When Activision made and released Dragster it changed the world of video gaming forever. Before they started making their own games there was no such thing as a third party developer. Every game that came out for Atari the first three years of the system's existance was published by Atari. Then some disgruntled employees left to start their own company where they could credit the game designers and make games for all the different systems. This is the reason that David Crane is so famous even though he only made about five good games. Atari actually sought legal action against Activision at first, but by then the floodgates had been opened and nobody could stop the sudden stream of games and systems which still continues to this day. Dragster is a game where you try to go real fast without blowing up your engine. If you are good it will take about six seconds to play. Dragster may be simple, but it is one of the biggest game changers in video game history.
Bethesda - Home Alone and Where's Waldo?
Yes, that Bethesda. The one that makes the Elder Scrolls and Fallout Games. The company that has been responsible for taking more hours of my life than any other over the last few years used to make really awful NES games. These games were even published by THQ, which is the worst lisenced publisher of NES games. What's most notable about these two games is how shallow they are. In Home Alone you simply escape from the Wet Bandits in your house for 20 minutes and are treated to a one screen ending. In Where's Waldo you, well, find Waldo. On the easy setting you can basically close your eyes and pick a spot and have a fairly high success rate. How they went from making games like this to making some of the most immersive and complex games in history is beyond me. In fact just three years after these train wrecks they released the original Elder Scrolls: Arena. It seems that it didn't take them very long to start making some of the greatest games of all time. It's a very interesting story.
Gamefreak: Mendel Palace
Game Freak is the Sub Pop of gaming. You can look that one up if that reference is too old now. What I mean by that is they started out as an underground 'zine and later took over the world. That might be a slight exaggeration, but you have to admit that their major creation, Pokemon, is just about everywhere. Here it is almost 15 years after the first game in the series came out and those characters are still on lunchboxes and child sized hats. With their sudden success it feels like the story of Gamefreak as a developer begins with Pokemon, but they spent a few years making odd puzzle games before they started their world domination. Mendel Palace is probably the most interesting of these early games. It has a very unique style of play which involves flipping over tiles and defeating enemies with their shockwaves. It is both fast-paced and intuitive. Also, unlike other early Gamefreak titles like Yoshi, this one is not related to any other game or franchise. It's interestesting that the developer on this list that is most closely associated with one specific franchise has an oddball title like this one laying around. You should check it out sometime.
Konami - Frogger
Until I started compiling this list I didn't even know that Konami made the original Frogger. Back before they were known for Metal Gear, Contra, and Castlevania they made quite a few classic arcade games. Most of them, such as Pooyan and Gyruss, are fondly remembered but seldom played today. I think it's interesting that by far the most famous of the old Konami game is hardly even associated with the company anymore. It might have something to do with the amount of different companies that have released it over the years. Back in the day it was released by Sega, Sierra, Parker Bros, Arcadia, and Hasbro to name a few. It seems that for whatever reason Konami wanted to distance themselves from the game fairly quickly. They didn't even work on Frogger II which only came out a couple years after the first one. I am not sure why this game quit being associated with Konami so quickly, but it is certainly an important moment in their rich legacy.
Rare: Slalom
It's hard to think about the NES without thinking about Rare. They made more great games for the system than just about anybody. However, their first shot out of the gate was nothing special. The first game developed by Rare as we know them today was Slalom, a simple skiing game. It was a fairly interesting skiing game though. It moved very fast for a game at the time, and it had several different types of gameplay. It wasn't simply going downhill the same way everytime. I guess you can call this a sign of what was to come for Rare. They never wanted to make the same game that everyone else was making. They took a genre which had very little critical success up to that point and tried to give it new life. Sadly this game got a little buried in all the high quality early NES titles. It still ranks a bit near the bottom of the NES black box games, but it's better than Urban Champion.
Within a year of Slalom Rare released RC Pro-Am and Wizzards and Warriors. These are two of the watershed games for the NES. They continued to make genre defying games like Snake Rattle n Roll and Cobra Triangle while putting out the occasional mainstream game like Battletoads, but they first got their feet wet with Slalom. I suppose the world needed some decent skiing games. I'm not completely sure if Slalom was it, but it does show signs of actual effort. That's more than I can say for some of the entries on this list.
Sega: Sub Scan
I am not sure why I am so dead set on showing off the worst of a developer's early titles, but if you want to see a boring game by a great developer than Sub Scan is the one. It is a very simple shooter where you are a ship at the top of the water dropping depth charges onto submarines. After you do this for a while you stop. The charges fall very slowly and the only challenge is timing your shots. The original arcade version had submarines shooting back at you, but the more common Atari 2600 version just has them quietly floating by. Of course, Sega had some great old arcade games, and at this point they were only a couple years away from more advanced games like Space Harrier and Hang-On so this one was more of an early misfire than an all out disaster. Luckily nothing bad would ever happen to Sega again.
Treasure - Gunstar Heroes
As this list shows, sometimes a developer has to make a few games before they know what they are doing. With Treasure, however, their first game was effing Gunstar Heroes. It's one of the most intense and downright fun shooters of all times. It is a true legend that excites classic gaming enthusiasts to this day. When the Contra series was trying to get back on track in the early 2000s they did so by basically ripping off Gunstar Heroes. With a game this great you might think that Treasure would burn out quickly, but they kept making great games for years especially on the old Sega consoles. Hopefully some day I will go more in depth about this one, but until then let this one serve as inspiration to all you would be game designers out there. Don't be afraid to try. The game you make might just turn out to be Gunstar Heroes.
