It was raining again...

The street was fairly empty, a few people were walking around ignoring the rain as if it were nothing and the cars moved at an equally lazy pace. I could see the commodity exchange and the end of the street, but that would have to wait. I had a contact waiting for me at the bar and I wasnt going to be late. Neon signs and Holograms invited me for drinks and promise of exotic dancers. As I moved towards the enterance I checked my clock to see what tim……. “what the..!? 22:37? I have school tomorrow! I gotta go to bed!” I shut off the game, cursing myself several seconds later for forgetting to save and hit the sack.

Have you ever had this? I have, on several occasions I might add.

Immersion is quite a powerful tool and it’s secrets remain very sought-after by game developers to this date. In case you were unaware, Immersion is the state of consciousness where an immersant’s awareness of physical self is diminished or lost by being surrounded in an engrossing total environment; often artificial… *cough* In layman’s terms, when a game drags you in so far you feel like you’re actually in there, shooting monsters, commanding armies or grooming ponies.

There are several games which I distinctly rememeber that had that effect on me. These games made me forget all and everything around me, they pulled me into their world and would not let me out until dinner time. Now it could be that since I was at a younger age, the effect of immersion is a lot stronger as the only thing you have to worry about at the age of 8-13  is whether there’s any ice cream left in the freezer and if Ninja Turtles is on tonight.  I’d like to tell you how I felt when I played these games and why those games created that feeling so strongly. For today I picked one of my classics for the PC:

Wing Commander: Privateer.

The Wing Commander space combat simulator series hails from the 199o’s and provided some of the best space opera storytelling and gameplay found on pc. The Wing Commander games focused primarily on linear storytelling and mission structures, that is untill they released Wing Commander Privateer.

Suddenly I was given a small vessel, a few credits and the overall message to “go nuts” in a living, breathing universe. Want to blow stuff up? become a pirate. Want to trade and dominate the market? become a merchant. Want to blow stuff up and get paid  for it? become a mercenary. The game offered me freedom I did not yet experience in any other game that I had played before. I could fly around in my ship, get lost in space and encounter other tradesmen or get blow to smithereens by everyone else. But the best part for me, was the ability to land on planets and space stations. I was amazed at the variations of places this universe would take me. The cold steel decks of mining colonies, the colourful and crowded promenades of pleasure planets, Massive space capitals, military bases you name it. It really felt like I was going somewhere.

The solid comfort of a Meteorite Mining Base.

Now keep in mind, this was before the day’s of MMO and sandbox games and while there were games out there that offered similar situations, the whole presentation of the game made it complete for me. Space is very interesting to a little boy at the age of ten, and Privateer allowed me to indulge on my space faring needs, spiralling my imagination to distant planets and galaxies.

The Wing Commander universe was already an established.. eh.. universe and as a fan of the series the familiarity of terms, enemies and Designs really helped in making the world feel convincing.
The game used big sprites to render ships, planets and space stations. Fly up to close to these and your retinas would be scorched by the size of those pixels, but back then it was pretty impressive. You could see the ships from almost any angle and asteroids rotated ominously toward your cramped cockpit, ready to crush you into the dark cold void. In game communication with other pilots and even enemies allowed you to smack talk before blasting someone to bits or barter your way out of an attack from pirates.

Great shot kid, now don't get cocky.

But the best part of the graphics was probably all the pre-rendered stuff. Whether you were landing on a planet, travelling through hyperspace or just simply standing on a promenade, you were treated to a short animated clip showing your actions in a cool cinematic presentation.

Blasting off a refinery into the void.

The locations themselves were looping animations that I could stare at for hours, cars driving by, people faffing about, ships flying taking off in the distance, it felt really alive and convincing.  All this was further enforced by the great atmospheric adlib music, although nowadays it sounds a bit like a drowning synthesizer, but when I hear those tunes again i’m right back there on New Constantinople.

Wing Commander Privateer remains one of my all time favorites and made me a big fan of the Space Trading and Combat genre. I tend to fire up the game every now and again and it holds up surprisingly well. unfortunately nowadays the genre has kind of died out, sure there are a few titles here and there but none combine that perfect blend of arcade action and merchantile gameplay as Wing Commander Privateer, that drew me in so long ago.

Coming up this month a review of a classic shoot up on the snes and an article i’ve tinkering on.

Also in the pipeline is some sort of video review/blog to show of actual footage of the game with snappy comments and tidbits. Don’t worry I’ll refrain from showing my hideous visage in these vids , because it’s meant to be about the games but since my english sounds something like Autin Powers’ Goldmember (look it up) I need to brush that up before I start shattering eardrums.

Game on!

Goro lives…

I’m a big fan of beat em ups, and I remember fondly my first experience with the genre. A good friend of mine was probably one of the first person in my hometown who bought a Super Nintendo. I’d seen the marvels of the nintendo 8-bit console at another friends house but this was a whole new league of gaming. 16 whopping bits of super power left me gawking at his tv screen as mario jumped onto my retina’s in stellar 15-bit rgb colours. Back then money was sparse and I didnt have enough to buy one for my own, but I was able to see and play a lot of great titles thanks to my friend. ( Cheers Ed, wherever you are.)

One day at school my friend asked me to come over to check out a new game he bought called Street Fighter II. He explained to me that it was a beat-em-up where you’d fight eachother one on one and you could pick from a range of cooky characters. When I got to play it I was blown away, the competetive nature of the game was very addicting the the genre immediatly took hold of me and never let go.  When I ran home I was dragon punching and Hurricane kicking all the way (several people were injured in a martial arts related car accident that day).

So real it hurts, when arcade cabinets beat up small kids!

Time passed and my brother aquired a Sega Genesis in a very interesting manner (i’ll get back to this some time) and we were able to spend our scrawny savings on all kinds of games ourselves. because we liked to game together and the beat-em-up virus had grabbed hold of my brother as well we always kept an eye out for brawlers. So we started to buy magazines to get a better view of what games were coming out. Of course those magazines were expensive as well and we weren’t able to buy them every month, but each magazine was an adventure by itself. they were filled to the brim with screenshots and stories of games to come and we would read them till they fell apart.

Mortal Kombat.

At the end of 1992, we bought a copy of a magazine called Sega Mean Machines, and on the cover the text “MORTAL KOMBAT for GENESIS REVEALED!” was slapped into your face. What? Mortal kombat? whats that? and why is it spelled wrong? I opened the magazine on the mentioned page and was stunned. It was like Street Fighter! but… with real people! is this real? At first I thought it was fake, nothing looked that good. The characters looked like they were photographed from real life. I stated to read the article while my eyes constantly veered off to the screenshots. There was mention of blood, violence and something called a “Fatality”.  These kind of things make a 10 year old boy VERY curious.

That's basically all you need to know.

Mortal Kombat was released on major consoles in 1993 and immedeatly caused a shitstorm. The game featured the afformentioned fatalities, which allowed you to kill your opponent in a gruesome matter after defeating him. Hearts were pulled out, people were set ablaze and heads were ripped off with spinal cords included. There was already some discussion about the arcade version, but the console release brought the violence to the masses and under the attention of the media.  The game was censored for it’s home console release, but violence was there nonetheless. To make matters worse, the Sega Genesis version had a hidden code that would enable the blood and original fatalities! (A,B,A,C,A,B,B. Never forget people!)
According to talk shows, moms were horrified by the violent nature of the game and forbid their children to play it. It eventually lead to the creation of the ESRB rating system. Now that’s impressive!

Of course all that stuff sounded amazing to all the kids who wanted to play it. Unfortunatly my parents caught wind of the whole situation and forbade me to play the game. So I did what every obedient child does, I went over to my friends place and played it there. And I wasnt the only one! The room was filled with kids from school who wanted a peek at the game. The stories of the violence spread like wildfire and everything your parents forbid is interesting to kids that age.

A Toasty Fatality.

The game was amazing, the whole 90′s Budget Kung-Fu Bloodsport movie atmosphere totally immersed you into the game. As you pressed start, the loud ringing of a gong welcomed you to the character select screen, and man did it look good. Ninja’s, assassins, movies stars and Bruce lee lookalikes were displayed in near photorealistic sprites with smooth animation. The battles took places in ancient temples, Shrines and even on a small walkway above a spike filled pit during a full moon. It looked so real, wich made the violence extra convincing.

The gameplay was very interesting, each character basically had the same moveset of roundhouse kicks, sweeps, punch combo’s and the trademark uppercut. It made the fights feel really balanced. What made each character unique was their special moves. One ninja would throw harpoons at his opponent and pull them towards him while shouting “GET OVER HERE!” another would freeze their adversary with an ice bolt. Thunder gods would fly across the screen screaming and ramming their victim against the wall while murderers would throw knives at your face.  It was a sight to behold, and most importantly, incredibly fun!

The famous Pit Stage

Mortal Kombat remains one of my favorite beat em ups to date, it was followed up by an even better sequel and the series continued to grow as the years went by. This year marked the release of the ninth installment of the series and after some dissapointment in previous releases this one goes back to it’s dark roots and is better then ever . But I will never forget the impact the first game had on me, as I finished up this “review” I noticed I told more about my experience around the game, rather then getting into detail about the gameplay. Perhaps that is what made this game extra special to me.

Flawless Victory!

Ascending from the ultima underworlds, returning from my battles at kilrah and ready to challenge my greatest foe…consistency!

After almost a year of doing…god knows what,  I, the videogame historian will be posting my blog again, starting this november I will be writing a Classic game review bi-monthly and will add more types of articles along the way.

So if you liked what I wrote so far, stay tuned! there’s a whole lot coming up! .

- TVGH -

Sometimes a video can say more then a 1000 words, which is fortunate because it makes my job a lot easier.
This amazing “Historical Documentary” has been on the web before thanks to the mighty Elder-Geek, but now it’s updated it with even more masterpieces.
Behold, The insane console history video 2.0!

Part 01

Part 02

To watch a better quality version,  go check out the original on Elder Geek’s Website

Watch it! It’s not one to be missed, and it might bring back some fond memories of these ancient relics.

Cheers to Leo and Gerrit for sending me this video. Game on!

The little Engine that could, and did.

Sometime in the last century…

It was around 1993. I think. It was a long time ago, but I do remember it very well. I was there with my family, we had a PC for a while now and my interest in videogames grew steadily with each passing year, so my parents took me to a computer expo, who’s name and location are now long forgotten.

I was fascinated with all the new games that were coming out, people were returning to Zork, aliens invaded the Earth in X-Com and the gates of hell finally opened opened with the release of Doom. I remember getting a first glimpse of Raptor, Call of the Shadows. It was great, yet amongst all these awesome games there was one that would leave a lasting impression on me for quite some time. There was a booth with a larger then average screen showing the game on display, TV’s weren’t that big back in those days so it really stood out. Big black speakers pumped out the games electronic beats and attracted anyone who passed by to take a gander. I saw two figures running around a forest fighting all manner of creatures and hazards, while a electronic sounding voice commented on some of their actions. The graphics were unique that they were cartoony and realisitic at the same time ( remember it was 1993 and I was 11 at that time) and the music blew me away, but that could have had something to do with the ginormous speakers pointed at me.

Into the Forest

It grabbed me and as we left the the expo I was sadded that I wasnt able to find out what the game was called.

A year passed and a nasty tumble off the stairs forced me into a wheelchair for a while, which lead to me playing games a lot more. One day my mom took me to the stores and I was rummaging through the Sega Genesis games, as my brother aquired one in a very interesting manner and we both were blowing all our disposable income on any game we could get.

And there it was. The boxart mesmerised me, a pitch black background with six character portraits of some very fascinating characters. I gazed up to the title: “The Chaos Engine” .

The fantastic cover.

As I turned the game around to check the screenshots it hit me. This was the game I saw on the Expo! I had to have it! I badgered my mom to get me this game, at first she was hesitant. I scrambled some of my last savings together and she pitched in (Thanks again Mom.) and I was able to get it. At home the Genesis was set in the living room, as stairs were a tad hard to climb for me at that time, I booted up the game and was blown away by the first thing I saw.

The intro displayed the power of the chaos engine

I loved the game, it was challenging, I could play it with my brother cooperatively and it oozed atmosphere. It had the top down view of a Zelda game, but the action was more akin to a Contra title, heck there were even some RPG elements in between the levels where you could increase some of the stats of your characters. It left a lasting impression, and thats why I chose it for my first review. I’ll go into the details of the game some more and be sure to check my blog later as I will be posting a supplimentary video to my reviews, as soon as I get that capturing tool running.

The Chaos engine.

The Chaos Engine tells the story of a baron Fortesque and his incredible invention, the aforementioned Chaos Engine, a device capable of bending time, space and matter. Like any good brilliant invention the thing goes haywire and the entire British Empire is turned upside down. Strange creatures appear and weird machinery runs amok as British isles are isolated from the rest of the world.
Six Soldiers of Fortune are hired to enter the mainland and destroy the engine before the entire world goes completley banana’s.

What set the story apart for me is that it introduced me tot that wonderfull Victorian Steampunk setting. It was something I had not seen before in a videogame, advanced mechanical devices in a classical age with an overall British flavour. It made the game stand out in the way it’s story was told and how it was presented.

Classic steampunk setting

The Player could choose two from six mercenaries, The Brigand and the Mercenary, all-rounders who packed a punch and could take a few hits as well. The Thug and The Navvy, big lugs with bigger guns, sporting firepower and thick hides but not that nimble. And the Gentleman who bears a striking resemblance to Sherlock holmes, and the Scientist, whom was actually know as the Preacher in some versions but the publisher thought it was a bit too risky for some regions, ( Though the Idea of an monster ass kicking preacher sounds pretty awesome to me, as to anyone who has seen the movie “Braindead” ). What these last two lacked in muscle they made up for with powerfull weaponry, speed and destrucive specials.

Node Activated!

Each merc had a weapon that could be upgraded at the shop in between levels and a special ability. These ranged from Molotovs, Bombs to the more exotic Decoy dummy and Enemy Freeze ray. Some even had acces to a map to get a quick peek of the layout.
Picking your team to get the best of both world was a lot of fun and it added a lot of replay value to the game as each merc played a bit different from another. If you were playing with a friend you could pick classes that complemented eachother and you could really focus on teamwork. If you were playing alone the computer AI acted pretty competend for a meatshield, but you did have access to the AI’s special power.

Surrounded by all manner of chaos

In each stage the player had to activate several nodes to gain acces to the exit, these were scattered throughout the level. The player had to fight his/her way through the zone, fending off the monstrosities created by the Chaos Engine. Weird blue men hurling weirder blue balls, Lizardmen, Giant hands, Living dust clouds, the enemies you faced were clearly the product of a chaotic machine and every new zone featured different enemies and ways to defeat them. The Player moved from lush forests to dark workshops, the mansion itself and in the end it’s dank sewers for the final confrontation.
The game was pretty challenging, even on the easy setting the player was quickly overwhelmed with enemies and required some fancy manouvres to get out of alive. It was pretty lenghty as well, as each level had multiple secret areas to discover hiding many treasures wich was used to upgrade your characters.

The sewers offered quite a few challenges

As said before this all happened in a steampunk setting and the graphics of the game brought that to the screen perfectly. The game was made by the Bitmap Brothers. If you take a look at some of their other games like Speedball, GODS or Magic Pockets, you can see that they created a recognisable graphical style for themselves in all their titles and often show more shading drawn intotheir graphics wich leads to objects in the games having more volume and depth. The Chaos Engine portrays this really good, you can tell it’s a Bitmap Bros game and it works great with the Victorian Steampunk setting. Objects and characters are very detailed and animate pretty well.  I loved the graphics, I played the Genesis version and I’ve had many people tell me the Amiga versions looks and sounds way better. I have played those versions and while they do look and sound better, the Genesis version is the one I remembered and I consider it the best version for me with regard to the memories attached to it.

Two player goodness

The same goes for the sound. The Amiga version of the game sounds clearer, but the Genesis  has that grainy, tinny sound that’s kind of reminiscent of a tesla coil buzz, wich only adds to the charm.
The music in the game is fantastic, it features industrial tunes that fit perfectlty with the style and setting of the game. That metallic voice that keeps you up to date of your actions never gets old and you’ll be quoting “Node Activated!” after a few minutes of playing. Oddly enough there arent any sound effects for weapons fire, but it’s not something you’ll miss after a few minutes of play.

While the game has its flaws, the Genesis version especially featured some spectacular slowdown in some places and the AI could botch up now and then, I firmly believe that it still holds up to this day. It features a challenge not often found in games these days anymore, some terrific replay value and most of all, great presentation. The Chaos Engine has a special place in my heart and I still pop it in occasionally. If you like classic games (heck even if you don’t) and haven’t played the Chaos Engine, I urge you to check it out, it’s not one to be missed.

Are they?

I have seen this discussion rise up a lot when I was in school, it also pops up on the internet now and then and usually ends up with heated discussions, F-Clusterbombs and possibly hair pulling and biting.

Some people tend to say that older games are better. For example, they claim that the HD 3D graphics games show these days are cold and uninspired as opposed to the lovingly handcrafted pixel paintings from a time of Monkey Islands and Mario Brothers.

Others find that games these days offer less of a challenge. In the past, most games gave the player a limited set of lives and continues and no means to save your game other then a password that usually consisted of +5 lines of random numbers and letters. Some games offered a battery save system, but most still forced you to sit behind your tv ’till midnight if you wanted to see that end title screen.

Nowaday’s people might find that frustrating, most consoles come with hard drives now and everything gets saved without having to push a single button. You can turn off your game, go to bed and start at the exact same point the next day without having to pause your console and turn off the TV and to find that your console has melted three floors down the building the next morning.

These are mostly facts, but people create their opinion on these based on their experience.
And thats the key word here, Experience. How did the player experience the game when he/she played it? Was it a good experience? how did the player feel at the time?
If it was a good experience, you will remember it, and with any good experience in life you will think about it later on and possibly yearn for that experience once more.

That is the Power of Nostalgia.

The term itself means Returning Home, returning to that wich comforts you.
This is why some people often say that old games are better, they recall playing this game in the past and having a good time with it. Keep in mind, games get more advanced and while games nowadays tend to struggle to make an impact on players, people were a lot easier to impress in the old days.

I’ll give you an example. I remember playing a game called Streets of Rage 2 on the Sega Genesis about 15 years ago. My brother and I rented this for three days and it turned out to be a really good game. I remember us sitting there on the attic on a stuffy couch, late at night, staring at a very old TV wich was the only thing we had available for ourselves to play our games on, listening to the beats of the game while trying to beat Mr.X and hearing that final level complete tune. Brilliant.

I will never forget that, Streets of Rage 2 was a good game, but with this memory I have attached to it, it turns into an Awesome game. When I boot it up now i’m immedeatly transported back on that couch, on the attic 15 years ago feeling like a kid again.

That is the Power of Nostalgia.

It is a very powerfull feeling and it is personal to everyone. That is why some gamers stick to the old favorites. They have good memories of the game and want to relive that feeling again.

So to sum it up, are older games better? That depends on the experience of the player, how they felt when they played that game at that time.

As we all grow up the cycle tends to repeat itself it seems, Game developers have a hard time coming up with new ideas, so they tend to tap into that power of nostalgia.
They look at what older gamers liked in the past and repeat that, some fine examples were shown at this years E3.

Image Property of IGN.com

Image Property of IGN.com

Where Sonic, so damaged by his transendance into the world of 3D gameplay, returned to his roots in classic 2D sidescolling gameplay, and Donkey Kong Country makes a welcome return with updated graphics. Heck even Mortal Kombat, a title wich has gone through so many evolutions is returning once more to it’s gameplay roots similar to the First 3 Iterations of over 10 years ago, just because the fans wanted it.

They wanted to experience that feeling of those days again, that feeling of nostalgia.

Videogames have been around for nearly a lifetime now and with every new game, new console and new technology another page is added to the ever growing history of videogames.

As I have always been interested in the games of old, I took it upon myself to become a Historian of Videogames. Here I will chronicle noteworthy games that have been released in the last half century and will describe why these games stand out among others.

Since I have been playing games for over 20 years now, most of these will be from my own experience. Some of the comments will be based on facts, others from experience. And as my writing has been known to make a grown man cry, I will supplement these with short video’s, where I will highlight some of the more interesting details regarding them.
And of course everyone likes to watch movies.

Enjoy.