A dismissed generation of games

[celerystalker]

Maybe it's just me not seeing a lot of conversation, but it seems to me there's an age of arcade games that gets largely passed over when people discuss games. You have the arcade collector/restoration scene who love the late '70s/early '80s stuff, the younger generation that starts with games from about 1989 (TMNT) through Golden Tee, and you've got them MAME guys who play anything they can download. What seems to be missing is love for the games of the late '80s, especially from 1985-88.

It's that era where 16-bit graphics started to rear their heads, and games began shifting from just high score play to completion being a component of the design. It's crazy to me to see stuff like Black Tiger, Time Soldiers, Rastan, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, R-Type, Sky Soldiers, Heavy Barrel, etc. remembered fondly as console games or not at all, and not desireable to the arcade collector scene. You'll find more people ready to talk Space Zap or Mad Planets or Juno First than these late '80s action games, and it it wasn't a Nintendo cabinet, nobody seems to care. It's like the world skipped from Frogger to Neo Geo retroactively.

I don't care about value of the games monetarily in this case; I'm just perplexed by what I see as a pervasive lack of interest in an amazing transitional period that defined the console style of the early '90s. Is there something I'm missing, or some community out there I just haven't found yet? I want to talk to people more interested in SNK, Capcom, and Konami than Rockola and Williams. Any thoughts? Places I could find good conversation to duck in on?

[Edmond Dantes]

I think for some of us its that... well I know in my case, its that mentally I see arcade games as arcade games. I love Black Tiger, but I think of it as an arcade game, not specifically an eighties arcade game. In general, unless there's something obvious that dates it (such as the simplicity of old "all that matters is a high score" games, or 3D polygons in the case of more recent titles) then the year it was made tends to just wash over me.

Also, most underrated game of all time: Eco-Fighters. And X-Multiply.

[Flojomojo]

To me, those games are neither old enough to be charming, nor new enough to have the sizzle of the later era.

Also, I distinctly remember the transition from unique, single-screen quirky games to seeing quarter-sucking, side-scrolling, run-n-gun games everywhere. To me, the games you mention are the beginning of the end of the fun times in arcades for me.

I know that's not what you want to hear! Sorry!

I'll bet another part of it was the console crash. No home port = less free advertising. A lot of those games appeared on the Sega Master System, which didn't sell very well in the USA and was completely eclipsed by the Sega Genesis, which had deeper, flashier versions of the same kind of thing.

You know where I would look for conversation about these games? Lemon Amiga (http://www.lemonamiga.com) and the Amiga Magazine Rack (http://amr.abime.net), because nearly all of the games you listed had home computer ports to that machine. There's probably an Atari ST equivalent, as well.

[Pr3tty F1y]

I think my views echo much of the posters above.

That era didn't have the awe/wonder of the "golden age" of earlier arcade games that laid the foundation for gaming as it has evolved today. And at the same time, they didn't have the awe and wonder that we got with 2D games that looked almost as good as animated cartoons and eventually the 3D era.

Nonetheless, I think many of us recognize some stellar contributions to gaming in the mid to late 80's. Starting with 1986's Outrun, there isn't another racing arcade game of that era that was better. Sega had superior hardware and absolutely EXCELLENT game design. Sure, top-down action arcade shooters of that era (e.g., Ikari Warriors, Guerilla Wars, Heavy Barrel) look EXTREMELY dated and even Contra arcade looks odd compared to it's NES masterpiece counterpart, but look at a game with digitized graphics like Blasteroids or Narc or the insane speed (and the awesomeness of the motion cabinet) of Afterburner II. There are some real gems in that era.

My personal feeling is that while graphics and processing horsepower got amped up by the late 80's, the human factor of the programmers and their knowledge of what constitutes entertaining gameplay and what's good art direction just hadn't caught up. The simplicity of the golden age was in a transition period and you have to take those games within that context.

Just take Ninja Gaiden arcade vs. Ninja Gaiden NES. The former is an OK beat'em up and the later is a console classic. While they bare the same name, the NES was well into it's prime by this era and the gameplay of NG shows it. Of course NG arcade has more colors, bigger sprites, and fancier graphics, but obviously the gameplay is inferior. But still, the arcade game was a step towards figuring out what worked and what didn't as arcades progressed.

[celerystalker]

I totally get that "in between" piece of the conversation, but I'd disagree about the games being ugly. There are a lot of games there with some fantastic sprite work that easily holds its own up against the best SNES and Genesis sprites.

What makes me sad about it is that some of these games are so extremely well-designed and structured to both challenge the player to take new approaches and learn to play the game at a high level.

For example, take Time Soldiers. It gets written off as an Ikari clone due to its use of rotary control in a top down run n gun, but the game is so much better realized that it's crazy. For one, the power up system. The different weapons are all situationally useful, but are made way more powerful by stacking up to three, challenging the player to choose carefully for power vs situational availability. Furthering that concept is the P powerup, which gives the player rapid fire for the machine gun and allowing the player to absorb more than one hit at the cost of some of the weapon meter. However, your meter also drains as you walk instead of as you fire. This both rewards players for mastering the rotary control and causes a new dilemma... if you pick up another weapon powerup, your meter refills, adding urgency to the decision to stack or change weapons. Then, you have a somewhat randomized order to the levels, making you alter your overall approach based on the path laid in front of you, and whether you may want to stall switching time epochs for a weapon string you know is coming up. It is all so cohesive and well thought out, and when it comes together for you, it's fantastic.

Other games, like Black Tiger, challenge you to take a risk/reward approach to fighting and exploring sprawling stages with a strict time limit to get enough zenny to buy vital weapon upgrades. P.O.W. seems ridiculous until you realize that it uses a lot of technique for a beat :em up, with its move set and use of terrain like vertical space for dodging or gas barrels to take down motorbikes before they get too close. It's not perfect, but can be played with more technique to preserve credits than many other games of its type.

The more I go back to those games, the more I find games that really have some smart choices that make playing them rewarding. I wouldn't blame people for just liking what they like; I think I'm just surprised there aren't more people who like this stuff. Thanks for the recommendation on the Amiga groups. I'll have to check it out and see if anything's being discussed there.

Edit: I do totally agree about games like Contra and Ninja Gaiden, and even Rygar. The home versions are just better games in those cases.

[Pr3tty F1y]

I think I put my finger on my hang up with the graphics of that era. While this cannot be generalized to all arcade games released at that time, MANY of the scrolling platformers and shooters have static backgrounds. There may be some palette shifting to simulate animation, but even that is sparse. The waterfall in Contra doesn't flow, the sea in Airwolf doesn't shimmer, the world of Operation Wolf is flat and static as is the jungle of Guerrilla War.

The games aren't bad, it's just once you see the progress made by TMNT where backgrounds start to have some interaction with the player (e.g. Footclan soldiers busting through doors) or 1991's Terminator 2 - Judgement Day with enemies popping out from everywhere it makes older games in the genre stick out for lacking these details.

[Emperor Megas]

I have pretty much no insight into the culture of arcade fandom beyond being someone who LIVED in arcades in the late 80's through the early 90s. That's to say I only know what I love about arcade games of this era, which happen to be my favorite. If I had to hazard a guess as to why these these titles aren't as popular or held in as high esteem though, I think it has something to do with the fact that games of the era could be beaten. Games didn't have endings before beyond playing them until you reached a kill screen. Earlier, simpler, score based arcade classics could be played countless times without ever really getting stale because of the twitch game play and high score factor. There's something less 'replayable' to most people, I think, in games that can be beaten, and beaten easily, AND every time, once the player learns everything they need to know.

You can still go for higher scores, but eventually you're going to max out because the game is going to reward your skill with a conclusion.

Again, this is just a guess on my part.

[Greg2600]

The transition to 16-bit arcade games was not without growing pains, and many of the titles from that period don't hold up well at all. However, the SEGA (particularly Yu Suzuki) stuff is terrific.

[homerhomer]

87-90 was an amazing time in arcades. It seemed like everytime I went to an arcade there would be some new game with something new that I haven't seen before. Like ninja warriors, xenophobe, after burner and apb. Seems like originality was at and all time high, until sf2 and mk2 came out.

I always thought that people didn't talk about that generation of games because the majority of people weren't in arcades, they're at home playing Nintendo and Sega.

[SuperCool]

87-90 was an amazing time in arcades. It seemed like everytime I went to an arcade there would be some new game with something new that I haven't seen before. Like ninja warriors, xenophobe, after burner and apb. Seems like originality was at and all time high, until sf2 and mk2 came out.

I always thought that people didn't talk about that generation of games because the majority of people weren't in arcades, they're at home playing Nintendo and Sega.

Yes...people were able to get an almost exact arcade experience at home. I think this was around the time a lot of the arcades started to die off, at least in my area.

[bangtango]

Well this here ought to be a frame of reference to help continue the conversation.

http://www.arcade-museum.com/year_detail.php?year=1985

http://www.arcade-museum.com/year_detail.php?year=1986

http://www.arcade-museum.com/year_detail.php?year=1987

http://www.arcade-museum.com/year_detail.php?year=1988

(Disclaimer: I'm going to leave the Playchoice Nintendo stuff out of this analysis.)

Looking through all 4 years, the game that sticks out the most is easily Double Dragon (1987). It was ported to every home console, gaming computer and handheld system imaginable during this era or at least within a few years (in the case of the Genesis, Game Gear and Lynx versions). That is the hallmark of a really popular arcade game. For better or for worse, Double Dragon spawned sequels, spin-offs, remakes, a cartoon series, comic book, Tiger handheld and a live-action movie. It made a mark and it all started with the arcade version.

Going further with Double Dragon, quite frankly the fact that none of the home versions ever held a candle to the arcade version says all you need to know about how viable the arcades were in 1987. The closest any of them came was the Sega Genesis version, but it had sloppy controls and was released several years too late to be a true system selling killer app.

Also from this time period was Altered Beast. The game gets looked at with disdain today, to put it mildly. However, the game had enough legs to become a pack-in title for the Genesis and the port helped Sega to prove that the Genesis could deliver an arcade-like experience at home compared to the current systems on tap then. To this day, Altered Beast still gets thrown into any collection with the name Sega on it. Not a terrible legacy.

I'll let someone else take a stab with a couple of their favorites.

If this era of arcade gaming isn't looked upon with respect, it should be.

[celerystalker]

I very much agree with the point that home consoles weren't able to truly approximate quality ports of most of these games until it was too late. The SNES or Genesis probably could have done a dandy version of Black Tiger in 1992, but that was 5 years down the line, and Street Fighter II was in the way by then.

I think the part that really gets me is in the arcade collecting scene, where games that aren't early '80s golden age stuff like Donkey Kong or Robotron or later stuff like the licensed beat 'em ups is treated like some kind of undesirable guilty pleasure, like the kind of thing a simpleton plays while "real players/collectors" play Centipede and Satan's Hollow. I like that vintage stuff as well, but in a honesty, I play Time Soldiers a hell of a lot more than I play Popeye or Centipede, which are standing right on each side of it (even though I've been running Gondomania in that cabinet for the last week), and I can't tell you how much time I've put into Black Tiger, Salamander, Double Dragon, Rygar, the Ikari games, Quartet... Devastators ended up being a big hit at my last tournament.

I get confused by how guys all but blush when they admit to liking POW or Vindicators, like you're gonna make fun of them for not liking something older or rarer... but I think those years contain some of the very best stuff SNK, Capcom, Data East, and Sega ever did. Oh, and Taito. Good lord, Taito put out some great stuff then.

[Gamevet]

I think that a lot of those games get forgotten, because Sega was miles ahead of everyone else in the arcades from 1985-1990. I remember seeing Space Harrier at a Golf N' Stuff in 1986, along with other Sega games around that time like Hang-On, After Burner and Outrun. Those were the games that everyone remembers the most from that time.

[celerystalker]

Sega had the super scaler look going for them, which is so distinctive. However, I don't think the technology has as much to do with their games being remembered better as two other factors.

One, Sega has always been good about pushing their franchises as hard as possible with ports and re-releases. Space Harrier came out on just about every syatem possible, from 2 Master System versions, Famicom, Turbografx, 32X, Saturn, Dreamcast (on Shenmue), Game Gear, Xbox, PS2, GBA, PS3, Xbox 360, Virtual Console, 3DS, and nearly every early home computer available in its time. Similar things could be shown with After Burner, Out Run, Golden Axe... Sega knew when they'd made a good game, and put it everywhere they could and then re-released them time and again in compilations and Sega Ages releases. Frankly, they never really went away. I don't mean that as a criticism; just saying that Sega has done better at keeping their games in the gaming consciousness.

Secondly, the Genesis did a really good job of capturing a good chunk of the look and feel of Sega's games of the time, which also really helped keep the games of the late '80s relevant into the early '90s. Altered Beast looks pretty close to its arcade daddy. Golden Axe, too, and as much derision as the Genesis sound chip gets, most arcade games of the time use somewhat similar FM synth, which helps them sound closer on the Genesis. The stuff Capcom actually bothered to support the same way Sega did stayed pretty popular as well, like Final Fight, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, and later stuff like Street Fighter II stayed relevant well past their arcade runs due to good home support and sequels. Compare that to Data East's or SNK's stuff on NES hardware that couldn't really do it justice, but was done to capitalize immediately on arcade popularity. Sega was confident enough in the Genesis era that their arcade back catalog was worth releasing again, and it worked.

[Gamevet]

I really don't think that any of the home ports of Space Harrier were that good, until the 32X version came along. The Genesis did a very good job of handling the rest of the arcade games of that era though.

[celerystalker]

I really don't think that any of the home ports of Space Harrier were that good, until the 32X version came along. The Genesis did a very good job of handling the rest of the arcade games of that era though.

The 32X version is fantastic. However, 3D Space Harrier on Master System is really solid, and the Turbografx version's not half bad in my opinion, though the floor tiling isn't as good. The main thing in my mind is that even if Sega initially put an arcade game on weak hardware, they saw the value in putting it out again later on hardware that could do it justice, like 32X Space Harrier or Saturn After Burner and Out Run. They believed that the games were good enough on their own merits to be worth putting them out there again, even after the arcade hardware was obselete. I commend them for that.

[Gamevet]

The 32X version is fantastic. However, 3D Space Harrier on Master System is really solid, and the Turbografx version's not half bad in my opinion, though the floor tiling isn't as good. The main thing in my mind is that even if Sega initially put an arcade game on weak hardware, they saw the value in putting it out again later on hardware that could do it justice, like 32X Space Harrier or Saturn After Burner and Out Run. They believed that the games were good enough on their own merits to be worth putting them out there again, even after the arcade hardware was obselete. I commend them for that.

There's too much tiling going on in the Master System version. You can pretty much see blue blocks around the trees as they scale in. I was more impressed with the Atari 8-bit and C64 versions of the game.

Yeah, you're right about Sega not being afraid to port its arcade games to just about every platform. I have a copy of Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoon on the Atari 2600. It's not bad, considering the limited memory size of the cart.

[Graham Mitchell]

In response to the original post, I love that era of games, and have many arcade boards from that era. There are plenty of arcade aficionados out there that have a find love of those games, there just might not be many on this site.

I think that SOME of the reasons those games don't get remembered much is because many of them are pre-jamma, and you either need an adapter or a dedicated cab. These aren't difficult to find, however.

Some of my favorites from that era are tatsujin/truxton, forgotten worlds, Willow, aurail (awesome, totally forgotten game by Westone) exed exes, outzone, spelunker, Galaga 88, and genpei toumaden. And I don't care what anyone says. Pac-land is boss.