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.
– regarding RealD’s Stereoscopic Gaming API: a good deal of the companies that jump into this kind of new tech stuff expect to be bought by bigger companies. And to some extent this is needed: a small arse company does not have the marketing power to become world wide leaders in that market, and thus to promote their product world wide.
@Derrick: how about an AvP game? Facehuggers do tend to jump 🙂
– regarding the XBox price cut: this kinda shows the profit margins …
As for PS3’s UI, well, at one point Joel Spolski did mention that giving users control increases the satisfaction got while using the product. You somehow prove that one right.
– question of the week (ready for next gen consoles): no. I’m strictly a PC guy. Most games that I care of are PC games. None of the console exclusives were appealing enough for me to invest in a console.
Don’t worry if the podcast goes for longer than one hour, I’ll listen.
– regarding RealD’s Stereoscopic Gaming API: a good deal of the companies that jump into this kind of new tech stuff expect to be bought by bigger companies. And to some extent this is needed: a small arse company does not have the marketing power to become world wide leaders in that market, and thus to promote their product world wide.
@Derrick: how about an AvP game? Facehuggers do tend to jump 🙂
– regarding the XBox price cut: this kinda shows the profit margins …
As for PS3’s UI, well, at one point Joel Spolski did mention that giving users control increases the satisfaction got while using the product. You somehow prove that one right.
– question of the week (ready for next gen consoles): no. I’m strictly a PC guy. Most games that I care of are PC games. None of the console exclusives were appealing enough for me to invest in a console.
Don’t worry if the podcast goes for longer than one hour, I’ll listen.
Australia Gaming NEWS : Alien Vs Predator has been banned in Australia for containing high-impact violence, according to the Classifications Board.
“We will not be releasing a sanitised or cut down version for territories where adults are not considered by their governments to be able to make their own entertainment choices,” the game’s maker, Rebellion Developments, told gaming blog CVG.
Australia does not have an adult rating for games, which means that anything stronger than an MA15+ rating has to be refused classification.
Biography: http://www.news.com.au/technology/aliens-vs-predator-game-banned-will-not-be-sanitized-for-australia/story-e6frfro0-1225807850199
Australia Gaming NEWS : Alien Vs Predator has been banned in Australia for containing high-impact violence, according to the Classifications Board.
“We will not be releasing a sanitised or cut down version for territories where adults are not considered by their governments to be able to make their own entertainment choices,” the game’s maker, Rebellion Developments, told gaming blog CVG.
Australia does not have an adult rating for games, which means that anything stronger than an MA15+ rating has to be refused classification.
Biography: http://www.news.com.au/technology/aliens-vs-predator-game-banned-will-not-be-sanitized-for-australia/story-e6frfro0-1225807850199
Myself I think it stinks that we don’t have an 18+ rating for games. It should be the parent’s responsibility to monitor & restrict what content their children have access to & take advantage of the parental lock.
Myself I think it stinks that we don’t have an 18+ rating for games. It should be the parent’s responsibility to monitor & restrict what content their children have access to & take advantage of the parental lock.
IRT Ivan:
I’m buying the game for a friend of mine that lives in Australia and I’m going to ship it to him.
Problem solved.
IRT Ivan:
I’m buying the game for a friend of mine that lives in Australia and I’m going to ship it to him.
Problem solved.
IRT Herr_Alien:
lol nice way around the ban, Get us a copy while ur there =p. Btw Which country are you from mate?
Cheers
IRT Herr_Alien:
lol nice way around the ban, Get us a copy while ur there =p. Btw Which country are you from mate?
Cheers
Aliens Vs. Predator has been resubmitted for rating, because there’s now a public referendum on the R18 rating – I’m sure they’ll mention it tonight.
As for the question of the week: yes, I’m ready for the Xbox 720. They should make it a GameCube-to-Wii upgrade – two (or four) Xbox 360 processors, which would make it 100% backwards compat with the 360. Publishers could simply make a resolution bump to newly released games, making them both 360 and 720 games, and give Microsoft the perfect excuse to put a 500GB HD in the system. It would give the company three SKUs from $199 to $399.
As it is, Microsoft is promoting Natal as their “next console”. (sigh)
Aliens Vs. Predator has been resubmitted for rating, because there’s now a public referendum on the R18 rating – I’m sure they’ll mention it tonight.
As for the question of the week: yes, I’m ready for the Xbox 720. They should make it a GameCube-to-Wii upgrade – two (or four) Xbox 360 processors, which would make it 100% backwards compat with the 360. Publishers could simply make a resolution bump to newly released games, making them both 360 and 720 games, and give Microsoft the perfect excuse to put a 500GB HD in the system. It would give the company three SKUs from $199 to $399.
As it is, Microsoft is promoting Natal as their “next console”. (sigh)
Oh, and the new MULE game is “Planet M.U.L.E.”, which is free and can be found at http://www.planetmule.com
Oh, and the new MULE game is “Planet M.U.L.E.”, which is free and can be found at http://www.planetmule.com