
James Hague
> Maybe. But I have to question how "revolutionary" his games
>are. The first hit that Nintendo had, as far as I can recall was a
>game called "Donkey Kong". The play action for "Donkey Kong" was
>substantially inspired by a number of well known existing computer
>games. I remember one with "Killer Tomatoes" that actually started
>out on the Apple II with apples chasing a fellow who dug holes to
>trap them and jumped on them. Also, there was Miner 2049'er. The
>"cute character" idea was artistically a common short chubby type
>similar to ones that have been in Japanese magazines for years.
>The only thing relatively unique about the original Mario was that
>he was based on an Italian ethnic type rather than an Anglo or
>Japanese. But the general style, well, King's Quest had a short
>bumpkin hero. . . . And of course, "Donkey Kong" overall was thematically
>a rip off of one of the most popular Sci-Fi flicks in movie history.
>I think it was called "King Kong" wasn't it?
While there may been a computer game that inspired Donkey Kong, for the
most part the opposite was true. Donkey Kong hit the arcades in 1981.
Miner 2049er wasn't released until '82. Just as Pac-Man fueled the
"maze game" craze, Donkey Kong was followed by a rush of "climbing
games" for the home computers of the day. In addition to Miner, I
remember Cannonball Blitz, Canyon Climber, Jumpman, and Jumpman Jr.
King's Quest was a later game. There were also a bunch of coin-op
climbing games as well, Kangaroo & Congo Bongo to name a few.
There was at least one climbing game which pre-dated Donkey Kong. It
was a Universal coin-op entitled Space Panic. The screen layout sort
of resembled Mr. Do's Castle (a later Universal game) and was also the
first "digging" game. The game was fairly difficult to control and
didn't do too well in the arcades. Space Panic was later released for
the Apple II under the name "Apple Panic" and later for the
ColecoVision with the original name. The gameplay sounds a lot like
the "Killer Tomatoes" game you mentioned: dig holes to trap creatures
then hit them with a shovel to finish them off. IMO, this is
substantially different from Donkey Kong.
No flames intended. Just a little trivia :-)
Atul Rohatgi
I think that the SNES is not going to be that big of hit here in
the U.S. Since the SNES wil only appeal to the younger generation,
parent's won't want to fork over 200 bucks for a system. They'd rather
buy hima TG-16($99) or a Genesis($149). I've owned both the
Genesis (returned it, didn't appeal to me) and TG-16(now own) and I
really don't see how the games for SNES can get any better. (who
knows how much the games might cost.) I think the TG-16 will outlive
the demise of the SNES. I doubt many people held off buying a
TG-16 or Genesis for two years so they could own a SNES.
SNES, which will probably come with Pilotwings, won't sell as well
if it came with a Mario game. How is an 8 or 9 year old going to be
able to comprehend some of their new games.
I personally think that the SNES won't do as well as the TG-16,
and the Turbografx will hang around. Parents aren't that stupid to
buy such an expensive game system. They could buy two TG-16 for the
price of one SNES.
Andrew Bates
>are. The first hit that Nintendo had, as far as I can recall was a
>game called "Donkey Kong". The play action for "Donkey Kong" was
>substantially inspired by a number of well known existing computer
>games. I remember one with "Killer Tomatoes" that actually started
>out on the Apple II with apples chasing a fellow who dug holes to
>trap them and jumped on them. Also, there was Miner 2049'er. The
>"cute character" idea was artistically a common short chubby type
>similar to ones that have been in Japanese magazines for years.
>The only thing relatively unique about the original Mario was that
>he was based on an Italian ethnic type rather than an Anglo or
>Japanese. But the general style, well, King's Quest had a short
>bumpkin hero. . . . And of course, "Donkey Kong" overall was thematically
>a rip off of one of the most popular Sci-Fi flicks in movie history.
>I think it was called "King Kong" wasn't it?
>
> Was "Donkey Kong" highly original? Well, it was about as
Now, I have a problem with most of your comments on the original "Donkey
Kong" arcade game. For one thing, you refer to two other games that were on
the Apple ][ that were very similar to "Donkey Kong". The first was "Apple
Panic" (not "Killer Tomatoes"), where a guy runs around and digs holes to
trap aliens. Now for one thing, the play action wasn't THAT similar to DK,
other than the fact that you have a little guy running around. And for another,
"Apple Panic" was itself based on the arcade game "Space Panic". So it wasn't
original in itself. And then there's Miner 2049'er. Actually, the play of
Miner 2049'er was almost identical to DK, except...it came out after DK did.
(I wonder if people 20 years from now will say, "Look at that! That Super
Mario Bros. game was a total ripoff of Bonk's Adventure!" :) ). But anyway, I
thought it was painfully obvious that Miner 2049'er was based on DK, not the
other way around. I know of very few arcade games that were based on computer
games, but many the other way around (anyone remember Taxman? Dung Beetles?).
And I don't think the King's Quest reference has any correlation, especially
since it came out after DK.
Why was Donkey Kong a ripoff of King Kong? The only similarities were the
ape and the damsel in distress. No Italian hero, no barrels, no fireballs, no
magic hammer, no elevators...hardly a ripoff, I think. Not like Batman or
something like that. This was completely original.
If you still doubt the earthshaking originality of Donkey Kong, try to
count in your head the number of games you know that use a JUMP button. When
you reach 200, remember that Donkey Kong was the first game to ever have a
JUMP control. Probably the greatest video game advancement since the joystick!
The defense rests.
Andy Bates.
l...@hpljdw.hpl.hp.com
>>[My comment about how revolutionary Shigeru Miyamoto's game are.]
>Maybe. But I have to question how "revolutionary" his games
>are. The first hit that Nintendo had, as far as I can recall was a
>game called "Donkey Kong".
Miyamoto was the character designer for Donkey Kong; that's how he started in
the game business. I suggest you check out the works he designed, such as the
Super Mario series (especially 3 and 4), the Zelda series, and MOTHER, all of
which you seem completely unfamiliar with. Otherwise I'll be happy to go on
at length about his contributions to game design.
As for other companies, I'm quite familiar with their video games. I enjoyed
Defender way back when, but played again a while ago and wondered what I was
excited about. I'm not interested in any of Williams' more recent games.
Different people have different tastes, of course. I am however extremely
fond of Capcom, who has been doing some excellent, original work lately.
John Leo
l...@hpljdw.hpl.hp.com
Wade Williams
>Another project, called Jaguar - a 64 bit console, will be the focus of their
>full development effort. He said further Panther development would just delay
>the Jaguar. He was mum on any further info on the Jaguar other than to
>mention a vague 92 release date.
>
>Believe it... or not. I'm just reporting what I read.
>
>-edg-
64 Bit!!!!! That's probably 32 bit. I have no idea what processor they
would choose if they went to 64 bit; an in-house design? Released in 92?
I seriously doubt it have a 64 bit CPU.
Later,
Wade
Six o'clock News
>> Midnight Resistance - I've played this one as a MD cart, and I was
>> not impressed. This one sure didn't look like an 8
>> meg cart! Just another Contra rip-off, and not a
>> good one at that! (Poor graphics & sound plus no
>> two player option!) Wait for this one to go on sale!
>
>Hey this game is not that bad! I agree that the graphics are rather poor,
>but the sound in my opinion is one of the best of any game!! IT probably
>has the best sounding music of any game, even better than Sword of
>Vermillion! I think the game is really fun to play, even if it is only
>one player. You have really awesome weapons and the bosses are huge. I
>think it's worth the money.
From: hl...@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Han J. Lee)
Path: cory.Berkeley.EDU!hlee
Teh's absolutely right about the sound folks! Midnight Resistance really
has very high quality music; it is one of the best in fact, if not the
best. It utilizes full use of Genesis' PCM generator and the result is
near CD-quality.
The graphics stink though...
All in all, Midnight Resistance is a pretty fun game.
___
Han J. Lee /| /|| |/\
hl...@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Internet) / |/ || |>-|
/_____||_|_/
Jim Omura
Right, it was "Apple Panic" I was thinking about. The point is
that "Apple Panic" was what we call a platform game where characters
run around on levels, like the floors of a house. Actually, I
don't think you're right about the order of "Space Panic" preceding
"Apple Panic". At least I never saw the arcade game until well
after the computer game was very common. But it doesn't matter.
What's relevant is that it did precede "Donkey Kong". As a side
note, there was a clone of "Apple Panic", possibly on another computer,
which was based on the idea of "Killer Tomatoes", though I'm not sure
what the title was, but I remember that it was a fairly pure clone.
>original in itself. And then there's Miner 2049'er. Actually, the play of
>Miner 2049'er was almost identical to DK, except...it came out after DK did.
I expect you're right about the fact that Miner 2049'er was later
than Donkey Kong. It's just another example of the games that came
out in that period. How many came out before Donkey Kong and how
many came out shortly after? I don't know offhand. It'd be interesting
to find out.
You will of course note that the 1st major follow-up hit to "Donkey
Kong" that Nintendo came out with in North America was *not* Mario Bros.,
but rather "Donkey Kong Jr." I think this may show that Nintendo
themselves believed that one of the most important features of "Donkey
Kong" was the tie-in with "King Kong". The public certainly
seemed to like "Donkey Kong Jr." without any sign of a Mario or his
brother.
>(I wonder if people 20 years from now will say, "Look at that! That Super
>Mario Bros. game was a total ripoff of Bonk's Adventure!" :) ). But anyway, I
>thought it was painfully obvious that Miner 2049'er was based on DK, not the
>other way around. I know of very few arcade games that were based on computer
>games, but many the other way around (anyone remember Taxman? Dung Beetles?).
Try "Chopper Lift" and the various Olympics style games. Actually
ideas have been flowing back and forth quite a bit. You know, the first
video game was "Space Wars" and they took the controls and used them in
Astroids later. Not the other way around.
>And I don't think the King's Quest reference has any correlation, especially
>since it came out after DK.
I'll take your word on that one too. Again, it's not important
because if you read my message again, you'll see that I only used it
as an example of the squashed cute little character design. Anybody
who has followed Japanese magazines, particularly aimed at kids, will
tell you that the style is "traditional" and goes back a *long* time.
Ask in the 'rec.arts.anime' area for a "manga" called "Tetsuan Atom"
which was eventually made into a TV show which in turn was brought
out in North America as "Astro Boy". Ask older Japanese people if
they saw short cute men and women drawn in their popular magazines
when they were young.
> Why was Donkey Kong a ripoff of King Kong? The only similarities were the
>ape and the damsel in distress. No Italian hero, no barrels, no fireballs, no
>magic hammer, no elevators...hardly a ripoff, I think. Not like Batman or
>something like that. This was completely original.
Except it was a platform game and they obviously wanted the tie-in
with "King Kong." That's what I said. It's "reasonably original".
But certainly not "completely original".
> If you still doubt the earthshaking originality of Donkey Kong, try to
>count in your head the number of games you know that use a JUMP button. When
>you reach 200, remember that Donkey Kong was the first game to ever have a
>JUMP control. Probably the greatest video game advancement since the joystick!
>
By g*d, you should count the video games that use background music!
When you get over 200 you can remember that Donkey Kong was NOT the first
game to have it. Probably the greatest video game advancement since
*before* the joystick! I'd say there was more to Donkey Kong than just
the "jump" button. It seems to me that you want to believe that Nintendo
is great, so you'll just focus on whatever argument will back that
conclusion. As for the things that were "important", again, Nintendo
themselves certainly seemed to think the "King Kong" tie-in was part
of what was important.
Gregory James Legowski
>Kong" that Nintendo came out with in North America was *not* Mario Bros.,
>but rather "Donkey Kong Jr." I think this may show that Nintendo
>themselves believed that one of the most important features of "Donkey
>Kong" was the tie-in with "King Kong". The public certainly
>seemed to like "Donkey Kong Jr." without any sign of a Mario or his
>brother.
w/ Donkey Kong in it? (Only time I've ever seen Mario as a "badguy" in
a game). Donkey Kong 3, the one w/ the bugs, was the one with no trace
of Mario at all...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Greg Legowski gl...@andrew.cmu.edu
Disclaimer: All rights wronged; all wrongs reversed.
Andrew Bates
>In article <14...@ptolemy-ri.arc.nasa.gov> ba...@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov (Andrew Bates) writes:
>>In article <1991Jul18.2...@lsuc.on.ca> jimo...@lsuc.on.ca (Jim Omura) writes:
>>>
>>>bumpkin hero. . . . And of course, "Donkey Kong" overall was thematically
>>>a rip off of one of the most popular Sci-Fi flicks in movie history.
>>>I think it was called "King Kong" wasn't it?
>>>
>>> Was "Donkey Kong" highly original? Well, it was about as
>>>original as most of the better games of its day...
>>
>> Now, I have a problem with most of your comments on the original "Donkey
>>Kong" arcade game. For one thing, you refer to two other games that were on
>>the Apple ][ that were very similar to "Donkey Kong". The first was "Apple
>>Panic" (not "Killer Tomatoes"), where a guy runs around and digs holes to
>
> Right, it was "Apple Panic" I was thinking about. The point is
>that "Apple Panic" was what we call a platform game where characters
>run around on levels, like the floors of a house. Actually, I
>don't think you're right about the order of "Space Panic" preceding
>"Apple Panic". At least I never saw the arcade game until well
>after the computer game was very common. But it doesn't matter.
>
Has that been established? Okay, I'll grant you the benefit of the doubt.
But as someone else mentioned, Space Panic never really caught on. And I
believe that the gameplay of Donkey Kong was substantially different to
qualify it as an original game. If you want to pick nits, there's nothing
TOTALLY original out there. But DK was one of the MOST original.
>>original in itself. And then there's Miner 2049'er. Actually, the play of
>>Miner 2049'er was almost identical to DK, except...it came out after DK did.
>
> I expect you're right about the fact that Miner 2049'er was later
>than Donkey Kong. It's just another example of the games that came
>out in that period. How many came out before Donkey Kong and how
>many came out shortly after? I don't know offhand. It'd be interesting
>to find out.
Again, someone else mentioned many many many "jumping" games that came out
around that time. But I believe that they were all a result of DK, not just
coincidental similarities. I don't believe that anyone would dispute the
fact that Pac-Man was the first of the wave of "munching" games that followed,
and I believe that DK was just as influential.
> You will of course note that the 1st major follow-up hit to "Donkey
>Kong" that Nintendo came out with in North America was *not* Mario Bros.,
>but rather "Donkey Kong Jr." I think this may show that Nintendo
>themselves believed that one of the most important features of "Donkey
>Kong" was the tie-in with "King Kong". The public certainly
>seemed to like "Donkey Kong Jr." without any sign of a Mario or his
>brother.
Good point. DK Jr. emphasized Donkey Kong, not Mario. However, I
think this implieds that Nintendo wanted a tie-in with Donkey Kong, not King
Kong. The Mario emphasis came later. Donkey Kong was successful, so
Nintendo wanted a followup that would be similar. But this discussion is about
Donkey Kong, so I'll get back to the point. My point is, I don't think
Nintendo ever intended a big tie-in with King Kong to draw people's attention
to the game. I think that whole concept is a little shaky. Do you actually
think anybody walked by the game and said, "Wow! That guy in the game looks
just like King Kong! Boy I loved that movie! Let's play the game!"
Doubtful.
>>(I wonder if people 20 years from now will say, "Look at that! That Super
>>Mario Bros. game was a total ripoff of Bonk's Adventure!" :) ). But anyway, I
>>thought it was painfully obvious that Miner 2049'er was based on DK, not the
>>other way around. I know of very few arcade games that were based on computer
>>games, but many the other way around (anyone remember Taxman? Dung Beetles?).
>
> Try "Chopper Lift" and the various Olympics style games. Actually
>ideas have been flowing back and forth quite a bit. You know, the first
>video game was "Space Wars" and they took the controls and used them in
>Astroids later. Not the other way around.
Point taken. I still believe DK was first.
>>And I don't think the King's Quest reference has any correlation, especially
>>since it came out after DK.
>
> I'll take your word on that one too. Again, it's not important
>because if you read my message again, you'll see that I only used it
>as an example of the squashed cute little character design. Anybody
>who has followed Japanese magazines, particularly aimed at kids, will
>tell you that the style is "traditional" and goes back a *long* time.
>Ask in the 'rec.arts.anime' area for a "manga" called "Tetsuan Atom"
>which was eventually made into a TV show which in turn was brought
>out in North America as "Astro Boy". Ask older Japanese people if
>they saw short cute men and women drawn in their popular magazines
>when they were young.
So what's your point? The character style wasn't really used in VIDEO
GAMES before that. And that really has nothing to do with the originality
of the gameplay, which is the game's strong point.
>> Why was Donkey Kong a ripoff of King Kong? The only similarities were the
>>ape and the damsel in distress. No Italian hero, no barrels, no fireballs, no
>>magic hammer, no elevators...hardly a ripoff, I think. Not like Batman or
>>something like that. This was completely original.
>
> Except it was a platform game and they obviously wanted the tie-in
>with "King Kong." That's what I said. It's "reasonably original".
>But certainly not "completely original".
It depends on your definition of "completely original." If it requires
that the game have a completely new layout, controls that have never been used
before, and no possible correlation to anything that anyone has ever seen
before, then I challenge you to find a single game that has EVER been
"completely original", except for maybe Space War. DK was the first game
that used the platform setup WELL, it had original controls (the first
JUMP button), and enjoyable gameplay.
>> If you still doubt the earthshaking originality of Donkey Kong, try to
>>count in your head the number of games you know that use a JUMP button. When
>>you reach 200, remember that Donkey Kong was the first game to ever have a
>>JUMP control. Probably the greatest video game advancement since the joystick!
>>
> By g*d, you should count the video games that use background music!
>When you get over 200 you can remember that Donkey Kong was NOT the first
>game to have it. Probably the greatest video game advancement since
>*before* the joystick! I'd say there was more to Donkey Kong than just
>the "jump" button.
Are you arguing against Donkey Kong or for Donkey Kong? I think that
there was more to Donkey Kong than just the "jump" button too. That's the
point I've been trying to make! But the "jump" button was a totally
unique gameplay concept. You see, you could take away background music from
any game, and the game would still be essentially the same. But take away
the jump button, and hundreds, if not thousands of games would be totally
different. Background music does add to the game, granted, but the controls
define the gameplay.
>It seems to me that you want to believe that Nintendo
>is great, so you'll just focus on whatever argument will back that
>conclusion.
You couldn't be more wrong. I don't own a NES. I probably never will. I
don't think Nintendo is great. I don't like the Gameboy. Don't assume that
I'm only defending Donkey Kong because I love Nintendo. I'm defending Donkey
Kong because I think it is a great game. I'm not mindlessly supporting
Nintendo. Go back over my arguments and you'll see that I have support
for all my points.
I think you're underrating Donkey Kong. Look at all the big successful
games right now: Super Mario Bros., Sonic, Bonk...all have "jump" as a primary
control. These games are BASED on the "jump" button, not the graphics, not
the background music. And even in the arcades, hundreds of games have "jump"
as a secondary or primary control. And Donkey Kong started it all. "Jump"
may not seem like a big deal now, since it's been around for so long, but it
took an original mind to come up with a game that did not rely on shooting.
That's why Donkey Kong was so original.
Andy Bates.
James Hague
Andy's right. Whether you love Nintendo or hate Nintendo, you've gotta
admit that at least they've designed some original games. Now I'm sure
someone will bring up lots of Nintendo games which are NOT very
original, and I realize that Nintendo seems to have fallen into the
"endless sequels" trap; but DESIGNING good games is HARD, and
considering this Nintendo has a pretty good track record.
Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Mario Bros., and Super Mario Bros. are
all very well designed games (I really loved the original non-scrolling
Mario Bros.). No, I'm not a Nintendo fanatic, but I've done some game
design in the past and I know that it is a lot of work and I can
appreciate good design when I see it.
Believe me, it is much easier to cook up a variation on some scrolling
outer space shoot-em-up than to develop an entirely new concept. I'm
not saying that every game needs to be 100% completely different from
everything else in existence--that's impossible. But when you sit down
and look at all the video games ever written, only a very small
percentage even smack of any sort of originality.
The following is a partial list of games which I consider to have been
particularly original and at least somewhat revolutionary (try to
remember the state of the industry when each was released). Most of
these are coin-op games, but that's where most of the innovation has
taken place. In random order:
Night Driver
Breakout
Missile Command
Pac-Man
Space Invaders
Asteroids
Donkey Kong
Frogger
Dig Dug
Venture
I, Robot
Battlezone
Space Panic
Robotron
Tetris
Defender
Super Mario Bros.
Dragon's Lair
Q-Bert
Quantum
Qix
Front Line
Scramble
Centipede
Marble Madness
Crazy Climber
Star Raiders
Tempest
I am NOT saying that games not on this list are not fun or playable,
and I am also not saying that games not on this list did not make any
contributions to video gaming. And of course, THIS IS ALL IMO. Any
criticsm, comments, and/or additions are welcome, but try to keep the
unabashed flames to a minimum. :-)
--
James Hague
exu...@exurchn1.ericsson.se
Bryan Parker
|> > You will of course note that the 1st major follow-up hit to "Donkey
|> >Kong" that Nintendo came out with in North America was *not* Mario Bros.,
|> >but rather "Donkey Kong Jr." I think this may show that Nintendo
|> >themselves believed that one of the most important features of "Donkey
|> >Kong" was the tie-in with "King Kong". The public certainly
|> >seemed to like "Donkey Kong Jr." without any sign of a Mario or his
|> >brother.
|> Actually, wasn't Mario in Jr.? The little guy standing next to the cage
|> w/ Donkey Kong in it? (Only time I've ever seen Mario as a "badguy" in
|> a game). Donkey Kong 3, the one w/ the bugs, was the one with no trace
|> of Mario at all...
I thought Mario was the one firing the spray gun???
Gregory James Legowski
Nope. I forget his name (Stanley the Exterminator, maybe?) but it
wasn't Mario...
l...@hpljdw.hpl.hp.com
>Andy's right. Whether you love Nintendo or hate Nintendo, you've gotta
>admit that at least they've designed some original games. Now I'm sure
>someone will bring up lots of Nintendo games which are NOT very
>original, and I realize that Nintendo seems to have fallen into the
>"endless sequels" trap; but DESIGNING good games is HARD, and
>considering this Nintendo has a pretty good track record.
I hesitate to add anything here, since it seems rare in this group that anyone
else would say anything nice about Nintendo, but let me say a little more.
First of all it's definitely true that Nintendo has made some bad and
completely unoriginal games. An example that immediately comes to mind is
"Duck Hunt," but then some people like it and I was surprised to see it used
in a recent Eagle snacks commercial. Another example is "Alleyway" for the
Gameboy which is just a variation on Breakout.
Then there is a strange class where Nintendo made their own version of a game,
but made an exceptionally good version. An example of this that many may be
familiar with is Dr. Mario, a variant of Tetris. Another is Famicom Wars (not
released in the US for some reason), based on the computer game Daisenryaku,
but much improved. They went further, adding role-playing elements, and
created a very original game called Fire Emblem (again not released in the
US). Still another example is Golf for the Gameboy; there are plenty of golf
games out there (Nintendo had already done 3 for the Famicom, and the one they
released in the US was pretty bad) but this one was exceptionally well done.
Then there are games which, although you perhaps can't call them completely
original (in the sense Tetris was), had very high amount of originality in
them. These include Metroid, Kid Icarus, Punch-Out!!, the Donkey Kong series,
Mario Bros., the Super Mario series, the Zelda series, MOTHER and several disk
system games that never came out here: Shinonigashima, Yuuyuuki, and Famicom
Detective Club 1 and 2.
Sequels, far from being a trap, have been one of Nintendo's strengths. If you
look you'll see that each game in the series is very different from the
others. Of course they share some elements, but it's as if each was a new
game. The Donkey Kong series is an obvious example, but any of the others
will do. This combination of familiarity and freshness it itself an excellent
idea. I am particularly impressed with SMB3 and 4, because SMB3 had an
enormous number of new ideas in it, but most of them were completely thrown
away and replaced by newer ideas in SMB4. And new ideas are not easy to come
by in the video game world these days.
John Leo
l...@hpljdw.hpl.hp.com
James Hague
>> I thought Mario was the one firing the spray gun???
>
>Nope. I forget his name (Stanley the Exterminator, maybe?) but it
>wasn't Mario...
I thought it was a little pudgy blob that pretty much looked like Mario
but whose name was listed on the cabinet as something else...
--
James Hague
exu...@exurchn1.ericsson.se
Yes, my address ends with ."se," but I'm in Texas, not Sweden.
Neal Feldman
* Origin: From Purgatory BBS - (503) 370-9739 - Salem, Oregon (1:105/605)
Neal Feldman
TKY]Nintendo did manage to sell some couple million Gameboys mostly due to
TKY]the name "Nintendo".
True... remember Big Blue got thousands of suckers to plunk down over a
thou on the PC jr.... My point made? 8-}
call me anything but late for dinner
>Then there are games which, although you perhaps can't call them completely
>original (in the sense Tetris was), had very high amount of originality in
>them. These include Metroid, Kid Icarus, Punch-Out!!, the Donkey Kong series,
>Mario Bros., the Super Mario series, the Zelda series, MOTHER and several disk
>system games that never came out here: Shinonigashima, Yuuyuuki, and Famicom
>Detective Club 1 and 2.
This thread originally began because you called these games
revolutionary. I don't think anyone would argue that they are
devoid of originality, but the Mario series is clearly
more evolutionary than revolutionary.
James Hague
>
>This thread originally began because you called these games
>revolutionary. I don't think anyone would argue that they are
>devoid of originality, but the Mario series is clearly
>more evolutionary than revolutionary.
The original non-scrolling Mario Brothers was not all that
revolutionary, but it was a lotta fun. Super Mario Brothers had almost
nothing to do with the previous game and I guess when you really think
about it, just pulled together a hodge-podge of old concepts in a novel
way. But it DID start the whole "run around and jump on things"
craze. All of the following SMB games just took this idea a little
further, adding some new twists along the way but the basic concept
remained the same.
--
James Hague
exu...@exurchn1.ericsson.se
Yes, my address ends with ".se," but I'm in Texas, not Sweden.
Glen Raphael
>In article <AcWr1Uq00...@andrew.cmu.edu> gl...@andrew.cmu.edu (Gregory James Legowski) writes:
>>> I thought Mario was the one firing the spray gun???
>>
>>Nope. I forget his name (Stanley the Exterminator, maybe?) but it
>>wasn't Mario...
>I thought it was a little pudgy blob that pretty much looked like Mario
>but whose name was listed on the cabinet as something else...
No, he looked more like a chipmunk than Mario.
Glen Raphael
rap...@fx.com
Harry Herman
>In article <1991Jul16.1...@verdix.com> dr...@verdix.com (Drew Johnson) writes:
>>On a side note, does anybody know if there will be a version of Smash TV
>>done for any of the systems around?
>Ugh. Hopefully not. Two major problems: buttons instead of
>joysticks, and you need two controllers. Once upon a time there were
>versions of Robotron (which has very similar play mechanics) for the
>Apple ][, IBM PC, and Atari 800, but they were a HUGE pain to play.
>They felt like entirely different games. Let's see how the Lynx
>version of Robotron goes before we start worrying about Smash TV.
Nintendo Power lists "Smash TV" as an upcoming game for the NES, and the
new EGM issue with the 16 page SNES suppliment lists "Smash TV" as coming
for the SNES.
--
------------------------------------------------
Harry Herman Corpane Industries, Inc.
UUCP: her...@corpane.uucp
Internet: herman%cor...@uunet.uu.net
Harry Herman
>So what? These people who've never heard of any system but the Nintendo
>probably never played a video game in their lives . Come on, do you
>think its possible for a 10-year old who's into video game to not have
>heard of the Genesis?!? I know that Sega doesn't advertise much, but
>their marketing isn't THAT bad!!
>Uh-uh. I don't think so. As I said before, most kids know about the Genesis.
>Why are their so many NES's and why does its number keep growing? For a
>while it was the only system around. But even when the Genesis came out,
>kids still bought Nintendos. Why? I've talked to several kids about this,
>and they said that they prefer the NES's simpler graphics, simpler gameply.
>They find the Genesis's graphics to be too confusing and complicated. None
>of them mentioned anything about Mario or Zelda. So when the Super NES comes
>out, it will appear to the kids as something like the Genesis... flashy, but
>too hard to understand... and too expensive. They'll stick to the good ole'
>8-bit NES. If Nintendo markets their Super NES in a way similar to the
>Genesis... i.e. as a graphically and technically superior system, they'll
>be in big trouble. And if they try to challenge Sega's 16-bit market,
>they'll be in even bigger trouble. I think you all know why.
Well, I am in my 30's and have no kids, and am waiting for the Super NES.
My interest is in RPG's and games that make you think, not shooters or
sports games or road/flight races. Even with that limited interest area,
I have bought more games for the NES than I ever saw for the SMS or other
8-bit systems of that generation. The recent issue of Electronic Gaming
Monthly with the SNES special section shows more games lined up for the
SNES than I have seen for the Genesis. Assuming those are all available
in the first 6 months, and they continue to release games for the SNES at
a rate similar to the release rate for the NES, it would seem that there
will be lots more games to choose from for the SNES, just like there is more
selection for the NES than for the other systems combined (from what I have
seen in the stores, anyway).
I am also hoping that Nintendo will offer an adapter to allow playing the
NES games in the SNES eventually, just like Sega offers the SMS adapter
for Genesis.
>As I see it, either way, Nintendo will get screwed. What I think the big N
>will do is stop supporting the NES to force people to buy the Super NES. I
>think you all know what'll happen if they try THAT....
Lot's of yelling and screaming for a few weeks, and then more sales of the
SNES?
>Still, I guess that there will be a lot of people buying Super NES's.
>People with a lot of money and more mature and sophisticated gamers(i.e.
>Genesis owners.) I even think that most people who will buy the Super NES
>already own a Genesis... am I right? But no way will the Super NES be
>as successful as the Nintendo executives are predicting.... What I think
>Nintendo should have done is make the Super NES $150 or less... and make
>it compatible with current NES carts....it was a really HUGE mistake to
>not have done that....
I don't own a Genesis, but I did rent one at Blockbuster one night. Didn't
really see anything that made it appear better than the SNES, to make me
want to own one, and I only see 3 Genesis games in the stores that even
interest me in the slightest. If Sega comes out with more RPG or puzzle
type games, then I would probably buy a Genesis, once I can accumulate more
money.
Also, I don't mind the $200.00, for the SNES, but I do mind being forced
to buy Super Mario World with it. I would rather buy Zelda III, or some
other game of my choosing. Or have the unit sell for $150.00 and come with
no game.
>As for the Super NES doing phenomenally well in Japan...well, heck, there
>are much more video game freaks with much more money over there than here.
>Most of the sales are also due to the inital hype. Let's see how well the
>Super Famicom sells in the next few months....
I haven't decided whether to try and be "one of the first on the block"s or
wait until some of the RPG games are available for purchase. I just saw
a description of Enix's ActRaiser for the SNES, and it sounds great!
>Of course, I could be wrong about all this....
>Nintendo did manage to sell some couple million Gameboys mostly due to
>the name "Nintendo".