In the early 1980s there was a small (by modern standards anyway) British software and games development company called Imagine. They were renowned for developing very high quality entertainment for the early 8 bit computers like the Vic 20 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum. I remember playing many of these games. Arcadia was a personal favorite at the time, and I would look out for the Imagine name on any game, effectively knowing I was getting a AAA release.
Imagine had an idea that was unheard of at the time. They decided to release games (6 were planned) that would be developed as "Mega Games". Effectively they would be games so large and accomplished and fleshed out that you would for all intents and purposes never need to buy another game. They were supposed to be the ultimate games, an entire world to lose yourself in which would cover many genres and gameplay styles.
Volumes have been written about Imagine and the Mega Games, as the crash and demise of Imagine happened to occur very publicly, with the BBC busy filming a documentary at the time based on Britains fledgling games industry and focusing on the meteoric rise of Imagine. The whole mess was fully filmed and documented and is easily researched on the net. I highly recommend it for anyone with even a passing interest in games, business or soap opera.
The naivety and sheer arrogance of their Mega Game undertaking was a ridiculously short sighted for the time. For even though Imagine was a rising company at the top of their game, it would have taken massive resources well beyond their scope to achieve even a quarter of what they envisioned.
Last night I sat playing Far Cry 4 on my shiny new Xbox One. I bought it online for $10, and memories of the so called Mega Game came to mind right after finishing the prologue. Because the modern equivalent of the Mega Game is the open world, sandbox game which we have all come to take for granted.
Many Mega Games get released every year now. From Grand Theft Auto to Fallout to Far Cry to Saints Row, and hundreds more in between. These games exist today because the nature and scale of the publishing industry has changed dramatically. Back in 1984, Imagine would have spent $1 million to develop the game and tried to sell 50k to 100k copies of the Mega Game, in the hopes of covering development costs. Today Activision can bankroll a title like Destiny to the tune of half a billion dollars, and then quickly recover these costs within a day or two of a titles release. With DLC and micro transactions, these Mega Games can go on to make billions over a year or two.
But I hate Mega Games. There, I have said it.
The idea of making a game so big, so all encompassing and so realistic that it imitates life and allows you to get lost in a fantasy world is both its attraction and its downfall. If I wanted a sandbox where anything was possible, I would go outside and play in the real world.
I first experienced this phenomenon when I bought Elder Scrolls Oblivion on Xbox 360. This was my first exposure to a true Mega Game. They gave me a world where ANYTHING was possible. They asked me to go out into their universe and live my life like I wanted. Speak to anyone, do anything, go anywhere. It was an engineering marvel. And it was boring as hell.
Games need to be fantastic, entertaining and to the point. If I want to ride a car fast, I should be able to buy a game that allows me to drive a car fast. I should not need to buy a game that allows me to live in a world where I can be anything I want, and within this world I can decide to one day walk to a car dealership, buy a car, find an underground racing league after I level up to 30, then ask for a race. That's a chore. That's boring.
I will play Far Cry 4. I will struggle through the mundane moments of pointless travel, stupid conversations that add nothing to the story, and idiotic loot gathering (thank God there is fast travel). I will most notably enjoy the action sequences. And I will probably feel a measure of satisfaction and accomplishment when I see the credits roll. BUT everything in between is over-production. Its just not necessary.
Imagine was probably my favorite games company from the early 80s, and they will forever be known to the world as the company that went bust on TV. But to me, they were the genesis of the open world, sandbox, do-it-all Mega Game. And for that they cannot be forgiven. Damn you Imagine, damn you...
Thursday 28 January 2016
Wednesday 27 January 2016
The fog of... the 80s
A long time ago, in a far away place (actually it was about 1987 in my local arcade) there was a great disturbance in the force. The Darkside was luring impressionable youngsters to part with their allowances by creating experiences so tactile and realistic, that kids everywhere were succumbing to this evil empire. (and yes, by this I mean Sega made kick-ass coin ops which were so addictive they almost literally stole your 20c coins). But enough with the Star Wars already (note: Sega made the best Star Wars coin op games too!). ENOUGH!
Outrun, Afterburner, Thunderblade and Power Drift. Power Drift! This was the game that enthralled me, occupied my every thought and dream for years after I first saw it at my local tenpin bowling alley. It was so vibrant, so realistic, so LOUD. And in my naivety I pondered that it would be impossible for any game to EVER be better than the lauded Power Drift.
Of course, a large part of my assumption was based on the fact that the gulf at the time between a $50k arcade machine and my humble $99 word processing/come gimped-for-games Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k was lets say rather large. To try to convert an arcade experience to hardware which was often 50 or 100 times less powerful than its source was foolhardy at best. But fools are made every day, and so we lapped up these games whose genetic and cosmetic resemblance to their Arcade parents began and ended with games' name on the printed sleeve of the box the tape came in. None of the digital content provided could ever be mistaken for the property it was trying to replicate. And it never really helped that these arcade conversions were often rushed out the door and awarded to the lowest bidding programmer to save on development costs. Games were often so unfinished that later levels were not included or so buggy they were un-finishable. Which didn't matter as you had lost interest and returned to the arcade for your next Sega fix long before you realized your home conversion was terminally broken.
Lust over these 80s arcade behemoths and the idea that we would never be able to truly own our dreams only added to the mystique. Even as time marched on, home hardware never really seemed to be catching up to the quarter crunchers. Every step forward seemed only to add substance to the myth that the gap would never be truly traversed.
The 80s became the 90s, and 8 bit turned to 16 bit and then 32 bit. And before the millennium was truly upon us, I was able to finally be able to try out an almost perfect version of Power Drift at home, courtesy of a Sega Ages compilation on Sega's powerful but sales deficient Saturn console. I had looked forward to that moment for so long, that on loading the game I had the suspicion that life was never going to get any better, that the moment in time I was about to experience was going to be the benchmark for every future life defining event.
The game booted, and it WAS arcade perfect. It was everything I remembered from the arcade back in the 80s. For that moment I was happy, content that finally I was able to own what I had craved after for so long.
I played for about 30 minutes, then put another game in my Sega and never played Power Drift again. I lost my Saturn in a move in 2002, and never bothered to download Power Drift when I bought a new Saturn a few years later.
More recently, I had the chance to download 3D Outrun on the Nintendo 3DS, the quintessential conversion at 60fps with stereoscopic 3D thrown in for good measure. And I did, a day one purchase to capture my dream of owning the ultimate 80s arcade experience. And I played it for about a half an hour, then loaded up the new Zelda and continued dungeon crawling for the rest of the evening.
There was something absolutely mesmerizing about the 80s. A level of sheen, a degree of bling, a coat of cosmetic vibrancy that was far larger than life, far deeper than the product it covered and often masked. It permeated through the 80s culture, and went much further than the technology constrained game and IT industry. It came out in their music, their fashion their movies and their ideals. It was Madonna, Michael Jackson, Flock of Seagulls and David Bowie. It was Top Gun, The Breakfast club, Thriller and Ghostbusters. It was piano ties and Family Ties, it was skateboarding, skater clothes and Back to the Future. Every one a classic but also hard to quantify.
"never meet your heroes". "we look back through rose tinted glasses". There are so many idioms to explain this phenomena. We should save our precious and often hard earned cash when we know that owning a piece of the past, a relic of our childhood, "the arcade in your home" is simply a marketing ploy trying to part you from your money through nostalgia value and the fog of the 80s.
And now Nintendo and Sega have announced that they are releasing a retro compilation for the first time in the west, which will include a 60fps 3D stereoscopic enhanced version of that classic 80s hit, Power Drift. I know what will happen when I re-acquaint myself with my hero. I am assured of a bout of disappointment or indifference at best. I have been down this road before, it always ends the same way.
And yet here I am, logged in on my favorite game site, pre-order at the ready. Damn you, fog of the 80s, damn you to hell...
Outrun, Afterburner, Thunderblade and Power Drift. Power Drift! This was the game that enthralled me, occupied my every thought and dream for years after I first saw it at my local tenpin bowling alley. It was so vibrant, so realistic, so LOUD. And in my naivety I pondered that it would be impossible for any game to EVER be better than the lauded Power Drift.
Of course, a large part of my assumption was based on the fact that the gulf at the time between a $50k arcade machine and my humble $99 word processing/come gimped-for-games Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k was lets say rather large. To try to convert an arcade experience to hardware which was often 50 or 100 times less powerful than its source was foolhardy at best. But fools are made every day, and so we lapped up these games whose genetic and cosmetic resemblance to their Arcade parents began and ended with games' name on the printed sleeve of the box the tape came in. None of the digital content provided could ever be mistaken for the property it was trying to replicate. And it never really helped that these arcade conversions were often rushed out the door and awarded to the lowest bidding programmer to save on development costs. Games were often so unfinished that later levels were not included or so buggy they were un-finishable. Which didn't matter as you had lost interest and returned to the arcade for your next Sega fix long before you realized your home conversion was terminally broken.
Lust over these 80s arcade behemoths and the idea that we would never be able to truly own our dreams only added to the mystique. Even as time marched on, home hardware never really seemed to be catching up to the quarter crunchers. Every step forward seemed only to add substance to the myth that the gap would never be truly traversed.
The 80s became the 90s, and 8 bit turned to 16 bit and then 32 bit. And before the millennium was truly upon us, I was able to finally be able to try out an almost perfect version of Power Drift at home, courtesy of a Sega Ages compilation on Sega's powerful but sales deficient Saturn console. I had looked forward to that moment for so long, that on loading the game I had the suspicion that life was never going to get any better, that the moment in time I was about to experience was going to be the benchmark for every future life defining event.
The game booted, and it WAS arcade perfect. It was everything I remembered from the arcade back in the 80s. For that moment I was happy, content that finally I was able to own what I had craved after for so long.
I played for about 30 minutes, then put another game in my Sega and never played Power Drift again. I lost my Saturn in a move in 2002, and never bothered to download Power Drift when I bought a new Saturn a few years later.
More recently, I had the chance to download 3D Outrun on the Nintendo 3DS, the quintessential conversion at 60fps with stereoscopic 3D thrown in for good measure. And I did, a day one purchase to capture my dream of owning the ultimate 80s arcade experience. And I played it for about a half an hour, then loaded up the new Zelda and continued dungeon crawling for the rest of the evening.
There was something absolutely mesmerizing about the 80s. A level of sheen, a degree of bling, a coat of cosmetic vibrancy that was far larger than life, far deeper than the product it covered and often masked. It permeated through the 80s culture, and went much further than the technology constrained game and IT industry. It came out in their music, their fashion their movies and their ideals. It was Madonna, Michael Jackson, Flock of Seagulls and David Bowie. It was Top Gun, The Breakfast club, Thriller and Ghostbusters. It was piano ties and Family Ties, it was skateboarding, skater clothes and Back to the Future. Every one a classic but also hard to quantify.
"never meet your heroes". "we look back through rose tinted glasses". There are so many idioms to explain this phenomena. We should save our precious and often hard earned cash when we know that owning a piece of the past, a relic of our childhood, "the arcade in your home" is simply a marketing ploy trying to part you from your money through nostalgia value and the fog of the 80s.
And now Nintendo and Sega have announced that they are releasing a retro compilation for the first time in the west, which will include a 60fps 3D stereoscopic enhanced version of that classic 80s hit, Power Drift. I know what will happen when I re-acquaint myself with my hero. I am assured of a bout of disappointment or indifference at best. I have been down this road before, it always ends the same way.
And yet here I am, logged in on my favorite game site, pre-order at the ready. Damn you, fog of the 80s, damn you to hell...
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