Post by VectorX on Sept 28, 2011 23:25:44 GMT -5
A bit of a read here, starting with the Sega CD...
As Flashback proved, you could have not only a really good game, but you could also add some cinematics onto it as well. The Sega CD was my first introduction to games that had these as part of their standard package. And already I was going ‘wow, none of this is SH*T’ when I went over to a friend's on Christmas morning, which a friend of his had just gotten it. I mean, with Sol-Feace, the animation was choppy and such, yet the rest was just a side-scrolling shooter; big deal! I would later buy it several years later for pretty cheap once I would get my own Sega CD (also for cheap, only $65-70 when it cost $300 U. S. new), seeing a bunch of graphical glitches, slowdowns and such. Once I found the original Sol-Deace at a rental place, I snagged it, and was surprised to finding it was the exact same game!! It even had the secrets to skip levels and get up to 99 ships and such that Sol-Feace had, and the ending was better than the later cd version! I felt sorry if anyone bought Sol-Feace, thinking it was a sequel to Sol-Deace and got ripped off. (And luckily it was just a rental for me.)
I still have never played Sewer Shark, but that was another one I was introduced to on the day my friend’s friend had brought it over. He just showed me part of the intro where Ghost was yelling at the camera to get rid of the smug look on our face. “The last guy who looked like that we had to remove from the walls with HANDI-WIPES!” Yes, give this guy the Captain Kirk Award for Over-ActingTM. It just looked sort of like Cobra Command. Oh good, he got that too, and I relived my laser disc arcade memories for a few minutes. I didn't even touch S. Shark, it looked to be no big deal. A no big deal of a game but with a cinematic intro; wow, what a wolf in sheep's clothing!
Funny thing was, I rented Silpheed years later once I got my own Sega CD, but wasn’t real impressed with it at first, as it just seemed to be sort of a glorified Zaxxon during one stage. But then a few years later I bought it on clearance at Target for $8 anyway and enjoyed it a bit more though (luckily). I also got Stellar-Fire, and figured out the ending before I saw it even, that Arctura would be blown up. Sure enough, that’s what happened! And that was it. They should have shown the figure of the pilot you played standing over the two graves of the pilots who escorted you who were killed during the cinematic intro, which would’ve been better, but nope, they didn’t even do that.
Then going back to another disappointment with the Atari 2600 days...ok, first off, I’m not going to be like tons of others that say “the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man sucks!”, as I feel that by *itself* it wasn’t that bad a game. But as compared to the arcade version, yeah, it was bad then. It still got a bit of play from me for a little while though. I feel if there wasn't an arcade original it actually wasn't that bad.
So anyway, I had made the honor roll at school on either THE day, or maybe the week Pac-Man was released. Mom said she would buy it for me for making the honor roll. After the honor roll assembly ended, I happened to spot my mom at the back of the auditorium holding onto a bag (ah, the days were only one parent worked...). I rushed over to see her take PAC-MAN out of the bag. And she also got something called Haunted House too. Say what? What the heck was that? I hadn’t heard of it–it had just come out too–but I think once my next issue of Atari Age arrived a few weeks later it was in there then.
But so what. I was bouncing off the walls like the clueless babysitter that had a hyper kid to deal with and accidentally gave it some candy. I was going SO nuts that a friend of mine (who had several of the same classes I did) was looking at me at one point with his eyes about to pop out of his head, I was going so bonkers. And then occasionally I’d lapse, wondering what this Haunted House was. And then I’d go all hyper spazoid over Pac-Man again.
So, I rushed home at the end of the day and turned the tv on, which mom was just non-chalantly (sp) taking the game out of its box. Meanwhile I was going “get it out of the box, get it out of the box, GET IT OUT OF THE BOX DAMMIT!” Then when I powered the 2600 on my heart sank. What the hell was this? It looked odd and played odd, with the things that were changed. The REAL weird one was when you went into the escape tunnel and became invincible; as long as you didn’t see yourself making contact with a ghost, you wouldn’t die. That made no sense at all.
And at first when I called my friends about it, they were like “you got Pac-Man?”, but then when I told them about it, they were like “oh”, and their lack of enthusiasm continued once I showed it to them. They weren’t exactly impressed. Oh well, at least Haunted House turned out to be a bit more interesting and unique.
Anyway, next time I’ll go into a really bad Ti-994a game, but it’s not real long or anything, but I figured this post was though
As Flashback proved, you could have not only a really good game, but you could also add some cinematics onto it as well. The Sega CD was my first introduction to games that had these as part of their standard package. And already I was going ‘wow, none of this is SH*T’ when I went over to a friend's on Christmas morning, which a friend of his had just gotten it. I mean, with Sol-Feace, the animation was choppy and such, yet the rest was just a side-scrolling shooter; big deal! I would later buy it several years later for pretty cheap once I would get my own Sega CD (also for cheap, only $65-70 when it cost $300 U. S. new), seeing a bunch of graphical glitches, slowdowns and such. Once I found the original Sol-Deace at a rental place, I snagged it, and was surprised to finding it was the exact same game!! It even had the secrets to skip levels and get up to 99 ships and such that Sol-Feace had, and the ending was better than the later cd version! I felt sorry if anyone bought Sol-Feace, thinking it was a sequel to Sol-Deace and got ripped off. (And luckily it was just a rental for me.)
I still have never played Sewer Shark, but that was another one I was introduced to on the day my friend’s friend had brought it over. He just showed me part of the intro where Ghost was yelling at the camera to get rid of the smug look on our face. “The last guy who looked like that we had to remove from the walls with HANDI-WIPES!” Yes, give this guy the Captain Kirk Award for Over-ActingTM. It just looked sort of like Cobra Command. Oh good, he got that too, and I relived my laser disc arcade memories for a few minutes. I didn't even touch S. Shark, it looked to be no big deal. A no big deal of a game but with a cinematic intro; wow, what a wolf in sheep's clothing!
Funny thing was, I rented Silpheed years later once I got my own Sega CD, but wasn’t real impressed with it at first, as it just seemed to be sort of a glorified Zaxxon during one stage. But then a few years later I bought it on clearance at Target for $8 anyway and enjoyed it a bit more though (luckily). I also got Stellar-Fire, and figured out the ending before I saw it even, that Arctura would be blown up. Sure enough, that’s what happened! And that was it. They should have shown the figure of the pilot you played standing over the two graves of the pilots who escorted you who were killed during the cinematic intro, which would’ve been better, but nope, they didn’t even do that.
Then going back to another disappointment with the Atari 2600 days...ok, first off, I’m not going to be like tons of others that say “the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man sucks!”, as I feel that by *itself* it wasn’t that bad a game. But as compared to the arcade version, yeah, it was bad then. It still got a bit of play from me for a little while though. I feel if there wasn't an arcade original it actually wasn't that bad.
So anyway, I had made the honor roll at school on either THE day, or maybe the week Pac-Man was released. Mom said she would buy it for me for making the honor roll. After the honor roll assembly ended, I happened to spot my mom at the back of the auditorium holding onto a bag (ah, the days were only one parent worked...). I rushed over to see her take PAC-MAN out of the bag. And she also got something called Haunted House too. Say what? What the heck was that? I hadn’t heard of it–it had just come out too–but I think once my next issue of Atari Age arrived a few weeks later it was in there then.
But so what. I was bouncing off the walls like the clueless babysitter that had a hyper kid to deal with and accidentally gave it some candy. I was going SO nuts that a friend of mine (who had several of the same classes I did) was looking at me at one point with his eyes about to pop out of his head, I was going so bonkers. And then occasionally I’d lapse, wondering what this Haunted House was. And then I’d go all hyper spazoid over Pac-Man again.
So, I rushed home at the end of the day and turned the tv on, which mom was just non-chalantly (sp) taking the game out of its box. Meanwhile I was going “get it out of the box, get it out of the box, GET IT OUT OF THE BOX DAMMIT!” Then when I powered the 2600 on my heart sank. What the hell was this? It looked odd and played odd, with the things that were changed. The REAL weird one was when you went into the escape tunnel and became invincible; as long as you didn’t see yourself making contact with a ghost, you wouldn’t die. That made no sense at all.
And at first when I called my friends about it, they were like “you got Pac-Man?”, but then when I told them about it, they were like “oh”, and their lack of enthusiasm continued once I showed it to them. They weren’t exactly impressed. Oh well, at least Haunted House turned out to be a bit more interesting and unique.
Anyway, next time I’ll go into a really bad Ti-994a game, but it’s not real long or anything, but I figured this post was though