A history of gaming

Posts in category Retro Reviews

Manic Miner

Feb20
2012 Written by allg7590

Way back in 1983 a game was released which was very hard to play, had some of the most Manic Miner Boxmigraine-inducing sounds around but turned out to be one of the most addictive games ever released.  Matthew Smith was the developer behind Manic Miner, a London-born programmer who had started his career writing games for the TRS-80 and VIC-20 before being loaned a ZX Spectrum in return for writing three games for that platform.

Manic Miner was the result of a supposed six weeks development and it was the second game Smith wrote (after Styx) for Bug-Byte.  He would later develop the even more popular sequel Jet Set Willy but let’s stick to Manic Miner for the moment.  An Atari 800 game called Miner 2049er is said to have been the inspiration behind Manic Miner.  Although sound effects were not unusual in games at that point, it was the first ZX Spectrum game to feature in-game music and whether you liked it or not, it was an impressive technical feat.  Classical music fans who played Manic Miner will know that the title music is Johann Strauss’ The Blue Danube while the in-game music is the Edvard Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King.

So how far did you get playing Manic Miner?  I can honestly say that I didn’t make much progress, but I was limited to odd sessions at a friend’s house; at my house we made do with the aforementioned TRS-80.  Players had to guide Willy the protagonist through twenty different platforming rooms, avoiding a variety of roaming enemies (which of course stuck to pre-determined paths).  Jumps had to be times correctly and from memory it was one of the first games I played which featured collapsing platforms.  What made it even more difficult was a time limit based on the amount of oxygen in the room.

I’m sure there are those out there who can truthfully claim to have beaten the game but I’m not one of those; I reckon level 7 or 8 was my maximum.  It probably goes without saying that Manic Miner was ported to numerous other platforms and also spawned several other games based on the adventures of Miner Willy.  You can still find playable versions online now; give it a go.

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Chuckie Egg

Jan24
2012 Written by allg7590

It’s back to the source for this post or at least back to 1983 and an era when it was still Chuckie Eggpossible to develop game software sitting in your bedroom then try and flog it to one of the publishers.  The developer in this case is generally regarded to be Nigel Alderton, a young man who may or may not have written the software in his bedroom but who did sell the finished product to Mike Fitzgerald and Doug Anderon’s A & F.

Chuckie Egg is certainly one of the original platform games and one which used its playability to popularise the genre.  It was originally developed for the BBC Micro, the ZX Spectrum and the Dragon home computer although it’s success on those platforms led to ports for the Acorn Electron, the Commodore 64, Tatung Einstein, Amstrad CPC, early Ataris and the MSX.  Supposedly the inclusion of the BBC Micro in many schools at the time helped Chuckie Egg’s popularity with children.

So for those not old enough, what’s the appeal of this game then?  Well it’s a basic platformer in which the protagonist, Hen House Harry, must complete each level by collecting all the eggs on each level.  There’s a pretty generous countdown timer which can be paused by picking up the hen seed distributed around the level but don’t let the hens touch you or you’re dead. There is also a giant duck in a cage at the top of the screen.

There are eight levels in total but if you complete them all you get to start again – but this time with the duck flying after you (but no hens).  Complete another eight levels and you are pursued by hens and the duck and so forth.

Chuckie Egg sold more than a million copies and for me its biggest draw was its playability.  The character could leap insanely around the screen without harm (unless you fell through a gap in the bottom level) ad it also featured a turn-based multiplayer game so you could play with your friends without arguments.  Check it out below:

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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Nov23
2011 Written by allg7590

Towards the end of the 1990s a game was released which, like Space Invaders in the 1970s and Donkey Kong in the 1980s, added a new layer of innovation and gameplay to the world of console gaming.  The title was alluring on it’s own; The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released in Japan on November 21st, in the United States on November 23rd and finally in Europe on 11th December.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

It introduced some elements to video gaming which we’ll discuss later but lets first take a look at the game’s development.  The platform was the Nintendo 64 and the effort expended on development had rarely been seen before.  The man behind the project was Shigeru Miyamoto, a director who was also involved with the concurrent development of Super Mario 64.

The game had actually been in development since 1995 when a short demo was shown at Nintendo’s Space World trade show.  Even at that stage the concept of a free-roaming game was giving the development team concerns that the memory demands would be to great for the limits of the N64′s cartridge system.  There was a possibility that the game would be released to use the forthcoming N64 disk drive expansion pack but ultimately the decision was made to stick with the cartridge.

Miyamoto wanted to design a game in which the landscape, and the ability to view it, were a major part of the game.  Why put the effort into designing a free roaming game if the camera is always focused on the character?

Hyrule Screenshot

Hyrule Screenshot

The game play of Zelda is the story of Link; the complex and detailed story line is far to intricate to describe accurately here but briefly it involves Link’s attempts to travel around the assorted lands which surround the Kingdom of Hyrule.  Hyrule was also the setting for previous Zelda releases.  Link must thwart Ganondorf by obtaining the three Spiritual Stones and the Ocarina of Time which will provide him with access to the Master Sword.  There is much more to it than that, plenty of time travelling and associated narrative but you get the general picture.

Zelda was one of the first games, possibly the first, to feature a soundtrack designed to complement the gameplay.  As Link approached different locations, music associated with that area began to play; a departure from the usual practice of tying the music to the character.  Pony Canyon, the Japanese media publishing company were behind the creation of the soundtrack.

Zelda introduced features such as contextual button pressing – assigning a different control to a particular button depending on the situation, automatic targeting and a great stealth aspect to the game.  For fans of the RPG genre, many of the features introduced here are still in use today.

From the day it was released, The Legand of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, was critically acclaimed.  Almost twelve years later it is still the recipient of the highest ever ratings from reviewers across the board.  Take a step backwards God of War and Grand Theft Auto - Zelda’s ratings were even higher, many 10 out of 10s and 100% reviews.  Check it out:

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Donkey Kong

Oct06
2011 Written by allg7590

We’ve featured Space Panic elsewhere on this site as an example of the first of a certain

Donkey Kong arcade cabinet

Donkey Kong arcade cabinet

genre and indeed it was certainly one of the forerunners of the platform game. It pre-dates Donkey Kong but the latter also added to the genre. It seems a small thing now but Donkey Kong gave us the ‘jump’, something unknown in arcade gaming until then.

Donkey Kong was an early development project by Nintendo and it’s chief designer was Shigeru Miyamoto.  Disappointed by audience reactions to Radar Scope, Miyamoto was hired to turn the project into something that would appeal to the U.S. market.  There seems to be something stereotypically Japanese about the background story – a love triangle between a gorilla, a carpenter and a girl.  The story does seem to ‘borrow’ some elements from the King Kong story, but a famous court case involving Nintendo and Universal Studios established that they (Nintendo) had not stolen the idea.

Miyamoto was not, in fact, responsible for the programming of the game – he was more of an idea’s man, suggesting game elements to his development team and receiving replies as to whether these were possible.  Donkey Kong was therefore responsible for introducing elements into arcade machines such as the familiar rolling barrels, ladders and in particular, making the game multi-stage, meaning four different levels with different designs.  It was also the first game with an in-built story-line.

The multi-level element was a real step forward although the development team originally regarded it as merely repeating the same level.  After persuading them that it was the way to go, the game was eventually finished and tested.  The main character, who was originally known as Jumpman, become known as Mario following the introduction of the game into the United States.  Mario, of course, became the hero of the various Nintendo games featuring that character, beginning with Mario Bros.

Donkey Kong was a commercial success following its release in 1981 and led to a series of franchises which is still in development today.  Most recently, Donkey Kong Country Returns was developed in 2010 for the Nintendo Wii.

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Pong

Sep30
2011 Written by allg7590

If there is one game that can really be called the ancestor of the modern video games industry, it must be Pong.  Pong was originally developed in 1972 and although there were earlier games available, Pong was the one which reached the mainstream with any sort of momentum.  It was the first commercially successful video game and the one which sparked the creation of the video games industry.

Pong arcade cabinet

Pong arcade cabinet

Atari was the company behind Pong and Alan Allcorn was the developer responsible for the coding.  Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell had seen a similar tennis game on the Magnavox Odyssey (an admission which led to a successful lawsuit later on behalf of Magnavox) and asked Allcorn to to write something similar.  In fact Bushnell had also claimed he’s played a version as far back as 1964 on a PDP-1 computer.  The decision to actually manufacture the game came after Bushnell was impressed by the results.

The game itself is incredibly simple in its appeal.  In the unlikely event that anyone does not know what it consists of, it’s a one player or two player game in which each player has a paddle/bat on his side of the screen and, just like tennis or ping pong, attempts to return the ‘ball’ back to the other player.  Check out the video below:

It certainly brings back some memories but for those who cant quite remember the original arcade version, it may be the home console version that jogs the brain cells.  The heyday of the arcade cabinet version of Pong was from 1973 onwards and the game was also shipped overseas.  In 1974, while looking to expand on the success of the arcade version, work began on a home console version.  Comprising some significant new chip development, the product was ready for the market by January 1975.  Following some drawn out negotiations with the Sears Sporting Goods departments, they agreed to order 150,000 units in time for Christmas and its success was assured.

Despite the fact that Atari did not manage to file patents in the early days, the game was a tremendous success, although the market quickly became flooded with clones.  At one point Atari was though to have manufacture only 1/3 of the arcade version in use.  For interesting up to date version, it’s worth checking out a Massively Multiplayer Online variation of Pong, released several years ago.

 

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Pac Man

Sep27
2011 Written by allg7590

So you’re a video game development company in an era when Asteroids, Space Panic and

Pac Man Flyer

Pac Man Flyer

Space Invaders are dominating the industry.  How do you compete with what’s already out there?  Easy, you create a new genre.  Namco managed this feat back in 1980 with the release of Pac Man.

Toru Iwatani and his team were the developers responsible for Pac Man although Iwatani was the inspiration.  The distinctive sound the game character makes was derived from the Japanese sound of a person opening and closing their mouth; the character shape itself was influenced partly by the Japanese character for mouth (kuchi) and partly by the shape of a pizza although that last part may be apocryphal.  The original name for the game was Puck Man and that was retained in Japan but for the United States release the name was wisely renames to Pac Man, removing the temptation for the mischievous to change the ‘P’ to an ‘F’.

It’s a very simple, cute game and this gave it a wider audience beyond the usual young males.  The enemies (ghosts or monsters) were specifically designed to appeal to girls. Each stage sees Pac Man in a maze in which he has to consume all the yellow dots while avoiding the monsters trying to catch him.  If Pac Man eats a ‘power pellet’, he can chase and eat the monsters for a short period of time.

The game was actually designed to have no ending but a bug in the coding put a stop to

Pac Man Split Screen

Pac Man Split Screen

that.  This did enable skilled players to ‘complete’ the game by reaching stage 255 – stage 256 is known as the split screen level as half the screen is taken up by random characters.

As with other games releases, when Pac Man was first shown at trade shows, it met a lukewarm response and it was not until the public release that it became popular.  It became the highest grossing video game of all time, accepting more then $2.5 billion in quarters during its life span.  More than 350,000 arcade cabinets were sold.

Pac Man introduced the maze element to video gaming and is also accepted as the first gamin mascot, as Sonic the Hedgehog or Mario was in subsequent years.

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GoldenEye 007

Sep22
2011 Written by allg7590

Video games do not have to be pixellated, blocky and from the 1970s to be iconic.  New games are released every year which have the potential to be game-changers for the console and for the genre.  One such game was GoldenEye 007 for the N64.  Released exclusively for the Nintendo console in 1997, it was developed by what some have described as an inexperienced team.

The original plan for the game was to develop it as a side-scrolling shooter, then as an on-rails shooter (the character has a preset course and can’t wander) but finally the decision was made to develop a 3D shooter, more commonly known now as a First Person Shooter (FPS).  It certainly was not the first of its kind, Doom had been produced four years before and even that was preceded by Wolfenstein 3D, but it did take the genre to a whole new level of quality, innovation and sophistication.

GoldenEye introduced several new features to the genre; a zoom-able sniper rifle had its first outing here, adding a new level of strategy and gunplay.  Stealth missions were also part of the gameplay, meaning that this wasn’t just a gigantic gunfight.  GoldenEye also introduced superb graphics for the multiplayer version.  While the game was not a free-roaming affair, the addition of extra rooms and areas (with no purpose) and several routes through levels meant that GoldenEye was nowhere near as linear than many of its predecessors.

The game was of course developed as a tie-in with the 007 film GoldenEye and the plot of the game follows the plot of the movie with a couple of exceptions (no casino).  The game was not received particularly well at the 1997 E3 but that mattered little when the game hit the shops.  With 8 million units sold it was the best selling N64 game of all time and regularly features in lists of the best console games.  Check it out:

 

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Space Panic

Sep19
2011 Written by allg7590

Welcome back to our occasional series about some of the original video games that

Space Panic Flyer

Space Panic Flyer

entertained us when we were growing up in the early days of the amusement arcade.  The subject of this article is of some personal resonance for me – it’s possibly the first arcade game I ever played (by which I mean put money into in a public place) and I was really good at it.

Space Panic was released in 1980 and for many it was the first platform game.  Donkey Kong fans may claim otherwise, citing the lack of jumping ability for the main character, but we can ignore that pedantry and say that Space Panic was the forerunner of the genre, even if others ay disagree.

It was designed by Universal, a company which had been involved with video games since the very beginning and which later went on to release Mr. Do and Lady Bug in the 1980s. Universal is now known as Aruze.

So the game then; as stated it was the first platformer and it also provided the games industry with a new ability – the main character could dig holes.  Digging holes for things to fall into became quite popular for a time as Space Panic’s influence took hold.  In Space Panic, the idea on each level is for the our hero to dig holes for marauding aliens to fall into.  He must then fill the hole up while the alien is grimly clinging to the inside.  Wait too long and it will climb out again and resume it’s mission.

To make things more difficult, each level had to be completed in a certain amount of time or you would run out of oxygen.  Later levels would also require you to dig holes on platforms directly above each other – the aliens would only perish if they fell through two in one go.

Space Panic influenced several games over the next few years and many manufacturers ported the game into their own consoles.  Panik! was the last descendent released in 1986 for the Commodore 16, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron and the Atari 8-bit.

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Asteroids

Sep15
2011 Written by allg7590

Despite its almost legendary status among video games fans, Space Invaders was of course not the only iconic video game from the 1970s; this article is all about Asteroids, the immensely addictive but frustrating waste of time and money featuring what appeared to be a letter ‘A’ in the centre of the screen, trying to fend off flying rocks. Refresh your memory below:

Recall the screeching spaceship which periodically lumbered across the screen, remember the hyperspace button which 8 out of 10 times plonked you in front of a giant asteroid and don’t forget how awkward it was to navigate around the screen with the thrust button.

Despite my cynicism, Asteroids was Atari’s best selling game of all time; designed and

Asteroids Cabinet

Asteroids Cabinet

created by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg, it was released in 1979 and demand was so great that there were not enough Asteroids arcade cabinets.  Several hundred were installed in ‘Lunar Lander’ cabinets and many of the coin boxes were enlarged to take account of its popularity.

So it was ridiculously popular and it wasn’t long before one or two skilled players worked out how to play for hours on a single credit.  After each wave of asteroids was destroyed, a new wave brought more and faster rocks.  But what if you only nearly completed the first wave?  What if you just left a couple of small rocks flying around harmlessly?  You could then pick off the valuable spaceships as you wanted for 1000 points each every time they flew drunkenly across the screen.

Lessons were learned and later versions of Asteroids dealt with this oversight in various ways; Asteroids Deluxe (1980) and Blasteroids (1987) were examples of Atari’s iterations and improvements.  The addictive qualities of the game play should not be underestimated; it was ported to many different Atari consoles and those of other manufacturers.  A testament to its popularity is that it is still included (in various versions) on retro console collections and can be found online in many places.

 

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Mario Bros – Part Two

Jul25
2011 Written by allg7590

In the previous article we wrote about the development of the character Mario from his early days as a rescuer of the princess in Donkey Kong through to his monster battling antics in the first Mario game.  Perhaps unlike some earlier games which we now consider as classics, the arcade version of Mario was not hugely popular, especially in Japan.  It was the emerging console market which made the game the success is was and the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was the piece of hardware hosting it at the time.

Although of course a Nintendo development, the game was ported to a number of other consoles including the Apple II, the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair Spectrum.  In general these were well received by the games buying public at the time.  Over the decades the popularity of Mario Bros has ensured the original version has been consistently ported onto newer and newer consoles.  It’s also possible to locate free versions online if you feel the inclination.

Super Mario Bros

In 1985, two years after Mario Bros hit the shelves, Nintendo released Super Mario Bros, a release that would remain the best selling console game for two decades.  While Mario Bros was a single screen platformer, the new game was a side scrolling effort which brought unrivaled playability to the console arena.  To date an astonishing 40 million copies of Super Mario Bros have been sold and Nintendo still support it today, a version being available for download on the Wii’s Virtual Console.

The game did take one or two features from its predecessor, most notably Mario’s ability to jump up and break overhead blocks.  He also gained the ability to squash enemies by jumping on top of them.  Luigi still featured as part of the two player version.  A number of influential websites have variously named Super Mario Bros as the best video game of all time and it spawned a number of sequels in the subsequent years.  Check it out:

 

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