DieHARD GamePOLL - Console Poll, vol. 3 - 5th Generation RESULTS

BLAST CORPS made the lower stretches of my ballot, even though i didn't get to play it much myself. i watched a friend of mine play it for many hours, though, and it takes the demolition thrill of something like Rampage and updated it to a city scale with 3D graphics. I'm not sure how it would stand up today, but at the time it was mesmerizing to watch

https://i.imgur.com/CtaEm2K.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/s0e0zrb.jpg
40 - Bust a Groove - 189 points / 4 Votes

LOL how many ads did the belly tat thing I wonder

yes it's a bust a groove 2 advertisement but (a) i couldn't find one for bust a groove 1 and (b) i thought it was funny that it was literally the exact same ad as um jammer lammy

xp lol yep

I know this is the most basic observation about this generation, but it's still remarkable how futuristic it felt at the time, while also having aged the worst out of any video game generation ever. 8 bit & 16 bit is evergreen, and lots of PS2/Xbox games still look great to me, but these are just so fantastically ugly for the most part.

xp omg these ads

I enjoy the weirdness and colorfulness of this gen, 3D was still new tech and there it seems like there were a lot of devs trying throwing ideas against the wall to see what would stick. It seems like gaming became more conservative in the ps2/xbox era (I could be wrong about this, because that was the start of my basically 10-15 year hiatus from gaming)

It's true that a lot of these games are ugly, but they're ugly in such an *interesting* way

There's another ad that I sadly have no memory of what game it was from but it was some kind of fighting game featuring a woman with like, mostly white/orange/blue clothes? Possibly a backwards baseball cap and a bandage on her nose? And the add for that one definitely heavily focused on her midriff, and it was the first time in my life I had ever seen what I have heard described as "Australian cleavage"

The game was probably trash, but that ad was frozen in my mind forever

PDS, PD zwei and grandia are still beautiful

dreamcast was when 3d graphics crossed the threshold to good enough

speaking of horny ad campaigns

https://i.imgur.com/om6T4it.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/kxg6ftc.jpg
39 - Tomb Raider - 193 points / 5 Votes

i didn't pick any of them but the most egregious ads i saw while going through were the ones that essentially sold the gameshark as "we don't have he nude code yet but we're working on it"!!!

phwoar!

Too high?

here are a few cheat-code-device ads from the era and in my memory they were ALL LIKE THIS

too high. i need to give the more modern tomb raider series a chance, maybe (although...is it like Uncharted? because i didn't enjoy that), but i stopped playing after 2 because i just wasn't having much fun.

signed,

harshly critical prepubescent 15-year-old me

I enjoy the weirdness and colorfulness of this gen, 3D was still new tech and there it seems like there were a lot of devs trying throwing ideas against the wall to see what would stick. It seems like gaming became more conservative in the ps2/xbox era (I could be wrong about this, because that was the start of my basically 10-15 year hiatus from gaming)

― american primitive stylophone (zchyrs), Thursday, November 12, 2020 10:44 AM bookmarkflaglink

It's true that a lot of these games are ugly, but they're ugly in such an *interesting* way

― american primitive stylophone (zchyrs), Thursday, November 12, 2020 10:44 AM bookmarkflaglink

strongly agree w this but also think the flagshippy brown-and-grey "realism" stuff has aged the worst-- like resident evil and tomb raider tbh.

It's true that a lot of these games are ugly, but they're ugly in such an *interesting* way

― american primitive stylophone (zchyrs), Thursday, November 12, 2020 3:44 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is almost certainly a "correlation does not equal causation" thing but i always felt that the PS2 era had a console that tried to looked like a sleek, adult stereo hifi device and software that attempted to look like sleek, adult hifi stereo video games

i need to give the more modern tomb raider series a chance, maybe (although...is it like Uncharted? because i didn't enjoy that)

it definitely shares a lot of dna with the uncharted games but includes more open world stuff? the only modern tomb raider i beat was the first one and i found it more appealing than uncharted but i think the reason was because i liked lara's growth vs drake's lack thereof. but also the entire game is pretty much protagonist torture porn which was pretty offputting

https://i.imgur.com/bYnWQe4.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/h2FRpTx.jpg
38 - Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver - 194 points / 3 Votes

most of those gameshark/related ads are about what you'd expect from the fin de siècle 13yo-boy-directed marketing of a product whose slogan is "abuse the power", but the condom one doesn't even make sense.

holy shit idk why i didn't look this up before but there are a bunch of high quality scans of pretty much every issue of gamepro just... available for download on the internet. awesome

I definitely binged BLAST CORPS when my brother’s N64 was home for a summer. Such a great and satisfying concept for a game, amazing it’s never been re-done. There were a few hitches in it – one of the vehicles is nigh impossible to reliably control IIRC – but man: “you’ve got to go knock down everything in the path of this runaway truck” is such a great stupid idea.

BUST-A-GROOVE was a one-weekend rental with a buddy when I was staying over at his place, we just rocked it. I’m pretty sure it’s the most basic rhythm game imaginable, you just have to follow the moves at the exact right times, nothing else to it – but the soundtrack was fun enough that I ended up downloading MP3s and burning a CD of it. The hamburger guy’s “very very very very very very good!” song cracked us up at the time.

The other funny thing with the ads is how teeny tiny the screenshots are in so many of them. Like so much space given to some dumb photo shoot, and loud edgy “your parents won’t like THIS” ad copy, and then only the barest hint of what playing the thing would be like.

It’s interesting thinking about the experimental vs. ugly aspects of the period’s aesthetics --- 99% Invisible just did a podcast about Geocities and had people talking about the pink on yellow palettes and all of that, I think there was a willingness to be loud in 90s digital aesthetics which would have been great if the games could only just look a little more polished. Some titles in the next generation pull this off a lot better, like Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi.

most of those gameshark/related ads are about what you'd expect from the fin de siècle 13yo-boy-directed marketing of a product whose slogan is "abuse the power", but the condom one doesn't even make sense.

― difficult listening hour, Thursday, November 12, 2020 4:04 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

what are you talking about?! only a gameshark can prevent STDs (sword-transmitted dismemberment)!

my god if i went back in time and worked for gameshark's marketing department i'd be making hundreds of dollars

https://www.outofprintarchive.com/

I didn't vote for TOMB RAIDER because I only played it on PC, which I gather is different mainly in terms of the save-point system? The PC one is a really great game; Life and Times of Video Games has a nice 2-part episode about the history and the game-design philosophy, and how the 3D grid, though somewhat clunky, meant you could basically do a fair old-school puzzle game, like Lolo or something - your move set is clear, your options are clear. Some of it has probably aged better than other aspects but I think they really did hit on something in this title, and we have to remember that along with Mario 64 it was basically the first convincing attempt at a 3D platformer and what that might be like.

SOUL REAVER I played the shit out of my freshman year of college. I really liked the exploration/environment aspect of it. Even bad 3D games of this era, like ULTIMA IX, could satisfy me if I got to go wandering around and find a sunken city with a tower rising up out of a grotto into a shadowy canyon, and figure out how to jump and climb up to the top. That kinda thing. I don't remember as many specific encounters/locations/events in Soul Reaver so it ended up not doing quite so hot on my ballot, but it definitely had atmosphere.

https://i.imgur.com/JBfkkHp.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/oMb54qJ.jpg
37 - Street Fighter Alpha 3 - 196 points / 4 Votes

best announcer voice in video game history

READY FIGHTERS GO FOR BROKE
STREET FIGHTER ALPHA 3

i have never once played this one in arcade but i definitely spent plenty of time on the ps1 version getting destroyed by my friend who actually owned it

in fact it wasn't until playing SFIII third strike on the PS2 that i actually decided to "main" someone (iirc it was yang and ken)

IT ALL DEPENDS ON YOUR SKILL!

i have never reallllly kept up with the competitive fighting-game scene but am i correct in remembering that this game was kind of not really held up to the same degree as SF2, SF3, SF4 etc.? why was that? was it grossly unbalanced or something? i absolutely remember loving it, maybe more than any other fighter, but that was largely due to the art and animation and the fact that i could beat the computer sometimes

Internet Archive is always a good place for old computer mags
https://archive.org/search.php?query=gamepro

misheard announcer lines: basic strength! hey come on, santa!

https://i.imgur.com/PnoE7lc.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/dWyfQLc.jpg
36 - Tekken 3 - 197 points / 4 Votes

TEKKEN 3 was a tough last minute cut from my ballot (especially in favor of stuff like BLAST CORPS which i barely played), but i will always fondly remember my time spent playing that game.

https://i.imgur.com/cIxXsCS.jpg

the combination of a standard issue ripped wrestler man template with the photorealistic head of a surprised jaguar

what is King

i feel like i remember reading the backstory for king and he was just like, a lucha libre dude with a mask, and they made no reference to the fact that it was like literally a jaguar's head that could move

i could be misremembering though!

https://i.imgur.com/Us2eY5V.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Rfi7Kou.jpg
35 - Wipeout 3 aka Wip3out - 200 points / 1 First-place vote / 4 Votes

(once again i have opted for the wrong game's ad due to how iconic it was, this ad caused a lot of controversy!!)

apologies if at some point i forget to post for several minutes at a time, i am going down a 90s game mag rabbit hole

I was a high voter for Tekken 3 and SF Alpha, both of which I've been playing a bunch the last few weeks.

https://i.imgur.com/1H6JZVU.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/UuOxz1q.png
34 - Vib Ribbon - 207 points / 6 Votes

i think this is the first game i ever saw on a chipped PS1. i wonder how much a working chipped ps1 would run me these days!

https://i.imgur.com/MwKfOpU.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/OaCGQ0f.jpg
33 - Star Control II - 216 points / 1 First-place vote / 3 Votes

TOO LOW

fgti to thread! :)

i am sorry, captain. if i told you more, you would look where you could not look before. and while looking, you can and will be seen. you do not want to be seen. the androsynth went looking, and something saw them.

what a coincidence, captain. i had itchy pods this morning, and now here you are.