I miss the good 'ol days

[David J.]

Man, Sega Genesis was the shit back then. It was a major part of my life when I was 5 to 9. Damn best four years of my life.

I remember playing the hell out of Sonic 2, Streets of Rage 2, and watching a lot of Nickelodeon back in the day, and the day that the Genesis was no longer "cool" I weaped. You know when the Playstation and Saturn hit the scene...

[Melf]

I still shudder when I think of how easily people traded the lush, colorful, 2D, sprite-laden worlds of the 16-bit era for the horribly clipped and warped polygons of the 32-bit consoles. That generation will always make me cringe graphically, as the ambition was well far ahead of the hardware.

Still, I guess it's just the nature of the business.

[landstalkerx]

I used to play Sonic 2, Aladin, and Pagemaster all the time. I must have beaten Sonic 2 at least 100 times, by now. The funny thing is I don't remember the launch of Saturn, nor do I remember the play station launch. I don't think that I was even aware that the Satun existed until a few years after its launch.

[Melf]

The thing that stands out most in my mind of the first few months of the Saturn's lifespan can be summed up in two words:

BUG JUICE!

After two months of nothing but the four launch games, we got Bug!.....fucking Bug!

[David J.]

I was playing Doom 2 instead...:)

I wanted a Saturn, but the selection sucked in my area. Thankfully, I have built up a nice domestic collection since. :)

[Demonic Weasel]

I love my Saturn. And I love my Genesis.

[Knuckle Duster]

I never owned a saturn, probably never will due to real life kicking me in the ass (and the wallet), I have 2 dreamcasts, that sorta makes up for it.

Genesis though, can't get enough of it. It's the best, I bought 2 more of them recently and they sit near every TV in my house.
I was pretty happy when the genesis slowed down in the late 90s though, it meant that I could walk into a store and buy a ton of brand new games for 10-20 bucks each.

What can I say? I'm a cheap freeloading canadian bastard. :)

[Jason Allen]

Those were the good 'ol days indeed. Remember when RPG would come out and it would cost 70 to 80 dollars? Good thing I never cared for those types of games. The thing that sucked the most out of the Genesis' later years were those horrid cardboard boxes!

I'll buy some crappy used Genny sports game, throw out the game, and cut up the cardboard box to fit in a regular Genesis clamshell case. I did the same thing with early Sega CD games, too. Cut up the card board box and put it in one of those big ass Jewel cases. My copy of Final Fight CD looked so awesome that way.

[Knuckle Duster]

Those were the good 'ol days indeed. Remember when RPG would come out and it would cost 70 to 80 dollars?

Blah! Thanks for reminding me of the time I paid $111.90CDN aftertaxes for a new copy of Super Mario RPG on the SNES.

*Insert Seppuku Here*

[Demonic Weasel]

I miss the good ole days when RPG's worth playing were developed. SHINING FORCE. *drools* *as usual*

[Melf]

Those were the good 'ol days indeed. Remember when RPG would come out and it would cost 70 to 80 dollars?

$91 for Sword of Vermilion = :owned:

[landstalkerx]

$91 for Sword of Vermilion = :owned:

Did anyone actually buy it at it's launch for that price?

[Drixxel]

^ According to Melf's Sword of Vermillion review, a friend of his was suckered into it. Ohohoho... poor guy.

[David J.]

I paid $3 for SoV and feel ripped off.

[landstalkerx]

I paid $3 for SoV and feel ripped off.

I went on a trip to Riverside to get it and a few other games. Thats about 100 miles from where I live. I think I payed about $5 for a cart only. That was definantly a waste of a day.

[lordofduct]

You know what pissed me off about the release of CD... I remember reading about how much cheaper it was going to be to publish games; saving a lot of money!


no

The publisher saved a lot of money... we didn't!

How much was Lunar when it came out? Something like 70 bones?... I didn't save money! (and the first run of them were published by Sega... WTF? I woulda understood if WD was publishing them, but surprisingly when the took over publishing they lowered the price some.)

[Jason Allen]

$91 for Sword of Vermilion = :owned:

Did anyone actually buy it at it's launch for that price?

My friend Angelo did.

[Wampaa]

I actually loved SoV back when it came out. My best friend let me borrow it and beat it before he sold it. It was one of the first RPG's I had ever played. I remember how hard I thought it was! I played it recently and man it is one of the easiset RPG's ever. Good memories though. I still like the music on that cart.

[Melf]

To me, it's not so bad, but just too linear for its own good.

[Mendicant]

You know what pissed me off about the release of CD... I remember reading about how much cheaper it was going to be to publish games; saving a lot of money!
HAH!! That's what they said about DVDs too... :twisted:


I still shudder when I think of how easily people traded the lush, colorful, 2D, sprite-laden worlds of the 16-bit era for the horribly clipped and warped polygons of the 32-bit consoles. That generation will always make me cringe graphically, as the ambition was well far ahead of the hardware.

*sign* I know the feeling. It's what is called the generation-law. (Okay, okay, so I just made up that term. ) :D But historically, the first generation of games don't age well, graphically.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. I still like River-Raid.

But for all the pretty games in it's library, Genesis is a 3rd generation (2D) machine. And the early Genesis titles barely looked any better than NES games.

The first generation of 2D machines, Atari 2600 and the like, started the whole 2D gaming thing; the second generation, Master System, NES & what have you, made advances in the field (8 Bit "Return of The Joker" actually looks & plays better than it's 16 bit counterpart IMHO); by the third generation, mainly the Genesis & Super NES,coders perfect the techniques to do things that were amazing on their respective hardware; and the fourth generation made hardware limitations in 2D graphics almost a non-issue. Almost.

Why should it be so different for 3D machines? PS3, XBox 360 & Revolution are, what, the third generation of 3D consoles?? :D

But... yeah, I know the feeling Melf.

Ya' know, it just hit me, one of the reasons the game that lead the 3D revolution, DooM, was so memorable was because of the insane number of monsters you might suddnly find yourself facing. Why was it possible to fill rooms with an insane number of monsters?? Because the game used 2D sprites. Try that with a modern engine, lets say the latest Unreal engine, or the DooM 3 engine and you'll find yourself watching a slide show. :twisted:

[Drixxel]

There's no doubt that 3D gameplay is getting more and more refined as time goes on.. in fact, 3D may well hit its peak with the next generation just like 2D did with the 16-bit era as you said, Mendicant. I'm not sure the gap between 3DO/Jaguar/CDI to XBOX360/PS3/Revolution will be considered on par with that between Atari 2600/Intellivision/Colecovision to Genesis/SNES/TG-16, but there certainly is a striking difference between something like Cybermorph on Jaguar to Resident Evil 4.

..and about Doom.. there's a lesson to be learned there. Regardless of technological advancement, sometimes the best way is the simplest. That unfortunately is a mantra largely forgotten by modern development houses.. Miyamoto put it best, I think (complete with garbled English): "How real it's looks is not important, is how real it feel."

[Mendicant]

"How real it's looks is not important, is how real it feel."
Ya'know, I think I'll start using it as my signature. Thanks Drixxel. :D

The 2D-3D generation comparison was more of an observation than exact science. :lol:

I was chatting with an old friend & we were talking about RPGs. Back in the days we didn't have much money, & usually accquired RPGs via sneakernet. Which is a fancy way of saying we'd borrow them from friends for a few weeks/months, usually in exchange for games we'd lend them.

The first brand spankin' new RPG I actually bought was Popful Mail. $20 at Toys'R'Us. Still remember the first time my friend & I heard the Slick utter "I ain't suckin' nothing." (Okay, okay, so we were in Highschool at the time, and it sounded a lot funnier back then... :roll:)

Which reminds me, how about a "History of Working Designs"?? In memories of a memorable company.

And speaking of memorable, I don't think I'll ever forget the conversation between Gillian & the Love Line Woman regarding censorship, in Snatcher.

And does anyone remember the whole "You must reset the computer"-schtick in X-Men? :roll:

[j_factor]

Miyamoto put it best, I think (complete with garbled English): "How real it's looks is not important, is how real it feel."

I believe it was Tim Rogers who paraphrased that in saying, a game doesn't need realism, it needs its own reality.

[j_factor]

There's no doubt that 3D gameplay is getting more and more refined as time goes on..

I disagree. Graphics, absolutely, but gameplay? Not really refined. Not lately anyway.

[Drixxel]

Ehh, I'd say developers are far more comfortable working in 3D than ever before. There are two major obstacles to overcome in any 3rd person 3D game.. the camera, and the control. These are two aspects of 3D gaming that are consistently far better now than they were in the mid to late '90s. 3D in general is handled a lot cleaner now than it was ten years ago.. pitting Fade To Black up against Devil May Cry 3 would be an ugly battle, but there's definately been great progress in the fluidity and ease of gameplay in 3D during the years between those two games.

[j_factor]

Yes, if you look strictly at 1996 and compare it only to right now, right now is more refined. However, there hasn't been any refinement in the past few years IMO.

Incidentally I disagree about Devil May Cry 3 -- it's pretty unrefined, just not in the same ways as Fade to Black was. And I don't think Fade to Black is the best example of its day.

[Drixxel]

I just chose two 3D games at random from their respective years, hopefuly to show that on the whole, as the years have marched onward, 3D games have become on average a lot more inuitive and polished compared to what they once were. Whether or not there has been much (if any) important progress in 3D gaming over the past few years wasn't really my point.. but hopefully any degree of 3D stagnation will come to an end once Revolution hits. The level of 3D control should prove to be unlike anything before, and that to me is a very important facet of any successful and refined 3D game.

..but maybe this is just a question of semantics. When I think of the refinement of 3D gaming, I'm thinking of the distillation and continued invention of all the best game design concepts accumulating through the gaming generations, with these being consistently put to use as to achieve a higher quality of intuitive gaming for the time. For instance.. the creation and improvement of things like analog control, "smart" in-game cameras, that sort of thing - anything to make the 3D gaming experience seem more natural.

[Mendicant]

With the Revolution controller you can actually conduct a virtual orchestra.
...:roll:
Just a thought.

[ary incorparated]

megadrive was ahead of its time for sure,it was going with the 32 bit sence,Vectorman was stunning,transparant effects good future kind of music plus batman and robin was the cream de royale,the music was al over the game,the music maked it a timeless game back then,Damn the sound still amase me,it had the same pact as a few psx saturn games.I know when i just played psx and a few weeks later went back to vectorman to complete it and the graphics where terrifying good ,i was surging for every detial in the game and they where there,shadow effects trasparantsie everything,Oooh yeah and also the speed in batman and robin when you reached the madd hatter,you see some colors that just come out of the space like tube paste some beutifull colloers plst the full MD speed,very extreme good boss designe.

[David J.]

I miss the good 'ol days when there where legible posts and we could all have a meaningful conversation.

[ary incorparated]

Me to,i rememeber the time when my mom dad and i were looking for a new console,I sead hey a MD or snes would be fine,so the MD was in discount and i kept starring at it And the guy at speelboom(toytree) sead the quality was worse,I sead WTF is he talking about i was conveing my mom and dad to buy that thing,Damn buy it now.I played it in 1991 and knew it wasnt limited,but the snes was hypt in our neighbourhood never knew the diffrence af any genesis and master system(back then)My bro came home and sead i can buy a Master system for 20 F about 10 euro,s now,i was thinking hey thats that cool ssyutem with Streets of rgae and sonic 2 etc(thinking all wrong)he never bought it,my family were more sega because it was cheap and we were not that rich the master system was a alternative instead of buying a expensive nes,we bought nes until 1998 i was thinking about the cool S.O.R aggain and we still only had a nes and a n64 then i finally bought it in 2000 and i was blewn away by its graphics wich ofcourse were dated i liked Garfield and earhtworm jim 2.Now i still play it and my friends think im amish for really liking the old stuff and dont bother the graphics,Really graphics arent important as first,Its the feeling games bring you The graphics are just the gift behind it all sometimes wrapped to suprisingly amaze you sometimes.Perfect dark zero has Damn good graphics but isnt that good overall,the first one is way better. :D

[winona]

Life is stupid. Before I was unemployed and couldnt afford games to play. Now I work and cant find the time to play the games I buy.

[Mendicant]

Life is stupid. Before I was unemployed and couldnt afford games to play. Now I work and cant find the time to play the games I buy.
*sigh* I know the feeling. I happen to be a fan of 16 bit RPGs myself. There are not enough hours in the day. :cry:

[Shinobi69]

I don't know if anyone heard, but KB Toys is closing down. This made me quite sad, as I remember being taken there to get the Genesis a few weeks after it was released. I bought system and Thunder Force 2. ah memories.. :cool:

[David J.]

Well not all of them. While they where expensive, I do indeed have fond memories of looking at Genesis games, even at EB!

[16bitter]

You know what pissed me off about the release of CD... I remember reading about how much cheaper it was going to be to publish games; saving a lot of money!

Remember how Saturn and Playstation games were $60 the first year? Only the N64's pricing scheme brought them down ten bucks.

CDs feel wrong to me, mainly because of load times. To this day I can barely tolerate them; they handicapped many games or outright made them feel broken.

[16bitter]

I don't know if anyone heard, but KB Toys is closing down. This made me quite sad, as I remember being taken there to get the Genesis a few weeks after it was released. I bought system and Thunder Force 2. ah memories.. :cool:

All KB's? Hm.

I didn't notice a closing sale last time I was there -- just a couple weeks back -- but they had barely any games. Just old PS and Dreamcast stuff; old 2K games at that.

A memory I have of KB is how they refused to carry the Saturn for the duration of its existence because of the launch debacle.

I assume the commie hell on Earth that is Wal-Mart is killing places like KB and Toys 'R Us.

[David J.]

Uh, Walmart didn't really kill those stores. KB has high prices, and I remember a few years some stores sold off all of their games, I know mine did, and here they are selling games again. Even when I bought toys there they killed me. Also, for TRU, it's pretty much the same, except they don't have a lot of toys exclusive to them, and their lofty demands to start up and run a store are pretty damn high.

[Drixxel]

It'd be sad to see Toys 'R Us fall into a financial grave. That store was a childhood haven, although admittedly I don't have much of a use for it anymore. Their game prices aren't the most competitive, but Toys 'R Us stores are the last places I've come across with a stockpile and decent selection of new Dreamcast stuff.. at least, as of two years ago anyway.

[16bitter]

Uh, Walmart didn't really kill those stores. KB has high prices, and I remember a few years some stores sold off all of their games, I know mine did, and here they are selling games again. Even when I bought toys there they killed me.

Ten years ago Wal-Mart wasn't nearly as big, and stores like KB and Toys 'R Us were doing much better. WM doesn't just drive mom and pop's places out, but also competing chains.

Families shop in Wal-Mart at such a high volume these days that specialty stores -- even major ones -- are having trouble keeping up.

[Flash1087]

Man, Sega Genesis was the shit back then. It was a major part of my life when I was 5 to 9. Damn best four years of my life.

I remember playing the hell out of Sonic 2, Streets of Rage 2, and watching a lot of Nickelodeon back in the day, and the day that the Genesis was no longer "cool" I weaped. You know when the Playstation and Saturn hit the scene...

We must be about the same age, then. Makes me feel a little better, I figured I was the youngest one here!

[David J.]

I'm 18, going to be 19 in June. Strider CoL is the youngest.

[Flash1087]

18 going on 19 in October.

[16bitter]

When did you guys start playing? Genesis or otherwise.

[David J.]

Early '90's in the arcade in the ghetto (back then it was a nice neghiborhood, but now it's a ghetto). I'd pump a lot of quarters in whatever machine was there. Then I got a Genesis in 1992 and it was sweet. Or was in 1993? I forget.

[Flash1087]

I actually got the NES about one or two years before the Genesis, so that puts it at about 1990, 1991. As a kid I always liked the Genesis better but it was perpetually at my (fortunately nearby) grandfather's house, so early on my time with it was limited. I would've been...jeez, 3 or 4 when I got the Genesis. My mom and dad bought it (yeah, my mom and dad were gamers!), it was the pack with Sonic 1, and Ghostbusters on the same day from the Software Etc. in our mall that regretfully closed. And it's all been downhill from there. :)

[16bitter]

For you or for the game industry?

[Joe Redifer]

I bought the Genesis the day it was launched in the US in 1989. I'm still using that same Genesis to this day and have played more than 550 games on it.

[David J.]

I bought the Genesis the day it was launched in the US in 1989. I'm still using that same Genesis to this day and have played more than 550 games on it.

:o

I haven't played nearly that many Genesis games, nor do I want to, heh. But I would want to own that many, wierd? yes.

[Flash1087]

For you or for the game industry?

Well...mostly me, the game industry has flourished through all the lunch money I pocketed for games throughout school.

However, if I were to enter the game industry, no good would come of it.