Home Game Poll vol. 1 (1984-1992): Nominate the best NES, Master System, etc console games ever (Nom deadline: September 8th)

We had a BBC Micro because we were posh. I loved it.

The fuck is an MSX?

Castle Of Illusion was such a great game on both MS and Megadrive. The music itself was excellent, but it was also the first game I remember playing with hidden walls and secret rooms.

Yeah, I think separate poll makes the most sense. Otherwise things will place lower or higher depending on which side of the Atlantic the most votes come from.

And MSX is the home computer Konami made games for before they were like "oh right famicom, lol"

UK-perspective-xposts: I saw a Game Boy before I saw any of the plug-into-TV consoles and the Game Boy was only available here in late '90; I'd seen the NES/Master System listed in the Argos catalogue before that but nobody I knew had one until '91

iirc the UK missed out on 3rd gen until it was more or less over: the NES wasn't a big deal here in the 80s, as Nintendo didn't have a European branch then and were distributed here by Mattel, who were good at shifting those Donkey Kong handhelds but didn't know what to do with a full console system. The Master System came out much later and didn't do much for a while but apparently did better in Europe than anywhere else, because of Nintendo dropping the ball over here - but I still only really remember seeing Master System games in the shops from around '90, when the Mega Drive came out here and the Master System was rebranded into the cheaper Master System II

Around that time Nintendo finally discovered Europe and the NES became reasonably popular long after its Japan/US peak. I do remember SMB3 drawing a crowd at parties in the early 90s and being all point-missingly "pfft, Elf on the Amiga has much better graphics!" <facepalm.jpg>

anyway I guess Acorn/BBC vs ZX Spectrum vs C64 was the main thing in the UK; Amiga/ST feel like 4th gen, can't believe the Amiga is 30 years old now, so far ahead of everything else in '85 that it feels like nobody knew what to do with the Amiga for at least another few years. wondering if PC games can be split into generations by graphics card (Hercules/CGA/maybe Tandy and EGA vs VGA) but of course there were EGA games long after VGA came out. happy with separate poll tbh

huh I had always thought that MSX was Master System in the way that people would refer to the original PlayStation as PSX

i remember that NES spinny-robot disc system thing being advertised on TV a lot in the 80s, to the point where it wasn't really obvious that it was actually an add-on to a games console.

The side-of-the-Atlantic thing will obtain no matter what, it seems like - comments upthread would seem to suggest the Master System (which I basically didn't even know existed, as a US kid) was a bigger deal in the UK than the NES was. And no matter what poll ends up having them, Spectrum is going to be a UK thing and PC games a US thing. Maybe C64 and Amiga straddle that divide; the C64 was effectively my main "gaming machine" in this era, even though we also had an NES!

I've already offered this spiel on the other thread, but for the record I do think it makes sense to get "computer" games in alongside these, unless ILX really has enough interested parties that a series of "computer" polls wouldn't be too short of votes. As before, I think it makes sense to base the years of the poll on console "generations," and then apply the same years to computer games, rather than trying to match up the computer generations ("Apple II goes with Atari, Amiga goes with Nintendo...").

There is not much from a DOS perspective. You basically have LucasArts/Sierra graphic adventures and that's it.

This is mostly true, though I'd always rep for Commander Keen, et al., not to mention other things that played to the hardware strengths of PCs. MUDs and RPGs especially. I could see this both ways though - - - does it make more sense to compare Ultima V to Final Fantasy I, or to Skyrim?

I had a master system it was awesome

I guess people say this all the time but I still lol that there was a game system called Amiga

I'm chuckling at that "Elf" vs. SMB3 story myself - - - kinda sums up my exact stereotype of an Amiga devotee.

I'm wondering if we should open the door to unofficial/unlicensed/unsanctioned games. I know there was a smattering of unofficial NES cartridges released, some of which presumably had fans? I ask mostly because I just remembered how much I used to love the C64 version of Super Mario Brothers (which was a hacked version of the already borderline-illegitimate Great Giana Sisters).

I pretty much only remember these things once someone nominates them but:

Shinobi
Batman Returns

(Probably both slightly shitty platfomers tbh but I liked them then)

This is mostly true, though I'd always rep for Commander Keen, et al., not to mention other things that played to the hardware strengths of PCs. MUDs and RPGs especially. I could see this both ways though - - - does it make more sense to compare Ultima V to Final Fantasy I, or to Skyrim?

― Gorefest Frump (Doctor Casino), Monday, August 10, 2015 12:33 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah that comment I made earlier kind of ignores the huge CRPG history which is responsible for spurring the RPG console thing, which has really seeped into any and every game adopting those concepts.

CRPG Addict is still going strong in his insane quest to play every CRPG in release order and is up ato 1984: http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/

I want to highly recommend this recent Castlevania 2 remake for ZX Spectrum: http://spectralinterlude.com/

I had Ultima VI and played some of Underworld but was never really into the dungeon crawlers. Compared to Skyrim it has all the basic systems in place (I know VII is the one where you can bake bread and stuff) and a HUGE open world. I would've killed for quest markers and an automated task sheet at the time.

CRPG Addict is really great, love that site. A serious cut above most longform blogs that I've seen on gaming - clear commentary and analysis and not just recaps. (Frankly I could still do with less recapping, but I know it's what a lot of people go there for.)

Ultima 7 (including Serpent Isle) was my favorite by a long shot, but probably precisely because of all its failings as a CRPG - the combat and magic become laughable, so it's pretty much a wandering-around adventure game. Today, I'd probably be much more into a more tactical, controlled combat thing for the sake of the challenge, but I was impatient and clumsy with things like that as a kid, apart from the first FF, which I got very into.

I dunno I played gobs of flight sims and baseball and lots of shareware (Janitor Joe 4eva) on PC in those years, def not dry years.

Yeah, speaking of flight sims, Wing Commander I (1990) and II (1991) are also pretty key pre-Wolfenstein action games. I also logged a lot of time in A-10 Tank Killer, but that was more because we had it than because it was any good.

Maybe more crucial: SimCity (1989) and Civilization (1990) - amazing, genre-defining games on a totally different track from what was happening on consoles.

Maybe we should do an old-school PC/ZX/MSX home computer game poll? My only request is the cutoff be 1993 so DOOM can be in.

An interesting puzzler - what would be the cutoff for "old school" with home computer games? On instinct I'm thinking "pre-Quake" or "pre-Diablo" in terms of a major shift in aesthetics, interfaces, graphics cards, popularity of certain genres, increasing relevance of online play (or at least LAN parties) as a thing, etc. Those are both 1996, which feels right in terms of the evaporation of Sierra as a relevant concern a year or two before, and the last really great traditional sprite games (X-Com, Master of Magic) coming out in 1994... real changing of the guard. I guess Civ2 is '96.

Windows (95+) required

Doom was really the game-changer, no?

Released prior to Windows 95 has a nice clarity to it (August 24, 1995). Obviously with any such thing you'll quickly run into a "You call that old-school!?" kind of deal and again it becomes pretty difficult to rank Monkey Island II vs. Zork, or DOOM vs. Alley Cat (btw maybe the only CGA game I would ever recommend to anybody).

DOOM was definitely game-changing but as a cut-off it does feel weird since the game didn't change instantly and there's so many great games in the following few years that have way more in common with 1990 than 1997. I dunno, I guess there's a case for 1993 (DOOM, Myst).

surprised that Myst is the same year as Doom. in the end i'd argue that the former's legacy didn't really go anywhere but it feels like an historical moment when something shifted

For this poll release of SNES makes more sense for PC cutoff imo. Quake is N64 era no?

Also so Britishers didn't really know SMB? weird

Sounds like that shit was already a cartoon and a breakfast cereal over here before it got much traction in the UK.

Just in case anyone hasn't engaged in the fascinating time sink that is Chrontendo
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRXRxTxAgO0exLF2bTgcHCzJ-kIaVn4By

Nintendo was a niche thing here until the SNES took off with Street Fighter II

Might be better to do console generations then computer games (ie "home computers" and PC) by decade

xp Every Nintendo game (Japan/US/UK) released from 83 to 89

yeah thankfully myst itself was a dead end, and most of the people who bought it went on to buy not much else in the way of games. but the "wow" factor of the prerendered graphics had a big impact, i think. if you were a game developer, there had to be pressure from the owners or whoever, "this thing is selling like hotcakes, why aren't we doing that?" hard to separate out from the CD-ROM video-clip games thing generally though - The 7th Guest is also '93. wonder if anybody rates that as worth a damn now.

@ Euler, if the PC stuff is in the same polls with the consoles, I'd lobby for holding back the years to more track the heydays of the systems that are defining the "generations" in question. so yeah, release of SNES would make sense as the 'end' for the current poll. so then DOOM et al are up against SNES, not spectrum games and Duck Hunt. seems right IMO. OTOH clearly 7th Guest should be up against, say, Night Trap, but nobody in their right mind is going to vote for either game so i don't think that should be an issue.

i get the simplicity of decades, but that gets goofy too in its way. 89/90 games have wayyyyyy more to do with each other than 90/99 games. also if the PC games are their own series it starts to be a heck of a lot of polls.

If we do it this way Doom is up against Sopwith, I think that may be "goofy"

riven is the mystlike you need: a masterpiece in a bastard genre.

the game-changer was actually probably ultima underworld: invents both doom and elder scrolls at the same time.

xpost not sure which "this way" that is? the scenario i'm describing would put the cutoff at release of the SNES, so sopwith (83) and DOOM (93) would not be in the same poll.

"windows required" and "released prior to windows 95" are actually two different things; for a while there everything had a dos installer and a win installer. the former is a right-feeling cutoff, to me, but of course absurdly fiddly to check.

i am with dc tho it seems easy to fold pc games into the console gens.

Yeah after hitting submit I realised I'd put Doom instead of Wolfenstein, Sopwith is '84 btw

Windows 95 seems a good cutoff because of DirectX and the creeping compulsory 3D card, I know these games often had DOS installers but given the choice

"windows required" and "released prior to windows 95" are actually two different things

should obv be "released after"

re platformers, yes the apogee/epic stuff (even jazz jackrabbit) is very store-brand, but remember that prince of persia was a pc game

There's a general "look" to these turn-of-the-millenium PC games - this, Diablo, Baldur's Gate - that is just incredibly off-putting to me. I don't know how to describe it...other examples would include Age of Empires, Ultima Online, and to a lesser extent Ultima 8 (which has plenty of other problems to worry about). It's not the ugliness of polygons (another scourge of the late 90s) but something else. Not sure why it connotes "boring, tedious game" but it does.

― Doctor Casino, Saturday, May 3, 2008 6:02 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Mrs Vague complains about the "stupid little people that you can't see properly" aspect of those games.

― Noodle Vague, Saturday, May 3, 2008 6:04 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ i always think about this post when trying to describe the aesthetic of PC games in the later 90s. i mean everything just looks bad to my eyes, compared to the bright happy colorful VGA world that was still going as of 1994. this is related to (but not entirely reducible to) the polygon-happiness that was also present (though way more destructive to console gaming) in the same years. i'm happy to blame whatever culprit - Win95, CD-ROM ubiquity, DirectX, Myst, Quake, 3dfx chips - but in general the more i think about it the more it does feel to me like the shift is right around 1994/95.

which also works out for a "generation"-based poll oddly enough: saturn and PSX are christmas 1994 releases. (dunno what to do about jaguar and 3DO coming out the year before - makes for a really narrow chunk of time, not to mention giving a lot of weight to two very unpopular systems even though SNES and Genesis were clearly still the kings of the scene. although i guess it does put all the aforementioned bad CD-ROM games up against each other.

oh and i just remembered another world/out of this world. yall platform snobs should remember another world.

i revisited 7th Guest a couple of years back and i still like its vibe! even tho objectively it's not much of a game - a far simpler Fool's Errand with some unnecessary whistles and bells. fun to remember when shit like that actually felt magical to me tho

the "stupid little people" genre not polygon-heavy at all: diablo, baldur's gate, aoe are all just cramped lil sprites. if anything it's the twilight of the sprite era: what happens when hardware+ambition start to push past the level of detail the medium was designed to realize. personally this style is right in my nostalgic sweet spot tho.

it's the isometric era i guess: that's what all those games have in common. "2.5d" lol.

the graphics don't bother me really - tho i totally understand what Nom hated about them. my issue ultimately was with bullshit Peter Molyneux games that played themselves better without my input. Black Isle are fine by me - tho i rarely feel like revisiting them now

really it's "stupid little people running about under their own agenda and fuck knows what they're supposed to be doing"

cdn't drag myself into Dungeon Master either. at least Diablo has (numbingly) comprehensible gameplay

this is the point in the convo where i realise i've been more of a VR tourist than a gamer for the last 30 years

doom couldn't even run right on a SNES, seems weird to put it in the same category as NES.

Dungeon Keeper i meant

god console Doom was hopeless yeah

Out of This World looked soooooo good in 1991. i never got more than a couple of screens in. I think it was secretly Dragon's Lair in terms of its difficulty and how it "worked" but it was really lovely. If you squint and imagine that its polygons are pixellated edges it could pass for a critically-lauded indie game in 2015 - more atmosphere, exploration, and contemplating the environment, with the Prince of Persia aspects of it that felt really strong in 1991 now seeming like its weak points. watching video now and i'm struck by all these other connections. the emphasis on the sound of footsteps, with no background music, and riding elevator platforms up and down, makes it feel like friggin' Impossible Mission.

xposts re: the Diablo look - right, that's what i was getting at - there's a major graphical shift, less heralded, that's happening at the same time as the polygon thing was going bonkers in other games, and affecting PC games in the way that polygons were affecting consoles. (though obv there are also polygonal PC games happening!) definitely 2.5d, definitely cramped little sprites. the other game referred to in my quote above is planescape: torment. so yeah, i agree - it's just pushing the resolution of sprites so high, and the range of colors so "realistic," that actually the games (for me) stop having the same cozy pick-up-and-play fun factor. like i really don't want to click on all that little stuff!

at the same time, games that strove for "cartoony" actually started looking worse for some reason. probably art departments getting slashed or redirected to the tiny-people games, leaving nobody behind to punch up the line weights and give the animation real smoothness. monkey island III maybe the only noteworthy exception. flagship-series games king's quest VII and space quest VI (94 and 95 respectively) look like the CD:I Zelda games ffs.

(ha opening a top-100 list from years ago it turns out 1996-2000 on the pc is just about my most totemic era: deus ex, alpha centauri, the last express, starcraft, master of orion 2, worms armageddon, black isle games, system shock 2, riven.)

Prince of Persia originally an Apple II game, something else Britishers m/l missed out on in the 80s despite Apple dominating the US computing scene of the time.

How different was the PC SimCity from the NES one? I remember being surprised how much they'd fitted in to the NES one but SC2000 was the first version I actually owned.

Wd rep for Commander Keen, Captain Comic (also had a NES version! which I never played), Digger, Populous, Ultima Underworld, all the Lucasarts adventures, and all the old hokey Sierra AGI games... and probably a whole lot of other things I've forgotten. Doom may have invented PC gaming for a lot of people but it almost killed it for me for a good while as I never really liked FPSes (sure I played Wolfenstein and Doom a lot though) and by the mid-90s they'd almost wiped out all the pixelly 2d platformers, god sims and point+click adventures I liked.

(suddenly nostalgic for a post-Myst shareware Windows pointy-clicky thing I played with raytraced static graphics, sliding block puzzles and I guess Stargate-ish abandoned ancient Egyptian spaceship kinda theme. I wonder what the hell that even was. p. sure it had basically no gameplay but I'd like to see its reflective marble halls again)

xps funny, I'd put the isometric era around the turn of the 90s, I guess. Populous, Cadaver, D*Generation, A-Train, a bunch of RPGs... plus there were plenty of isometric 80s Spectrum games (Head Over Heels, Highway Encounter, my pet nostalgic memory Amaurote...). All the fun of guessing whether the "up" arrow is going to take you up-left through the doorway or up-right into the pit of spikes.

more xposts

(suddenly nostalgic for a post-Myst shareware Windows pointy-clicky thing I played with raytraced static graphics, sliding block puzzles and I guess Stargate-ish abandoned ancient Egyptian spaceship kinda theme. I wonder what the hell that even was. p. sure it had basically no gameplay but I'd like to see its reflective marble halls again)

beyond time?