the early 90s- gaming's schitzo period

[christianscott27]

the only period in my life where i wasnt much of a gamer was 91-95, i was too busy with school and having a social life to do much button mashing, looks like i might have missed one of most interesting periods. this weekend i picked up 20some gaming mags from that era and i've been catching up- i've got copies of gamepro, nintendo power, sega visions and some defunct mag called game player. just looking at the systems masthead on gamepro tells you what a confusing era it must have been. it ranges from the SMS, NES, 7800, Genesis, Super Nintendo, Jaguar, CD-I, TG-16 and Duo, 32x, segaCD, gameboy, gamegear, lynx, NEO-GEO, 3-DO and even the cd32...i'm just getting some those systems now, ten years after.

there are lots of crazy add ons and possible vaporware popping up too, like did INTV ever make a game for the genny? did any other titles ever use the sonic and knuckles thing? sega hyped it like that cart would change the gaming world. what was the deal with the X-band modem? ohh and man you should read sega's tounge twisting answers to consumers asking if they should buy the sega cd, 32x, saturn or what...classic! fun, fun or at least good bathroom reading.

[Bratwurst]

What I remember most from those magazine's designs (and it could still be the case today, dunno) was the insane flashy designs with lots of primary colors. Gamepro's layout was like a psychedelic scrapbook.

[christianscott27]

gamepro is shockingly bad, i mean i expect cheerleading from company mags like NP and SV but gamepro gives rave reviews to games featured that bought full page ads in the same issue. i wonder if they still do that, guess i'll find out if that free subscription comes thru. i still get a kick out of the fan art envelopes :)

[Keir]

That's generally my impression of that era as well. At the time though I was still playing C64 games so I didn't care.

Which issues of GamePro mention the CD32?

[Tritoch]

That's one of the first things I always notice when I go looking back at old gaming mags...the sheer number of systems covered by multiplatform ones. I wouldn't mind seeing that kind of competition again today, even if most of it was weak competition at best (yay N-Gage!). :)

[YoshiM]

Gawds there were gobs of stuff on the market. Consoles, handhelds and arcade games were all fighting for your attention span. Even though in retrospect some of the stuff that came out was pretty lame it was still a cool time. I paged through mags and was just bombarded with gaming technology news. Then add on top arcade, handhelds and consoles with computers: Atari (in the early early 90's), Commodore 64/128 (ditto), Amiga, PC (DOS for the longest time) AND Mac and you got a lot of stuff to cover.

That was a fun time in gaming history.

[congobongo]

The variety and uncertainty made that a very exciting period in gaming history indeed.

[Bratwurst]

I dunno. Back then in my feeble mind I still always saw it as Genesis vs. SNES, the rest of the competitors (Or Sega-based extensions) had very miniscule market presence in my area, you practically had to go out of your way to find a 3DO, for example. Even now you can find examples of that 'variety' in the form of three present consoles, (Cube, PS2, X-Box) and then the derivatives with degrees of popularity and presence in the public eye (Gameboy Advance, GP32, PC gaming, etc.)

It's easy to lump the 90s as a single decade but I tend to break it down into three 'periods' whenever I think of it, early, mid, late. Alot of contenders vanished within the span of a year afterall.

[christianscott27]

keir,
you can check out the CD-32 article at the next NEGC meet :D

NOVEMBER 2 BOSTON, BE THERE!

yep i'm gonna be dropping plugs in left and right, clubninja is too busy playing with his supergun to get the hype train a chugging.

[calthaer]

The early 90s (and maybe the very late 80s) was a golden age for PC gaming. The advent of Warren Spector's legacy (Ultima Underworld, original System Shock), some of Richard Garriott's best work (Ultima VI, VII), Wing Commander, Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D, X-Com: UFO Defense, the original Command & Conquer (although that was '95 so we're getting up there at that point), then all those awesome Lucasfilm games like Loom and Monkey Island and all that...the list could go on and on.

So many great games! It seemed like every game that came out was fantastic back then, even though I know it wasn't the case. Even lesser-well-known titles like Spellcraft: Aspects of Valor and The Immortal were gems.

[IntvGene]

Yea, I agree (except the Ultima VI and VII comment :) )

I was playing some amazing stuff, but most of it on the computers back then, especially early 90's. Atari ST, Amiga and PC had some great stuff at this time... alot of people overlook the great stuff that was being done on the computers at this time. I think it was the computers' best time, most creative and everything. Companies like Psygnosis came straight out of the old Atari ST and Amiga days.

[Ed Oscuro]

I dunno. Back then in my feeble mind I still always saw it as Genesis vs. SNES, the rest of the competitors (Or Sega-based extensions) had very miniscule market presence in my area

That's how I saw it too. I know there were some niche markets in various localities -- after all, Brazil had a big support base for the Oddysey^2 years after it was obsolete, and then they supported the Master System -- but for the US it was really just the Genesis and SNES. I think that you could actually probably qualify that somewhat as Genesis vs. SNES/NES, since more people owned the NES than SNES after all.

Too bad it wasn't like Japan where you had the PC-Engine for the final piece of the puzzle. So many good games didn't make it over here and I know I'm very likely the only person in my city with a copy of PC-Engine Shinobi, maybe the only with a copy of Dracula X as well...

[kainemaxwell]

gamepro is shockingly bad, i mean i expect cheerleading from company mags like NP and SV but gamepro gives rave reviews to games featured that bought full page ads in the same issue. i wonder if they still do that, guess i'll find out if that free subscription comes thru. i still get a kick out of the fan art envelopes :)

Gamepro did suck as did the tips they always gave you as well. Now looking back i wish I had the chance to play someof those 3rd systems out there that didn't get much reconixation past the Snes and genesis on something other then emulators.

[Kid Fenris]

I remember when EGM reviewed Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective and said something to the effect of "this is the future of video games." Thanks to the limitations of cartridges, they weren't completely right.

Yet it's true that the SNES and Genesis pretty much owned the market, while most of the marginal competitors were either too expensive or interesting only as novelties. I recall paging through features on 3DO and Jaguar titles, seeing nothing that I'd want to buy and very little that I'd even want to play. I liked the TurboGrafx/Duo and Sega CD, but I couldn't afford them. Heck, in the Duo's case, I didn't even know anyone who had the system. How many people here owned Duos back in the day, anyway?

It's a shame that the trend of obscure Japanese consoles died in the late '90s, after the FM Towns Marty and PC-FX went under. Both were fairly promising systems that needed better software . . .


Now looking back i wish I had the chance to play someof those 3rd systems out there that didn't get much reconixation past the Snes and genesis on something other then emulators.

. . . . and more, er, "reconixation" in the American press.

[Dire 51]

I didn't own a Duo, but I did own a TG16 w/ the CD player back then. I upgraded later. Much later.