List of the moment: Early games from famous developers

I thought that this time around I would look at some of the early games made by famous developers. This is not a list of debut releases but instead a look at some interesting early works. It is interesting to see how some of these companies have changed over the years. Wait till you see what Bethesda used to do! Anyway, here is today's list.

Activision - Dragster

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.

Nintendo 64 #2: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

If you are a gaming enthusiast like me than games will make you feel all kinds of emotions. A game can make you happy, sad, or often in my case hopelessly frustrated. However, games rarely ever get you to ponder life's big questions. They are usually a pleasant diversion. Whenever I play Majora's Mask, however, I can not help but ponder the meaning of existence. If you are starting to play this one get ready for some depressing and philosophical gaming that has Link living the same three days over and over again, which also happen to be the last three days before the moon crashes into the planet and kills everybody.

This is a really dark topic for any game, let alone a Zelda game. Despite how seriously people take the series, before this game it was fairly lighthearted. They always had bright colors and goofy characters and worlds where you spent time fighting off Gannon or waking up giant psychedelic fish. The kingdoms Link were entrusted to save were usually heavy on spiders and low on people. The stakes never seemed that high. I mean, what would Gannon get really if he took over Hyrule, a bunch of old guys living under trees?

Majora's Mask finally gives you a world that actually feels like it needs saved. There are interesting people to meet everywhere in this one who actually seem to be living full lives. It is very interesting that their stories and emotions progress over the three days. As the moon gets closer and closer they get ready for oblivion in different ways. Some of them try to hide from it while others pretend that it's not even happening. The theme of loss is so strong in this game the the five major areas are all based on the five stages of grief. In addition to that Link's main source of power is the faces of recently dead people. When he wears these masks everyone thinks he is the deceased person. That is incredibly dark, especially for a franchise that used to be a Saturday morning cartoon! I could never imagine this in a Duck Tales video game.

I haven't touched on the gameplay yet, but of course if you've played any Zelda games before you know what you are going to get. There is one thing that will probably annoy everybody but me. This game only has four dungeons. It is much more about puzzle solving and story. The only items you get in the dungeons in this one are arrow upgrades. This is a little disappointing, but at least they are all things that you will still use after moving on farther in the game. This game also marks the first appearance of Tingle. In case you forgot, he is that character that everyone hates even though he's never in the games very long and is actually useful. Why do people hate him so much? Is it because his parody of faries makes people wonder if Link is actually cool? I suspect so.

This game was extremely polarizing back when it came out and remains so today. Everyone was still gushing about Ocarina of Time and were hoping for something along those same lines. They weren't expecting all that time skipping and backtracking. Hopefully enough time has passed so that people will just see it for what it is and not what it isn't. Sadly people rarely think like this and get way too wrapped up in the franchise. Don't be a jerk. Appreciate creative games!

System overview: Virtual Boy

Okay so I want to talk about Virtual Boy without saying the typical things about it. I know that it was a big failure and it supposedly made your eyes catch on fire and pop out, but all this has been blown out of proportion over the last 15 years. Sure, I know that your eyes won't exactly thank you for playing, and that the failure ultimately led to Gunpei Yokoi leaving Nintendo, but I think the whole story is much more than than this. I want to skip most of the easily made fun of bits and just focus on this weird little system that for about six months was unlike anything else on the market.

I remember this thing coming out back in 1995 and thinking about how stupid it seemed. It was called the Virtual Boy, but we could all tell that it was not virtual reality and not really portable in the same way the Game Boy Was. Honestly a better name would've been the 3D Supertripod or something like that. Incidentally I also thought that the DS and XBox would fail while the Dreamcast would be a rousing success. At least I was right once. In addition to the bad name the thing also had lousy advertising. Do you remember the Play It Loud era? This is when Nintendo tried to be edgy (like Sega) and started to make very strange ads. They placed the Virtual Boy in a strange post-apocalyptic world where it had a mind of its own and possessed very dirty looking teenagers. They should've just had some guy dressed up like Mario talking about it. This would have been much more appealing. Anyway, these are the main reasons why I never got around to playing one of these things until 2012. This is a little late I know, but still sooner than most people.

So what is playing the Virtual Boy really like? Honestly it's like no other gaming experience out there. Put you face against that thing and you are suddenly the entire world goes away. It becomes just you and the game. There's no time, people, or responsibilities. It's a little bizarre, and a bit unsettling. I always feel like someone's gonna sneak up behind me and smack me in the back of the head. Back when this thing came out I wondered why they didn't include a strap to go around your head. Now I see why. It would be much too scary without a quick escape. I know that this sound a little silly, but there really isn't a more immersive gaming experience out there. I could only imagine playing Elder Scrolls on this thing. My world would be red forever.

There are only around 14 games for the thing, but most of them are actually fun. There there are a couple from each major genre besides RPG and racing which makes for a surprising amount of variety for such a small library. Most of them are first party so you know they gotta be good. I guess this is why the machine still has so many fans. It's not only people trying to be different. They just want to spend hours playing Panic Bomber and Galactic Pinball. Also, most of the games are practically unheard of outside of the VB due to the unique nature of  the machine. If you want to play Wario Land, there's not really another way to play it that gives you the same experience.

Today just about everyone, including Nintendo, remembers this as a complete failure. I will admit that this is mostly true, but there are surprising elements to the VB story. It seems that today there is still an avid fan base out there today. If you go on Ebay you will see a ton of them, and most of them actually sell. There are also the people out there that are still playing theirs after all these years. The mere fact that a strange and difficult to play machine with less than 20 games has so many fans has to prove something about Nintendo. Even when they make something this horrible it is still damn fun to play. Sure I hurt my back playing it, but I still play it and have a good time doing so. The Virtual Boy is sure proof that Nintendo is the greatest gaming company of all time. I just hope nobody sneaks up behind me and hits me on the back of the head. 

 

NES #40: Battle of Olympus

Battle of Olympus is one of the hardest games I've ever played through on NES. It's easy to get lost, the enemies are relentless, and most of the areas send you back to the beginning when you get killed. This is also one of the games that I failed at the most times before I actually beat it. As a kid I thought I was just too dumb, but now I know that it's just a hard game. Anyway, I'm a big fan of this game, but I'm very happy to get it crossed off my list. I'm sure you would be to. So Battle of Olympus takes place in a strange alternate reality where the greek gods are real and you can travel from city to city simply by going through someone's door. It is laid out similar to the side scrolling sections in Zelda 2, but the two games really aren't that similar. The two games get compared sometimes, but I think that's mostly based on people looking at two screenshots. I do enjoy this game, but it's got some of the most confusing level layouts in the history of gaming. There is a time where you go through a door in a forest only to come out in an almost identical forest with a slightly different color. Get ready for this color changing trick because it gets used all the time. I mean, it was such a good idea why not try it in every dungeon. Of course this is an RPG made before 1992, so it's practically impossible without some help from the internet. I've brought up a picture of the menu screen to illustrate this point. How would you know what any of this stuff did without going online? I guess you could look it up in the instruction book, but this game is from 1989 so you don't have it anymore. I guess the top row is easy enough to understand. It's mostly sharp things so it must be weapons. But what's with that middle row? A harp and an ocarina? A blue bubble and a blood bubble? A pitcher of water? What does it all mean? I can tell you that the ocarina calls the dolphin which will take you across the sea. The harp, however, summons pegasus who takes you back to somewhere you don't want to be that you've already been. It's only used by accident and causes players to die a little inside. The blue bubble I think revealed hidden rooms, but there are only a couple so make sure you check each one. I can't remember the blood bubble, but I'm sure it had some purpose. So I did the deed and it's done. I just noticed that I only ever post pictures of menu screens and shops on here. I think it's time for a little honesty. I'm really no good at taking pictures, and my tv does not help matters. I have to go online for the pictures on here, and I always feel guilty using someone else's picture. I've actually poorly cropped pictures on purpose just so that nobody would feel like I have good pictures on here. I've decided to not worry about that so much so I'm going to close today with an actual screenshot of the game. These mountains still give me nightmares.

NES #40 - The Goonies II

Okay so this is a very strange game, so I apologize if this is a weird entry. I'm just not quite sure how to describe this one. It's one of those really old NES games that everyone has a copy of, acknowledges as a classic, and kinda hates. I know very few people who enjoy this game as more than a curiosity or signal of things to come. I mean how could you? It's really old and really weird.

The premise itself is odd. I always thought that there was a movie sequel to the original Goonies out there somewhere that I had simply never seen. However, this sequel doesn't exist. Instead this is, I believe, the very first video game exclusive sequel. That concept might actually work today, but this was the NES in 1987. If you played the game with no manual or guide you would have no idea that there was supposed to be any kind of story behind it. You're a kid in a weird building with a yo-yo fighting bats, and that's really about as deep as it gets.

Actually you are saving the other Goonies and rescuing a mermaid. Also, the Fratellis are after you again, but I don't know why. An opening movie would've been helpful, but they hadn't thought of that yet. You play as Mikey, but the other Goonies are completely generic and unnamed. You can't tell your Chunks from you Datas in this one. Anyway, that's about as much of the story as I can explain here. I'm sure you can find the instruction manual online somewhere and read more about it. People used to read more papery things back in the 80s.

So here's the way the game goes in case you've never played it. The game is split up into"action" and "adventure" sections. In the "action" sections you're trapped in this really weird place that is hard to define. You're in a volcano, and then you climb up a ladder and you're in Greenland. You go through a door and you're in a cave. It's something like that. The place has a front side and a back side so be ready to get really confused all the time. You get some weapons, but none of them are all that effective. Also, the controls are a bit sluggish. All in all it's pretty bland, but at least it's fun to watch the suddenly changing scenery.

I can handle a bland game, but what really gets to me is the "adventure" section. What this consists of is a series of identical rooms. Sometimes they have people to talk to and sometimes they have hidden secrets. Sometimes they have locked safes that have extremely unhelpful hints in them. I loved wasting a key to find out that "it's fun to play Goonies 2." Do you know how many bats I had to kill to get that stupid key? Where's an interrobang when I need it? Anyway, all of these empty rooms have four walls and a ceiling. There could be more treasures hidden behind them, so lets hit every wall in the whole game. To do this you just pull up your item screen, pick your fist or hammer, and then push the button on the wall you want to smash. Oh, and you will get different results with different items, so you will have to hit each wall in each room with both you fist and your hammer. I guess sometimes a hammer would smash right through that extra key ring or pair of Goonie shoes, so you need a less powerful fist to get the job done. So yeah, this process takes about five minutes per room and involves no skill or thought. It's just an endurance test that tries to show off that phony 3D room effect that they loved so much in the 8-bit era. However, this ain't Phantasy Star. It's not even Fester's Quest. Oh, and you also have to hit an old man with a hammer five times.

You know, I hadn't really planned on being so hard on this game. It doesn't seem like it's that bad. But at the same time maybe it is. Maybe it's a visionary game that pointed to the future, or maybe it was more of a case of the programmers being in over their heads. I honestly can't tell you. This game is more confusing to talk about than it is to play, and that's saying something. I'm sure the debate about this game has been raging ever since '87. Or am I the only person still talking about it? I sure hope not.

NES #39 - Gradius

Oh yeah I finally beat Gradius, yet another game in my recent "suddenly really good at Nintendo" streak. This is one of the oldest space shooters for NES, and it really set the blueprint for games to come. It's also not that difficult, but I sure had a hard time with it. I really suck at shooters in general. That's why you won't read too many Turbografx reviews on here. I always blame the fact that I'm left handed which prevents me from pushing the fire button fast enough. Although I think it's actually me and not the controller. Anyway, I was finally able to cross this one off the list.

The battles between me and Gradius are legendary. I bought this game in college and would go on spurts where I would play it every day. This was always my night class game because I could get in a few rounds quickly before I had to go to bed. Sadly, I have a lot more memories of evenings being spent failing at old games than I do hanging out with friends in college. I probably shouldn't explore that fact too much other than to say it was their fault and not mine.

Anyway, this game used to always drive me crazy. I would either get killed by those Easter Island heads, giant rock (or granola) monsters, or get all the way to the end only to be killed by that blue wall. If you don't fly in front of that blue wall you will die, and it would be so long between trips to the last level that I would forget where it was. I also remember that I was able to skip level four just about every time because of a built in game mechanism. I always thought it was from how many point you got, but I foolishly looked it up and found out it was from how fast a certain boss was defeated. After I read that I was never able to skip the level again. Sometimes you're just better at things you don't know how to do.

What was interesting about my final run was that about half way through the game the graphics started to glitch. This is happening more and more with my NES which worries me a little bit. The screen got covered in vertical lines, and everything was much harder to see. I got so awesome at this game that I didn't even need to see it properly. Of course the bullets flying at me had streamers on them which made them a bit easier to see, but it was also very hard to tell which part was projectile and which part was graphical glitch. I'm just gonna pretend like I'm even cooler for beating the game while it was glitchy.

I think most people who have played this game will call it a classic, and I'm certainly not going to argue with that. I like how it plays like one long level instead of six short ones. I also enjoy the power-up system that does require at least a little bit of thought. I guess the biggest complaint that there is no final boss, but with such a crazy final level I'm not sure if that's a bad thing. Not every game has to have a final boss.

So I can finally lay Gradius to rest and move on. It was a difficult journey, but one that I'm glad I took on. It's times like this that remind me how many good games there are on NES. Even in the early days people didn't know what they were doing they were pumping out classics like this. Actually, it's hard to think of a system that had a better first two years. If this was the kind of blog that people actually commented on I'm sure you'd all have something to say about that.

NES #38 - Rygar

Wait I actually beat Rygar!? Well that's it, I can do anything now. It's time to go back and beat every other game that has been bugging me for the last 20 years. I'm looking at you Fester's Quest! Okay, so maybe that's pushing it a little bit, but finally finishing Rygar did make me feel a little cocky. The part that makes no sense to me now is that it wasn't even that hard. It only took about two hours, and none of the bosses were particularly difficult. So why did it take me so long to beat this one?

I guess the easy answer is that this is one of those infamous NES action RPGs with no save feature. It's similar to Sunsoft games like Blaster Master and the aforementioned Fester's Quest in that it takes a good amount of time and must be done all at once. Actually, this is probably the most talked about feature of Rygar. It's often referred to as "that game with the super yo-yo and no password." However, when I finally played it for real the game only took about two hours. Sure it's not Contra length, but it's certainly an acceptable length especially for a kid. Now that I have been through it I think there were a couple other reasons why I never finished this one, and they both have to do with the limitations and strengths of the NES.

Rygar is an early NES game, and its limitations made this one difficult for me as a kid. This game can get confusing easily. The backgrounds all look similar, and most doors take you to the same giant old guy giving you cryptic clues. I hate cryptic NES clues! It's easy to get lost, especially early on without all the items. The controls are another issue. Was anyone able to figure out how to use the wind pulley without looking it up? I watched internet videos of it and it still confused me. You have to walk up to a rope just the right way and wait for the click. If you do it wrong you're going right into the water and back to the beginning of the level. This certainly held me back as a kid. Also, it's one of those games where after you die your life only replenishes part way. This wouldn't be a problem if live was easier to come by, but you really have to kill a lot of enemies to get hearts back. These are all the classic problems of early NES games, but it's still not the whole story. I think the reason I had so much trouble beating this game is related to the reason why I still spend so much time playing these old games today.

When I was a kid I found this game far too captivating to finish. It was like Metroid in that it transported me to a different world. I got caught up in the music and atmosphere. When I rented it, which I did frequently, I didn't even want to finish it. That would almost ruin the experience for me. I just wanted to wander around that alien world with my strange weapon and fight spinning lizards and spiny turtles all day. It wasn't until I was much older that beating this game even registered as a possibility in my mind, and by that time I was too busy to sit down for what I thought would be an entire day and finish it. Luckily my schedule allows me long weekends occasionally, so I can go back and play games like this.

So yeah I beat Rygar, and it didn't diminish the magic very much. I still felt a little like I did 20 years ago when I first started playing NES. I could talk about how easy the last boss was or how there wasn't that much of an ending, but that's all beside the point. This is one of the truly great games on the greatest gaming system of all time. You can play this game to beat it, you can play it to see how high you can get your experience, or you can just play it for that great music and nostalgia for your earlier days. The NES is a world all its own, and you are free to explore it in any way you see fit.