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Controversial Retro Opinions

ScouserInExile

By ScouserInExile
in Retro & Arcade Gaming

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Qazimod

Qazimod

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, Rex Grossman said:

The home computers popular in the UK would've been 10 times better if they all had multi-button controllers (and I don't mean the keyboard).

 

But you haven't truly mastered Contra Gryzor until you've played it with one foot outstretched so that your toe could tap the space bar and allow you to jump.

 

I think the "solution" for a few games was to let you plug in another stick and have that fire button perform an additional action, but that seems a bit excessive...

 

1 hour ago, Nick R said:

They are all beat 'em ups. Yes, you can call them "fighting games", "arena fighters" or "versus fighters" if you want, but "beat 'em up" is a perfectly valid term for the genre. I resent the fact that this example of traditionally British genre naming is getting pushed out of our language by the Yanks' revisionist history! :hmm:

 

Related but not: Gradius, R-Type, Salamander and the rest of them were all called shoot 'em ups in my mind right up until some online article or thread introduced me to the word "shmup" - I've resigned myself to using it now but I still think it's nowhere near as cool, and it's pretty rubbish as a descriptor and it only really "works" because it's been driven into everyone's subconscious over several years. I still continue to call beat 'em ups "bmups" in protest.

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PaB

PaB

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Death's Head said:

We all still clock games though, right?

Thats an interesting one. "Completing a game" was relatively unheard of way back when games basically ran on an endless cycle. Hence "clocking it". THese days the opposite is true. Amost all games are expected to have an end point.

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Camel

Camel

Posted
Posted

I remember when clocking meant pushing the score beyond its maximum value so it would either start again from zero or start showing other characters.

 

Here's mine: the Virtual Boy is a great machine. The 3D effect is really good, and it has a great controller.

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cubik

cubik

Posted
Posted
On 19/02/2020 at 14:17, Lorfarius said:

I don't get Jeff Minters games, never have and always been very unimpressed every time I've tried one. Had more fun with stuff like R-Type than those Camel games.

Jeff Minter's back catalogue is the gaming equivalent of those Tops of the Pops compilation albums from the 70s & 80s that contained cover versions of hit songs.

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Zio

Zio

Posted
Posted
11 hours ago, Ketchup said:

Super Mario World is a pretty dull game. I absolutely adore Super Mario Bros 3. I remember at the time i had gotten a Mega Drive for christmas and my neighbour had gotten a Nes. Pah i got this new 16 Bit Machine with Sonic and all it's colours and he got a Nes. Still i was around there every day playing Mario Bros 3 because it was amazing but i didn't comprehend why at the time. It is one of the best games ever made.

 

Oh no... Oh no, oh no, oh no. Super Mario World is a strong contender for my favourite game of all time! Whereas I like Super Mario Bros 3, but it induces sheer rage in me at points.

 

I'm not sure if I have any truly controversial retro opinions. I guess there's a few FMV games on the Mega CD that I do quite like (I have a very large sweet spot for Sewer Shark for some reason). I guess I've never really played Final Fantasy VII... I mean I have, but I've always been bored by the time I get out of that opening power plant section. Whereas I played the shite out of Panzer Dragoon Saga and the Phantasy Star series across the Master System and the Megadrive. Also, I've never found any enjoyment anywhere in any of the Mega Man games. And I've always found Mario 64 pretty dull, even when at the time it came out.

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Camel

Camel

Posted
Posted
38 minutes ago, cubik said:

Jeff Minter's back catalogue is the gaming equivalent of those Tops of the Pops compilation albums from the 70s & 80s that contained cover versions of hit songs.

 

But there's nothing like Iridis Alpha, Batalyx or Ancipital. Which are the cover versions? Sheep In Space and Attack of the Mutant Camels I would guess? AMC even had two sequels that play like nothing else.

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cubik

cubik

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, Camel said:

 

Which are the cover versions? 

I think the most well known would be:

 

Gridrunner - Centipede

Llamatron - Robotron

Andes Attaack - Defender

Defender 2000 - Defender (this is an official cover I assume)

Lots of Tempest clones (some official, some not e.g. Space Giraffe)

 

He's done originals too, but his best known and loved work is very heavily influenced by the work of others. At least he's learned from the best!

 

(See also Archer McClean's Dropzone and many others from that era)

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Droo

Droo

Posted
Posted

Not overly controversial this one, but something happened somewhere between the Dreamcast and the 360 where a lot of the magic in gaming kinda died out for me. 
 

In themes similar to the mobile phone thread in off topic, what was once a cornucopia of originality became a bit bland and samey. 

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Clipper

Clipper

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Camel said:

 

But there's nothing like Iridis Alpha, Batalyx or Ancipital. Which are the cover versions? Sheep In Space and Attack of the Mutant Camels I would guess? AMC even had two sequels that play like nothing else.

just out of interest what is Sheep in Space a "cover" of?

 

 

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Dudley

Dudley

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Camel said:

I remember when clocking meant pushing the score beyond its maximum value so it would either start again from zero or start showing other characters.

 

Here's mine: the Virtual Boy is a great machine. The 3D effect is really good, and it has a great controller.

 

And would have been better had they not got scared of some laws and stripped its best feature before release.

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Clipper

Clipper

Posted
Posted
23 minutes ago, Camel said:

 

Defender.

hmmmmmmm i think that "cover" is fairly far removed from the original , maybe more so than Space Giraffe is from Tempest. Otherwise it gets to the point where you say any sideways scrolling save-em-up is a defender cover.

 

The only ones I think of as being pretty straight covers (barring his official Tempest and Defender games)  are

AMC is Empire Strikes back from the 2600

Andes Attack is defender

Llamatron is Robotron

 

the rest have enough extra gameplay elements and ideas that make the games either an evolution or even revolution compared to the game it is inspired by.

 

 

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cubik

cubik

Posted
Posted

Alternative Minter analogy. He’s often released titles that are the gaming equivalent of Crazy Frog does Axel F.

 

These contains the gaming equivalent of samples that aren’t actually samples, but are carefully reconstructed snippets of classics. These are then overlaid with other not wholly original but less derivative elements that are influenced by others examples of the genre.

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Clipper

Clipper

Posted
Posted
21 minutes ago, cubik said:

Alternative Minter analogy. He’s often released titles that are the gaming equivalent of Crazy Frog does Axel F.

 

These contains the gaming equivalent of samples that aren’t actually samples, but are carefully reconstructed snippets of classics. These are then overlaid with other not wholly original but less derivative elements that are influenced by others examples of the genre.

given the thread title you are most welcome to your opinion.

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S0L

S0L

Posted
Posted
12 minutes ago, cubik said:

These contains the gaming equivalent of samples that aren’t actually samples, but are carefully reconstructed snippets of classics. These are then overlaid with other not wholly original but less derivative elements that are influenced by others examples of the genre.

 

Congratulations, you just described every video game ever made. You can't level this at Jeff alone :)

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dumpster

dumpster

Posted
Posted

I loved TxK and I reckon it is Jeff Minter's crowning achievement. Like, he's been doing Tempest games for years and finally utterly nailed it with this one.  I even bought a PSTV just to play it.

 

However I was really surprised when Atari threated to take action. Not because Atari seemed heavy handed , but because I'd always assumed that Jeff had some licence or permissions from the Jaguar game.  I found it quite unbelievable that after making Tempest 2000 for Atari, he went on to keep upgrading and rereleasing the same game with no permissions and popular opinion seemed to blame Atari for being mean to Jeff.  He argued that tunnel style shooter was a genre, but Jeff's game says "superzapper recharge" etc, it IS Tempest, TxK means Tempest 10,000, it's s9 ridiculously blatant. Beggars belief.

 

Also as mentioned , Jeff uses everyone else's sound effects which surely have copyright issues. I'm not sure how he gets away with it. Even if the effects are reconstructions they sound exactly the same.  Surely he is on thin ice.

 

 

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Clipper

Clipper

Posted
Posted
38 minutes ago, dumpster said:

I loved TxK and I reckon it is Jeff Minter's crowning achievement. Like, he's been doing Tempest games for years and finally utterly nailed it with this one.  I even bought a PSTV just to play it.

 

However I was really surprised when Atari threated to take action. Not because Atari seemed heavy handed , but because I'd always assumed that Jeff had some licence or permissions from the Jaguar game.  I found it quite unbelievable that after making Tempest 2000 for Atari

 

 

 

So let us just get this out in the open now... and just be totally clear on Jeff Minter and Tempest because he has "been doing tempest games for years" and finally nailed it etc etc.

 

Here is Jeff Minter's Tempest softography

 

Tempest 2000 (1994)- a properly licensed Atari game he developed

Tempest 3000 (2000)- a Nuon game unofficial sequel and not endorsed or licensed from Atari (CORRECTION - It was Atari licensed!) - sold 20,000 copies on a defunct on delivery system.

TxK (2014)- a PSVita game which is not a licensed atari game

Tempest4000 (2018) - official PS4 Atari game

 

So two official Atari licensed games and 2 not Atari licensed games.

 

The man who only does tempest games. 4 in 26 years if you count the low selling experimental Nuon game... And between Tempest 3000 and TxK he released 13 games (as far as I recall!).

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