Replay: The History of Video Games (64 page)
Read Replay: The History of Video Games Online
Authors: Tristan Donovan
Working on laptops while sat in San Francisco coffee shops, the pair evolved
Tower of Goo
into the more rounded
World of Goo
. Players now, in an echo of DMA Design’s
Lemmings
, had to get their goo balls sucked out of each level through a pipe that they could only reach with their gooey construction projects. Each level presented a different construction challenge. It could be building a bridge across a gaping chasm or constructing a tower of goo inside a rotating washing machine drum that constantly knocked over their structures. Released on Nintendo’s WiiWare platform, Steam and through 2D Boy’s own website in late 2008,
World of Goo
became one of the biggest-selling indie games of the 2000s. “
World of Goo
has surpassed every one of our expectations,” said Gabler. “It has sold a few hundred thousand. Nintendo told us it holds the record for being in the number one spot on WiiWare for the most weeks.”
The year of
World of Goo
’s release marked a turning point for the commercial viability of indie games. As well as
World of Goo
, Blow’s critically acclaimed
Braid
became the second-best selling game on Xbox Live Arcade in 2008. The Behemoth also scored a success with
Castle Crashers
, a million-selling scrolling fighting game sold through the Xbox Live Arcade that was reminiscent of Sega’s 1989 coin-op
Golden Axe
. By the start of the 2010s indie game development had blossomed into a diverse and eclectic movement thats reinventing old genres, exploring new frontiers of game design and often outperforming major publishers with surprise hits such as
Braid
. As well as trying out new forms of games and rebooting faded genres, indie game teams also began to inject their work with more personal or provocative themes.
Introversion’s
Defcon
, a nuclear war sim inspired by the fictional game
Global Thermonuclear War
featured in the 1983 movie
WarGames
, turned players into a bunker-dwelling general plotting nuclear strikes on a map of the world in the hope that once the nuclear war is over you emerge victorious because you killed more people than the other side. “We didn’t release it to make a political statement, but the game does that because you’re sitting in your bunker and the data that is coming back to you is the city name and the number of people that you killed. That stark 6.2 million people dead figure,” said Morris.
“I don’t think
Defcon
would ever have got commissioned by a publisher. Never in a million years. Publishers always want to be mass market they look at things and ask what is going to be the turn off in this game. How many people are we going to offend by calling it a genocide ‘em up? Why would you want to play a game that’s miserable? My response is look at all the melancholy albums that are out there and sell in massive numbers. How many weepy films? There’s absolutely no reason why games can’t evoke that same kind of slightly depressed, contemplative emotional state in the player that other mediums do.”
Every Day the Same Dream
also served up a melancholy game experience although it focused on the plight of a lone office worker to deliver what its Italian creator Paolo Pedercini described as a comment on “alienation and refusal of labour”. Set in a drab grey Art Deco cartoon world,
Every Day the Same Dream
presents players with their faceless office worker’s monotonous routine of dress, commute, work where only attempting to escape the tedium offers any reward. In stark contrast to most video games, Pedercini’s game was a joyless experience where even the brief respites from the tedium ultimately failed to result in the kind of escapist catharsis most games would offer for solving their mysteries.
Others used their games to create more upbeat emotions. Thatgamecompany’s
Flower
, a meditative game released via the PlayStation Network in 2009, gave players control of the breeze so that they could create swirling ribbons of flower petals that swoosh across the countryside bringing life to dead fields of grass and wheat. “The idea for
Flower
grew organically from a number of inspirations,” said Kellee Santiago, who co-founded Thatgamecompany with
Flower
’s designer Jenova Chen. “One was to try and capture the feeling of being in a large flower field. To capture both the sense of beauty when you see them all, but also the visceral feeling of being up close to an individual flower. If you do a Google image search for ‘flower’ you discover photographs from people all over th world, all fascinated with this aspect of nature. Technically, it was an exciting challenge. What would happen if we took this aspect of video games that is normally an afterthought on the edge of the world – the bushes and grasses – and put it right in front and make the entire game about it?”
By 2010 the creative boom of the indie games movement had begun to percolate upwards through the game industry, slowly but surely influencing the makers of the multi-million dollar games that helped prompt the movement’s formation. “One of the reasons I love going to the Game Developers’ Conference is to go to the independent games festival because it’s absolutely amazing,” said Cliff Bleszinski, designer of the 2006 action blockbuster
Gears of War
. “Loo
k at how
Portal
came about.
[4]
It was a little independent game called
Narbacular Drop
and then Valve took it up, nursed it and worked with the creators and came up with one of the most amazing titles ever.”
For Lionhead Studios’ Molyneux the ideas flooding out of the indie scene were already having an influence on his thinking about games: “
Braid
was a great example, not only was there that time mechanic but when you launch Braid there’s this little character on screen and straight away you’re in the game. I’ve been inspired by that.
Castle Crashers
putting the weapon-changing stuff in the world rather than outside the world is, I think, really good. There’s not been one example of freshness and newness, there’s like 10 going: ‘Hey you, old-codger game designers, why have you been doing it like that?’”
As 2009 drew to a close video games stood on the crest of a new era of creativity powered by both the grand visions of leading game designers and the fizzing experimental wildness of the indie movement. Nearly 50 years had elapsed since the creators of
Spacewar!
became the first people to really experience what a video game was. In that half century the video game had evolved into an entertainment medium that encompassed experiences as diverse as
Tetris
,
Grand Theft Auto IV
,
Wii Fit
,
BioShock
,
Pac-Man
,
Mortal Kombat
and
Every Day the Same Dream
.
Yet the creativity that had taken the primitive chess games, shoot ‘em ups, maze chases and ping-pong games of the 1960s and early 1970s and turned it not only into a huge international business, but a powerful and diverse artistic medium was showing no sign of slowing down. Far from settling into some kind of creative maturity, the video game remains an art form that still feels as if it has barely got started.
[
1
]. Pogo.com is an advertising-funded website offering a wide variety of online games, including Bingo, Poker and board games such as
Monopoly
.
[
2
]. SNK’s cartoonish
Metal Slug
series had kept the flame alive for run and gun games both in the arcades and on home consoles, but beyond that the genre had faded away in the early 1990s.
[
3
]. Japanese indie developers had more outlets for their work. Japan’s thriving doujin scene – which is largely based around indie manga – is so popular that there are dedicated shops that will sell their games. The internet has, however, helped doujin-soft developers get their work seen beyond Japan’s shores.
[
4
].
Portal
was a 2007 puzzle game set in Valve’s
Half-Life 2
world.
Miscellany
Gameography
With the origins of video games dating as far back as the late 1940s, this overview is necessarily partial, selective and brief. Online game databases MobyGames (
www.mobygames.com
) and Arcade History (
www.arcade-history.com
) provide more comprehensive listings.
Playing games designed for obsolete platforms is fraught with difficulty, although re-releases on digital game stores such as Steam, PSN, Xbox Live Arcade and WiiWare together with retail compilations have improved matters greatly. Beyond the re-releases, there’s the second-hand market and the murky world of emulation on PCs and – to a lesser extent – Macs. Emulator software mimics old systems, allowing digital copies of games to be played. Emulation often breaches copyrightlaw.
The syntax for the game information below is: Game title (Year released, Publisher, Developer/Designer, Platform [Recommended platform if not original], Country of origin). The information is based on the first release of the game. Where the publisher and developer are the same only one is listed.
Welcome to the maze of twisty little passages…
Spacewar!
The first game built for entertainment, the two-player-only
Spacewar!
(1962, Tech Model Railroad Club, PDP-1, USA), is still good fun. Try it at:
http://spacewar.oversigma.com
Spacewar!
directly inspired the first two coin-op games:
- Galaxy Game
(1971, Computer Recreations, Bill Pitts & Hugh Tuck, Coin-op, USA):
Spacewar!
Xeroxed. - Computer Space
(1971, Nutting Associates, Nolan Bushnell & Ted Dabney, Coin-op, USA): Great ’70s sci-fi cabinet, primitive game. It in turn inspired the slight but fun
Tank
(1974, Atari, Steve Bristow & Lyle Rains, Coin-op, USA). Tank was later remade as
Combat
(1977, Atari, VCS 2600, USA).
Spacewar!
also inspired the first vector graphics arcade game:
Space Wars
(1977, Cinematronics, Larry Rosenthal, Coin-op, USA). After that retina-searing vector graphics became a common sight in the arcades until they were cast aside around 1984. Many great moments:
- Tailgunner
(1979, Cinematronics, Tim Skelly, Coin-op, USA): Wireframe 3D space fighting. - Warrior
(1979, Cinematronics, Tim Skelly, Coin-op, USA): Ghostly overhead sword duels. - Lunar Lander
(1979, Atari, Rich Moore & Howard Delman, Coin-op, USA): A tense battle against gravity. Based on
Lunar Lander
(1973, DEC, Jack Burness, DEC GT40, US the vector update of the text-only
Lunar
(1969, Jim Storer, PDP-8, USA). - Asteroids
(1979, Atari, Ed Logg & Lyle Rains, Coin-op, USA): Vector gaming’s finest moment and Atari’s biggest-selling coin-op. Enduring rock blasting. - Battlezone
(1980, Atari, Ed Rotberg, Coin-op, USA): Groundbreaking wireframe 3D tank sim. - Gravitar
(1982, Atari, Rich Adams & Mike Hally, Coin-op, USA): Lunar Lander with galactic exploration. Led to the far superior:
Thrust
(1986, Superior Software, Jeremy Smith, BBC Micro, UK) and
Oids
(1987, FTL, Dan Hewitt, Atari ST, USA).
Thrust
creator Jeremy Smith went on to make the glorious
Gravitar
-influenced arcade adventure
Exile
(1988, Superior Software, Peter Irvin & Jeremy Smith, BBC Micro [Amiga], UK). - Star Wars
(1983, Atari, Mike Hally, Coin-op, USA): The original on-rails shooter, where movement is taken out of the players’ hands so they can concentrate on the shooting. Recaptured the rebels’ raid on the Death Star in colour wireframes. - Major Havoc
(1983, Atari, Owen Rubin & Mark Cerny, Coin-op, USA): Overambitious but interesting
Tailgunner
,
Lunar Lander
, maze game mash-up.
Many other on-rail blasters followed
Star Wars
:
- Operation Wolf
(1987, Taito, Eigo Okajima, Coin-op, Japan): A bloody hostage rescue mission powered by an Uzi controller. - Star Wars: Rebel Assault
(1993, LucasArts, Vince Lee, PC: MS-DOS, USA): Movie footage enhanced high-speed space battles. - Time Crisis
(1995, Namco, Takashi Sano, Coin-op, Japan): Trger-happy race against the clock and a foot pedal for taking cover. - The House of the Dead
(1996, Sega, Rikiya Nakagawa, Coin-op, Japan): Deal death to the undead. - Rez
(2001, Sega, United Game Artists, Dreamcast, Japan): Abstract shoot ’em up possessed by the pulsing heartbeat of the nightclub. Now in high definition thanks to
Rez HD
(2008, Microsoft Game Studios, Q Entertainment, Xbox 360, Japan). - Killer7
(2005, Capcom, Grasshopper Manufacture, PlayStation 2, Japan): Otaku developer Suda51 welds puzzle solving and choice of routes to the on-rails shooter.
While the vector monitor was left behind, the phosphorous burn look continues to inspire:
- Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
(2005, Microsoft Game Studios, Bizarre Creations, Xbox 360, UK): Frantic blasting throwback. - Groov
(2009, Funkmasonry Industries, Julian Kantor, Xbox 360, USA):
Asteroids
turned jazz odyssey.
Shoot ’em ups
After
Spacewar!
the next big evolutionary leap forward for the shoot ’em up was the coin-gobbling megahit
Space Invaders
(1978, Taito, Tomohiro Nishikado, Coin-op, Japan). Its ominous soundtrack and the relentless march of the alien horde remains an iconic moment in video game history and, while slow compared to later games, its quality is undeniable. Namco then upped the pressure on player with
Galaxian
(1979, Namco, Kazunori Sawano, Coin-op, Japan), which ripped away the security blankets of
Space Invaders
by erasing the shields and having aliens break from the pack to dive bomb players with a shower of missiles. The sequel,
Galaga
(1981, Namco, Coin-op, Japan), further stacked the odds in the aliens favour by arming them with tractor beams capable of capturing player’s craft.
Around the same time Atari’s Dave Theurer delivered a trio of landmark blasters:
- Missile Command
(1980, Atari, Dave Theurer, Coin-op, USA): Born out of nuclear nightmares. - Tempest
(1981, Atari, Dave Theurer, Coin-op, USA): Dizzying abstract shooting fury. - I, Robot
(1983, Atari, Dave Theurer, Coin-op, USA): The first game with 3D polygon graphics.
Williams’ lead designer Eugene Jarvis, meanwhile, served up some of the rawest and most exhilarating shoot ‘em up moments ever made:
- Defender
(1981, Williams, Eugene Jarvis & Larry DeMar, Coin-op, USA): Ferocious save ’em up action. Inspired the excellent hostage rescue helicopter action of
Choplifter
(1982, Brøderbund, Dan Gorlin, Apple II, USA).
Elite
co-creator David Braben revived
Defender
in 3D with the swirling and soaring
Zarch
(1987, Acornsoft, David Braben, Archimedes, UK). - Robotron: 2084
(1982, Williams, Eugene Jarvis & Larry DeMar, Coin-op, USA): Claustrophobic battle against swarms of killer robots.
After a brief spell away from the industry, Jarvis returned with the anti-drugs shooter
Narc
(1988, Williams, Eugene Jarvis, Coin-op, USA): Brutal zero tolerance policing that makes RoboCop look liberal.
- Smash TV
(1990, Williams, Eugene Jarvis, Coin-op, USA): TV game show parody with over-the-top explosions and gory destruction all in the name of winning a toaster. - Target: Terror
(2004, Raw Thrills, Eugene Jarvis, Coin-op, USA): Jarvis’ rapid-fire response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The left-to-right space battle of
Scramble
(1981, Konami, Coin-op, Japan) and the eye-catching
Xevious
(1982, Namco, Masanobu Endo, Coin-op, Japan) heralded a new era for the shoot ’em up that neatly divided into the horizontally and the vertically scrolling.
The vertical scrollers:
- 1942
(1984, Capcom, Yoshiki Okamoto, Coin-op, Japan): Second World War aerial battle against the Japanese air force. - SWIV
(1991, Storm, Random Access, Amiga, UK): Thundering shoot ’em up where players controlled either a helicopter or an armoured jeep. - Batsugun
(1993, Toaplan, Coin-op, Japan) and
DonPachi
(1995, Atlus, Cave, Coin-op, Japan) took the gaming public into ‘bullet hell’ for the first time. - Radiant Silvergun
(1998, Treasure, Hiroshi Iuchi, Coin-op [Saturn], Japan): Awesome and much sought after shoot ’em up with a unique RPG-style levelling-up approach to its weaponry. - Ikaruga
(2001, Treasure, Hiroshi Iuchi & Atsutomo Nakagawa, Coin-op [Xbox 360], Japan): A good introduction to the bullet hell genre where your defensive and offensive capabilities are based around the ability to change your ship’s colour from black to white. - Perfect Cherry Blossom
(2003, Team Shanghai Alice, PC: Windows, Japan): Pyrotechnic firestorm where bullets fizz out at you like sparks from Catherine wheel fireworks. - Warning Forever
(2004, Hikware, Hikoza Ohkubo, PC: Windows, Japan): Stylish (and free) indie game where you battle a succession of giant ‘boss’ spaceships that evolve to counter your method of attack.
The horizontal scrollers:
- Uridium
(1986, Hewson, Graftgold, Commodore 64, UK): Daring battles above giant galactic dreadnoughts. - R-Type
(1987, Irem, Coin-op, Japan): The defining horizontal shooter of the late 1980s with its biomechanical graphical style, giant bosses and multilayered power-ups. - Contra
(1987, Konami, Koji Hiroshita, Coin-op, Japan): Helped establish another shoot ’em up sub-genre, the run and gun game, where progress is made by running and jumping through levels on foot. - Parodius
(1988, Konami, MSX, Japan): Konami mocks its own horizontally scrolling shooter
Gradius
(1985, Konami, Coin-op, Japan). Also see the risqué send-up of
Sexy Parodius
(1996, Konami, Coin-op, Japan). - Thunderforce IV
(1992, Technosoft, Megadrive, Japan): High-pressure shooter that demands lightning reactions. - Cho Aniki Bakuretsu Ranto Hen
(1995, Nippon Computer Systems, Masaya, Super NES, Japan): Bizarre homoerotic shooter with a cult following. - Einhänder
(1997, Square, PlayStation, Japan): Square broke off from making RPGs to create this first-rate and highly polished shooter.
