Being born in 1982 and being the youngest of four siblings I had an early start, especially in computer games. My oldest brother Justin was a major influence; he has always been a techno-nerd. When I was six I inherited his Spectrum 48K while he had a Commodore 64. I started playing games after the console’s second generation (Atari) and consoles were a rarity back then (Master System/NES), maybe one or per street.
Turns out I was born into a video game “crash”, where the market was getting over saturated with crap games which just weren’t making money. The flagship of these on the Atari was “E.T”, based on the hit film, apparently it cost them 125 million dollars to produce, and although was the seasonal hit – probably due to interest/hype/marketing. Although it was in the top four games (for a month) they still made a massive loss of over 100 million. Reading and seeing about the game you can only come to the same conclusion… It was shit, and they spent too much making a shit game. E.T was the tip of the ice burg though, in 1983 in North America consoles were making three-billion dollars, and in 1985 only one hundred million dollars profit. This simply means people were spending their money elsewhere, and companies just couldn’t carry on without the money. I don’t see this as a bad thing, it’s survival of the fittest and people weren’t putting up with crap games.
An “interesting” note on pricing
E.T in 1982 = 40$, Retail games today £40
Early personal computers (1980’s) $300-$1,000, Personal PCs today (average) £300-£1,000
After the crash games were still being made of course – There were many independent games attached to magazines along with demos (and sometimes full games if you were lucky), but the major market was no longer there. People thought that video games were just a fad. Personal PCs were also becoming more affordable, and more sophisticated at handling information with the ability to record information via floppy or cassette drive… Such computers as the Atari 400/800 and the Commodore VIC20. I’m speaking from personal experience about the demo tapes – I inherited my brothers spectrum collection (a briefcase of games) and magazines, this must have been around 1988.
Treasure Island Dizzy - Loved that game
There were many many many different ideas for games in this era. The “winning formula” hadn’t been created yet and it seemed every game was individual. I don’t think many games for me had much replay value, unless it was multi-player, but you could borrow your friends, buy cheap off magazines and find at car boot sales. Some games would only last a few weeks, but the value was better and I think I appreciated them more. Let’s be clear, the gaming platforms were primitive and you had to make games interesting and playable for them to work, and for me lots of modern games are more “transparent”. I’ve heard people say “Battlefield/Call of Duty is shit buy Call of Duty/Battlefield instead” that’s a load of bollocks, they both have very strong multi-player and if you like one get the other, give them both a chance.
In 1983 there was a company in Japan which created the super-popular title “Donkey Kong”, Nintendo. They released an amazingly practical console, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) which in 1985 was a massive success in North America (centre of the universe?) and brought back the video game console. PCs have their foot in the door now though… Not the exact same market but it’s got roots to grow. The jumping man from Donkey Kong (who only had a moustache because there were not enough pixels to make a convincing mouth) became Super Mario. The original Mario Brothers game was multi-platform, I had it on the spectrum. It was pretty good, it implement acceleration into the platform jumping physics and you could play two player. It was single screen levels but very fun, and was later re-presented in the later Mario games.
Over the decade video games were re-popularised, and although there were many film/TV tie-ins (Trap door being a personal fave) none were as poignant as “Robocop”. This game was pretty damn good, the film is awesome and I appreciated it’s comic book world even more today. Robocop was released on every platform including arcade and was a great success. I remember it being number one in the charts for six months running, that was a record at the time and the charts seemed to mean something then. The game was quite simple, side scrolling shooter with you as Robocop and every window is an armed thug to take out. Very similar to Shinobi but less vertical– Robocop aint no Mario and couldn’t jump much.
I actually found the case to my Robocop (1988 Ocean Games)I bought years ago for the Spectrum recently. I remember when my nana in Scotland bought it me for ten pounds. Think I’ll also always remember the first bonus level in the game. It’s taken from a scene in the film where a thug takes a lady hostage and Robocop shoots him in the nuts through her skirt (using his robotic vision). I tried this in the game and the lady dies. Hehehehe
Notes on case:
No certification
Multi-lingual, English Primary
Format cross-dressing – Only the sticker illustrates the platform,
Screen Shots from best looking platform on back (Arcade)
Screen Shots from best looking platform on back (Arcade)
With the release of the NES a company called SEGA, who started by making fruit machines released a competitor to rival it. This was the Master System. It was pretty good, and had different releases, which were often from other platforms and original titles. They had their own character to Rival Mario later on (early nineties). The games didn’t play the same, but were both platform games aimed at the same audience and presented as vibrant smooth cartoon-esque and awesome. Nintendo seemed to stick close to the Japanese origins and do not make mature games. I really appreciate that and their consoles have a good social aspect and make “game” games, which are to play together mostly.
The NES was later packaged with an excellent game built in, which I could still play today. I’m on about Duck Hunt, the laser accuracy is on par with the G-Con (Namco brand gun to use with PlayStations primarily for Time Crisis)and could play with my step dad… Who was a pretty good shot. This is a good example of a Nintendo game – Simple, accessible, clean, fun… No sub-plot, politics or history. The NES pad is also the daddy of the thumb controller on joypads, this became known as the D-pad or directional pad. Sony a decade later released its “Dual Analogue” controller which has become an evolution and the standard.
Just so you know, playing that close to the screen is classed as cheating in my book
These consoles gave the audience an affordable and often superior alternative to a PC. Added to the fact you don’t have to load the games and it was easy to use. On the spectrum you had to prompt the unit to load the game, wait five minutes with bit noise while it loaded and buy a joystick converter if you wanted to use a joystick (people didn’t use keyboards so much then and was scary). The popularity was so profitable that more money could be used to confidently make games. It’s a double edged sword as we also lose a lot of diversity.
It’s the start of the Sega/Nintendo market which they dominated into the mid-nineties when Playstation cropped up. But that’s for another post
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