One of the first games I was introduced to on the 2600 was River Raid, back in 1982. I remember it vividly, as I was at my cousin David’s house, who was older than me, and he’d “baby sit” me so the adults could have some adult time hanging out in the dining room. We’d sit in the family room playing 2600, mainly River Raid.
This is an Activision game, and was later ported to Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, C64, ColecoVision, IBM PCjr, Intellivision, ZX Spectrum, and MSX. The player controls an airplane in a top-down view over a river and gets points for shooting down enemy planes, helicopters, ships and balloons (for versions after the Atari 2600). By flying over fuel-stations, the plane’s tank can be refilled. The player can shift side to side and change the speed of the plane. Sections of the river are marked by bridges.
The game was highly acclaimed for its ability to stuff tons of map into small amounts of space. The map was huge and it fit on the disk because it’s randomly generated using a common starting seed, basically, imagine some of the Diablo dungeons…they’re randomly generated but the starting seed which starts the random process is also ‘random.’ (probably based on clock time which isn’t too uncommon). Atari, rather than try to make a random level each time used the level random generator to build a procedural based level rather than drawing it and saving it into the cart. GENIUS.
A more highly randomized number generation system was used for enemy AI to make the game less predictable.
Germany consider this game harmful to children, indexing it on their list of games “harmful for children” along with the game Speed Racer. It remained on their list until 2002 (since 1984) when developers petitioned it off the list before the PS2 launch of Activision Anthology (otherwise they’d not be able to put it in the game)
Some of the Germany reasons: Minors are intended to delve into the role of an uncompromising fighter and agent of annihilation (…). It provides children with a paramilitaristic education (…). With older minors, playing leads (…) to physical cramps, anger, aggressiveness, erratic thinking (…) and headaches (wikipedia)
All in all, a great game! To hear all the details on River Raid and our opinions, checkout TD Gaming Podcast Episode 78.
Mine favorite game was (and still is) Fallout 2
Welcome back Paul.
@Cryptic calls for new MMO review system
Hmm, how can you say “f*ck you” in a nice way … Let’s try “I’d like to have intercourse with you”.
Then same should go for Diablo III and all games that keep changing due to bug fixes and patches.
Come on, if you dropped the ball in the time interval you had the game reviewed, tough luck.
As an alternative, we should delay reviewing an MMO until at least 6 months have passed since released. Sure, you won’t have a potentially good review to increase the hype and sales figure, but it’ll be a fair review system, right?
So, you Cryptic idiots, make your mind: what do you want, a fair but delayed review that will do nothing to help with your sales or an early review that might be skewed? Think about it, being skewed is not really a bad thing, if you have enough money, he he he …
Jonah, I would love to have score-less reviews. When somebody asks me about a game, I tell them what I liked and what I didn’t like. I’m not telling them it’s a 8.34 grade game.
@Wii U gamepad won’t be sold separately at launch
Yay, pricing flexibility FTW! Wait, what?
So they can live without the extra cash? Or is it that the company has no idea on how to price it? Hmm …
@me playing SNES games: guys, you keep forgetting I’m a PC (ha!). We have emulators …
@QOTW: Not for the contest though, I have very little time to play. So, favorite game of the 90’s: Quake III, launched in December 1999. Screw Starcraft or Red Alert, at least Quake III’s engine ended up in a huge amount of other games. And even today, I still find the game (both multiplayer and the single player with bots) to be very entertaining.
Unless it’s some massive update like World of Warcraft does, it’s impractical to repeatedly update game reviews: lots of folks just don’t have the time to make it consistent or practical. For example, World of Tanks recently released a large update that drastically improved the graphics, added new tanks, a physics system, updated/new maps, and a ton of balance changes, but does it deserve a re-review? I don’t think so. It’s still the same game at it’s core.
You can’t have a long-time player make the reviews themselves either, because they’re either going to ruthlessly flame it (like most typical forum posts :/ ), or justify whatever faults it still has as being intentional, part of it’s charm, necessary for game balance, etc.
And lastly… do updated reviews really even matter? Think about it: the only way an update to an MMO is going to gain a large group of new is if it does something huge and newsworthy, otherwise it’s probably only going to re-attract longtime fans or those who were undecided.
And tell me, what exactly is it that Star Trek Online added? I haven’t even seen a single advertisement for it, let alone forum hype for it anywhere, so why exactly would I be enticed to jump aboard, even if it’s free?
My favorite is probably Donkey Kong Country 2. It’s some of the finest platforming you’ll find, period.
I can definitely understand about the want to do on 1 year later review…but I think it depends a lot on if there’s a lot of changes or not…
My favourite game? Warzone 2100…the design-it-yourself unit is a cool system that’s still underused in RTS today, and it’s also one of the first games to look good on full 3d….
My favorite game in the 90’s….would have to be Half-Life 1 for the PC. Still the best FPS these days and it has aged very well. And of course, the first game that put Valve on the map. Such a historical and important game in the industry
Easy favourite: Total Annihilation
Still think it is one of the greatest RTS’s of all time
My favorite game from the 90’s is Cruis’n USA
Fave 90s game: Dune 2!
Star Wars Rogue Squadron on the N64 from ’98. Looked great back then, and still looks great now. Tons of missions and unlockable content. FIGHT IMPERIAL SCUM IN A 1998 BUICK.
Not sure if this counts but Planescape Torment is one of my favorites ever and it came out in 99. But its mainly an all time favorite for all games ever made.
Gonna totally agree with Paul and go with Link to the Past.. That’s the golden age of SNES
PAUL ON DRUGS, YEY!
next step: drunken podcast!
@Cryptic calls for new MMO review system:
it would have good and bad backlashes, good being “real time” scores, wich mean better and more accurate reviews. the bad being that other games that get patches would require the same scoring system, here as an example, my beloved battlefield 3, wich got several paches trough time and got significantly better, UI and gameplay wise, would get a significantly better score multiplayer wise, and such requests from all sort of games that get patched and better would demand a huge amount of time and man/hours work to make the score system accurate and up-to-date.
in a utopic perfect gaming world, this would be awesome, but will not happen to all games, but MMOs are different and it would be possible, it is a very good idea.
@PS3 version of Black Ops 2 includes optional hi-res texture install:
why is CoD still a thing? oh… yeah, the money… nvm, moving on….
@Wii U gamepad won’t be sold separately at launch:
Nintendo, go home, you’re drunk. who in their right minds would not sell separate controllers as well??? i am sure nintendo have some good reasons, but if they do not reveal them, it will be the same as no reason at all!
@QOTW:
i’m caught between a rock and a hard place: Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped or Half-Life.
I’m more inclined towards HL because of the recent release of the free 2 play black mesa remake, wich is as equally awesome! so, yeah, Half-Life!
good recovery paul!
@QOTW: original Diablo, that was a game changer for me. Blizzard never really got the sequels right though.
XCOM ufo defense is my favorite game from the 90s, which is why I’m so psyched for the new one.
People want scores in their reviews. Whether they use it for Good or Evil or to make buying decisions or to validate an opinion they already have, why force them into something they don’t find as useful? MetaCritic isn’t doing anything immoral or even questionable – just aggregating data that’s out there. If someone were really interested, they could do it themselves.
Re-reviews aren’t a bad idea, but I don’t think they would be much more than a curiosity. The “retro” writing community will probably explore the big picture later.
MY FAVORITE 90s GAME: Master of Magic! Fantasy, strategy, Civ… It practically held me captive for a couple of years. I still whistle the overworld theme. So great. There have been some really great spiritual successors since then. Age of Wonders, and I even like Elemental. But Master of Magic got into my blood like nothing else.
Sorry ai coukdn’t make it, my dad passed away so I was off doing some un-fun stuff. 🙁 Should be back tonight though.
I think when it comes to re-reviewing MMOs (or any game, really) the perfect opportunity pops up when an expansion or DLC comes out. Borderlands became a much, much stronger game after all four DLC were avaialable and the Game of the Year edition merits a stronger review than the original release.
Favorite 90s game: System Shock 2. That was one scary game!