WHA.C.O. - Vol. 1: WHAt’s Coming Out (August 2012)

by J. Adams

August is usually a fairly light month for triple-A game releases - school is starting up again so the “traditional” target audience isn’t going to be spending as much time or money on games. It also falls before the major U.S. holiday season (and the beginning of most companies’ fiscal year) when publishers are most anxious to see their highest sales. This August isn’t an exception.

Nintendo will release the Nintendo 3DS-XL on August 19^th for a relatively modest $199.99. This new model of the 3DS includes dual screens 90% larger than the original (top: 4.88 in., bottom: 4.18 in.), an “86% longer battery life” which will bring the play time on a full charge to roughly six hours, while increasing the weight of the system by about 3/4 of a pound. The new handheld will release on the same day as New Super Mario Bros. 2, likely to help your local game shop employees sell both to you at the same time – that’s what I would do, anyway.  

August 1

Deadlight – XBOX Live Arcade

A side-scrolling, survival horror platforming by independent developer Tequila Works, Deadlight is the first game.

August 7

Persona 4, Arena – PS3, Xbox 360

2D fighter based on Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 characters, with its own side-plot loosely connected to Persona 3: FES and Persona 4.

Sound Shapes – PS3, PS Vita

Side-scrolling musical platformer, geared to casual gamers. 

August 8 

Hybrid – Xbox Live Arcade

Downloadable from the Xbox Live store, Hybrid is an online multiplayer third-person shooter that takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting. 

August 10 

The Amazing Spider-Man – Windows PC

I’m not a fan of movie tie-in games because they tend to be rushed to coincide with the release of the movie they represent. This particular game is being developed by Beenox, the same company that developed the last two Spider-Man games, Edge of Time and Shattered Dimensions. Those two were a bit of a good time, so this one might be worth a look as well – just beware of spoilers, as the game is supposed to serve as an “epilogue” to the film. 

Euro Truck Simulator 2 – Windows PC

Have you ever wanted to be the driver of a semi-truck, picking up and delivering cargo in and around Europe’s major cities? Me either - but apparently there are people out there who enjoy that kind of thing. They are welcome to it. 

August 13 

Sanctum – Mac

Sanctum is a hybrid first-person shooter and tower defense game that has been available on Windows since April 2011. It’s a fun diversion, but I prefer Orcs Must Die. 

August 14 

Darksiders II – Windows PC, Xbox 360, PS3

This is the highly anticipated sequel to Darksiders released in 2010. In the sequel, players will take control of Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who is convinced that his brother War (the playable character from the original), is innocent of the crimes that he has been convicted of committing. The game is reported to be double the size of the first and will include additional puzzle-solving and a hub-spoke dungeon system. 

The Last Story – Wii

Normally I am very lukewarm about third-person action/role-playing games, but this particular game is being developed by Mistwalker Studios, the company founded by the legendary Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of Final Fantasy). As an added bonus, Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy, the SaGa series, and The Black Mages (band)) is composing the score. I am definitely looking forward to this one. 

Papo & Yo – PS3 (via PlayStation Network)

A casual fantasy adventure game by independent developer Minority, Papo & Yo is a puzzle/platformer about a boy and his massive, razor-mawed monster. I generally pass on these sorts of games myself, but there is a very large (and growing) market for games like this. 

Sleeping Dogs – Windows PC, PS3, Xbox 360

Sleeping Dogs is an open world crime drama action game with controls reminiscent of Batman: Arkham Asylum’s “Freeflow” combat system, a fully-integrated cover system, and a three-tiered experience point system that will represent the main character’s support of the Triads, the Police, and his general reputation around the city. I’m not normally one for these particular sorts of actions games, but if the role-playing elements and the experience system are well managed, it might be worth a purchase. 

August 15 

Dust: An Elysian Tail – Xbox Live Arcade

This game has been getting quite a bit of attention for simply being developed by a single person while maintaining “a level of graphic quality usually notable to teams with dozens of personnel.” I’ll give the demo a test run, but I won’t have high expectations for more than graphics based on what I’ve seen. 

Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack – Windows PC

This was a downloadable launch title for the PlayStation Vita and a sequel to Tales From Space: About a Blob. Mutant Blobs Attack is a side-scrolling platformer in which players control an alien blob that grows as it consumes loose objects in the game world. There are some physics-based puzzles involved, and many of the obstacles presented to the player can be bypassed by simply growing larger. 

August 19 

New Super Mario Bros. 2

It’s Mario, so there’s really not too much to say. The game plays like a classic Mario Bros. side-scroller, but this installment puts a larger emphasis on gathering coins – the ultimate goal of the game is to collect One. Million. Coins. Sounds like a weekend of fun to me! 

August 21 

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – Windows PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Mac

It’s been a while since there’s been a full-blown Counter-Strike release, and this installment seems to be a good direction for the series. It plays as a first/third-person shooter based around terrorists vs. counter-terrorists and will feature objective-based matches as opposed to the more common Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. 

Retro/Grade – PlayStation Network

Another Indie for the PS3, Retro/Grade is part rhythm game, part shooter. The game plays like a normal space/plane shooter but is entirely timed to the background music. As such, it can be played with a regular controller or a guitar controller. 

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron – Windows PC, Xbox 360, PS3

The sequel to 2010’s Transformers: War for Cybertron is the next chapter of the war between the Autobots and Decepticons prior to their arrival on Earth. It’s a third-person action shooter that shows promise, and the first game released to slightly above-average reviews. 

August 24 

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition – Windows PC

When released for the PS3 and the Xbox 360 several months ago, Dark Souls gained a solid following simply because it is, quite simply, one of the most unforgiving games ever created. The standard difficulty of this game puts “Realistic” modes on any other game to shame. Finally, PC gamers are going to have the chance to play it – although most of their time will most likely be spent watching death animations. 

August 28 

Guild Wars 2 – Windows PC

Guild Wars is one of the more popular massively-multiplayer online games, and one of the stronger competitors to Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. Guild Wars focuses far more on player-vs.-player (PvP) content, and for many, that is the primary attraction. I wasn’t a fan of the first release, so I will likely be giving this one a pass. 

Madden NFL 13 – PS3, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita

Electronic Arts releases a new Madden game every year, and they’re all basically the same. I have exactly one sports game (Madden ’09) that I play maybe – maybe – twice a year. In short, expect more of the same (football) with slightly better graphics and updated team rosters and stats. 

Rock Band Blitz – Playstation Network

It’s Rock Band without the need for special controllers shaped like musical instruments. I rather like that idea, as Harmonix’s first two games, Frequency and Amplitude, were two rhythm games that I thoroughly enjoyed, and they were out long before the first Rock Band or Guitar Hero. The Xbox Live version releases on August 29. 

The Ratchet and Clank Trilogy – PS3

This collection of the first Ratchet and Clank trilogy (Ratchet and Clank, Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando, and Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal) has been remastered to support 1080p HD and, if your television is set up for it, 720p stereoscopic 3D. The games were great when they originally released, so I would imagine they’ll be just as great now with updated graphics.

That’s all for August – as we move into the holiday season, we’ll be seeing even more sequels and a tighter release schedule. There are a few titles I’m looking forward to in the next few months, some of which might even have their own features. You’ll have to keep reading to find out! 

Growing Up (a) Gamer: Part 3 - Welcome to the Seventh Generation

by J. Adams

Last week we explored the beginning of the Console Wars and the slow demise of Sega as a first-party console seller and the evolution of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. The seventh generation of consoles has been defined by an almost palpable hostility between fans of Sony and Microsoft, while Nintendo’s offering appealed to a far larger demographic, quietly scooped up market share, and showed many consumers why and how Nintendo had survived so long.

The first of the seventh generation consoles to be released was Microsoft’s Xbox 360 on November 16, 2005. The console had a modest launch line-up of games but it had the strongest stable of third-party developers and publishers who had already been developing on the Xbox.  The Xbox hardware was orders of magnitude more powerful than the original Xbox which gave these developers some real meat to work with. Graphics were getting smoothed out, more action was being seen on screen at one time, and worlds were becoming even more detailed. Before you even got to the games, though, there was an entirely new interface to deal with: the Xbox 360 Dashboard.

The Dashboard was basically a menu-driven information center that allowed you to manage gamer profiles, saved games, the Xbox store, and log into the newly updated Xbox Live service. The service had been available since 2002, but it was extraordinarily limited by both the original Xbox console and limited third-party support. The new Xbox Live service offered two tiers of membership, one of which was free (“Silver”) and included only enough access to the service to download game patches, downloadable content (DLC), or downloadable games (also at additional cost). The “Gold” tier cost $59.99 per year, and allowed full access to multiplayer content (over the internet) on any titles that supported it. Microsoft caught quite a bit of flak from gamers after the announcement that the new Xbox Live Gold would be a premium membership service, but the simple argument was that Microsoft itself would be providing the servers for multiplayer games, not the developers or private consumers hosting dedicated servers.

As the Xbox featured internet connectivity right out of the box, the console also included messaging services and Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) service, which allowed Microsoft to sell new peripherals such as a controller-mounted keyboard and various wired and wireless headsets. I never bothered with the Xbox Live Gold service or the VOIP/messaging because I was still most interested in playing console games more or less by myself. I spent a lot of time playing Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, Kingdom Under Fire, Crackdown, Halo 3, Halo ODST, Halo Wars, Fable ( II, and III), and various other random titles. At this point, I was married and working full time, so I most definitely wasn’t spending hours and hours on end playing console video games.

Other attractive features of the Xbox 360 included the peripheral HD-DVD drive, HDMI capability (on newer models), and being the first console to offer streaming media via Netflix. I wasn’t watching too many HD-DVDs but I got plenty of use out of the base console’s ability to play standard DVDs.

The Xbox 360 had a full year to gain an insurmountable lead over the next Sony and Nintendo offerings and it seemed to be making good use of it by contracting more third-party developers and getting as many “Xbox Exclusive” titles as it possibly could. When the PlayStation 3 was released on November 17, 2006, it looked like all the work Microsoft had done would be assisted by one of the largest fiascos in the history of gaming.

The PlayStation 3 was an ambitious system, using several new technologies including the Cell microprocessor and Blu-ray format for the optical media. At launch, the hardware caused headaches for production, leading to severe shortages of the system around the world. Systems were selling as high as $2000 on Ebay – for the base system with no software – and the retail price started at $649.99. This price included the aforementioned tech, as well as a 150GB hard drive, backwards compatibility with the PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation, and a piece of hardware that weighed in at about 10 lbs and sounded like an approaching freight train. Despite the high price, Sony was actually losing money on every console sold, leading analysts to question whether or not they’d made a financially sound decision in releasing the console at all. In addition, Blu-ray was still in its infancy and, as a Sony product itself, was going to rely on the success of the PlayStation 3. Many people believed that the Blu-ray/HD-DVD competition was going to end up much like the VHS/Betamax wars, in which Sony (producers of Betamax) lost big. In addition to these problems, many developers who had been provided with the PlayStation 3 Software Development Kit (SDK) were complaining that the PlayStation 3 was a nightmare for programming. This created a delay in the quality games that consumers were expecting and was also a major contributing factor to the loss of exclusive titles.

Within a year, Sony had redesigned the PlayStation 3, lowered the price to a far more approachable $299.99, and offered multiple models with the differentiating factor being the size of the hard drive. PlayStation 2 backwards compatibility was dropped completely due to the cost of including what was essentially the PlayStation 2 hardware package in order to make it work. The machine was also made smaller, sleeker, and much quieter. I waited about two years before I bought mine because the price was ridiculous right out of the gate, and Blu-ray was finally starting to take off at about the time I decided I’d go ahead and buy it. I also had a lot of interest in first-party titles like God of War III, and PlayStation exclusives like Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. There were far fewer PlayStation exclusives, though, with many developers like Square-Enix, Konami, and Namco releasing their previous PlayStation exclusive titles on the Xbox 360 as well as the PlayStation.

Now we come to the dark horse of this generation, the Nintendo Wii. Nintendo had been quiet about its new console for a long while, probably due to the modest success of the Nintendo 64 and the GameCube. What they did want people to know is that they were making something for all ages, not just kids, and that there would be a lot more involved in playing on the Wii than just holding a controller and using your thumbs. The Wii was released on November 19, 2006, only two days after the PlayStation 3. The clamor for that system was eclipsed by the PlayStation 3 launch, but the Wii itself was also incredibly difficult to find – for an entirely different reason. The Wii was selling like crazy. For almost the first full year after it was released, there were lines for it at retail outlets that stocked it, waiting lists to even have the chance to buy one, and speculators buying systems where they could find them to resell on Ebay as often as they could.     

The draw to this new system was the simplicity of the games and the way they were played. Motion sensing games had been tried a few times, notably with the PlayStation 2 EyeToy, but they were seen as an extremely niche genre that really didn’t see all that much success. The Wii, which did not require a camera-type system like the EyeToy (or Microsoft’s future Kinect and PlayStation’s Move), was simpler to set up, simpler to use, and the games that were coming out were, to put it plainly, fun. WiiSports, a game that was bundled with the original system, was a best seller. Nintendo’s core first-party line-up, all designed to make full use of their motion controller scheme, sold extremely well. They also had great success with Nintendo staples such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and a multitude of Pokemon games. Third-party developers were a little frustrated at first, as it was clear that the best-selling titles were almost always developed by Nintendo. The relative lack of power of the Wii when compared to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 also turned off quite a few other developers who wanted to create games that the Wii would simply not be able to handle.     

Despite all this, the Wii has unexpectedly outsold the other two major players in this console generation. It has a loyal customer base that will continue to support it as we move into the next generation and with this support, they will be in a good position to take charge, and take charge quickly. The Wii U, in fact, will be the first console released of the so-called eighth generation (because the release of a new system heralds the dawning of a new generation, of course), with an expected release date sometime in the 4^th quarter of this year. Sony and Microsoft are also currently researching and possibly developing their next offerings, but both companies have said that the release of the Move and Kinect (respectively) have extended the overall life cycles of their seventh generation consoles.

Wondering where the PC has been during all this? The PC has also grown and evolved as a gaming platform over all these years, but at its heart, is still a PC. It doesn’t usually involve a television, but no (extremely amateur) video game writer can just ignore it. Future articles will most certainly involve discussions of PC games, characters, and the PC gaming community – have patience, friends. All in good time.

Growing Up (a) Gamer: Part 2 – The Console Wars Begin

by J. Adams

Last week I described my early forays into the quickly evolving world of video games with what limited understanding I had of what was to come, and an even more limited understanding of the business of video games – I didn’t care what it took to get them to me, I just wanted to play.

We left off at the tail end of the Fifth Generation of hardware, of which the Sony Playstation was easily the most successful. Despite the fact that Sony was a newcomer to the console arena, the Playstation was the first console of the Fifth Generation to ship 100 million units. The Playstation had originally been intended as a joint venture between Nintendo and Sony, but the project dissolved over disagreements between whether or not a CD or a cartridge should be used as media. Up until now the main players in the gaming market had been Nintendo and Sega (which, in the case of the Sega Saturn, performed so poorly they were close to giving up – or should have already) , and the breakout performance of the Playstation added a new competitor.

That’s not to say that there weren’t others out there, but none of the others were what you might call power players.  Panasonic had recently released another CD system called the 3DO (I had one of these – Star Control 2 and The Horde [featuring Kirk Cameron!] were my favorite games), which didn’t sell nearly as well as they’d hoped – the $700 price tag was not a help – and Atari had recently put out the Jaguar. The Jaguar had a great name, but so few games when compared to the other choices out there that it simply wasn’t worth it to buy. The Amiga CD32 isn’t really worth mentioning – as far as I know, there was nothing worthwhile ever released on that particular platform. It cost around $400 and was sorely lacking in games, and I’ve honestly never even seen one in use.

Nintendo’s offering was the Nintendo 64 (N64 or “Ultra” 64) which was a cartridge-based system with some wonderful games, though the two that stand out the most were The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and James Bond 007: Goldeneye, which set the standard for FPS team deathmatch – at least until Unreal Tournament came out in 1999 on PC. The N64 kept Nintendo afloat during this time, but it wasn’t nearly as popular as the Playstation. Cartridge technology had come a long way, but I personally believe that Nintendo really missed the boat by not upgrading to CD media. As it turns out, though, their business decisions to stay away from optical media for a while ended up working in their favor after some time, but it wouldn’t be until the Seventh Generation that their patience would pay off.

The first console of the Sixth Generation was, surprisingly, another Sega offering called the Dreamcast. This was another one of those systems I simply had no interest in, but I do remember that some of the cel-shaded grahics were pretty impressive. I also heard a lot of people really enjoyed Crazy Taxi. The Dreamcast was released in September of 1999 and had a pretty good head start on the competition. It would be a full 13 months later that the second Sixth Generation console would come out, so it stood to reason that Sega would have taken the time to solidify its hold and get as much new support as possible. They did not, and the Dreamcast was the last console that Sega would make.

The Playstation 2 (PS2) was released in the United States in October of 2000 and was immediately beset by distribution issues. For the first few months, you couldn’t find a PS2 on the shelf anywhere, and they were selling for $1000 or more on eBay. There were plenty of launch titles, and Sony had spent a great deal of time and effort during the heyday of the Playstation making deals and lining up some superb third-party developers/publishers, as well as building up great teams internally. Konami and Squaresoft were well represented, releasing Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3: Snake Eater, and Final Fantasy X respectively. I had played the original Metal Gear back on the NES, and then the Playstation follow-up Metal Gear Solid and was very pleased by both 2 and 3, though with the focus of 2 on Jack rather than Snake, Metal Gear Solid 2 is not one of my favorites. Final Fantasy X, on the other hand, is an almost obscenely close second to Final Fantasy VII as my favorite in the series. Other great titles that I still play once in a while, even now, include God of War and God of War II, Front Mission 4, Dynasty Warriors 2-5, and the PS2 releases in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series. The PS2 also had the added perk of being backwards compatible with the original PlayStation, meaning that people who had bought into the PlayStation would still be able to play their old games, even if they traded in their old hardware.

In January 2001, Sega announced that the Dreamcast was being discontinued – following this news, a new CEO also announced that Sega would be dropping out of the hardware market – at least as far as home consoles – and would instead focus on software developing and publishing.

Later that year, in November, Nintendo released the GameCube. While not nearly as impressive as the PS2, Nintendo had a solid stable of games to fall back on, including some eagerly anticipated sequels to the Mario franchise, Star Fox, and The Legend of Zelda franchise. There were also quite a few new titles and IPs that debuted on the GameCube – though in all honesty, I didn’t buy a GameCube until 2006 in preparation for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Finally, 2001 marked the year of another major player in the console industry. Having spent most of its time publishing and subsidizing PC game developers, Microsoft burst onto the console hardware market in November with the release of the Xbox. The list of launch titles was fairly lean, all things considered, but Microsoft’s work with many third-party developers and publishers almost ensured a quick expansion of the library. The best of the launch titles was arguably Halo: Combat Evolved. The company behind the title, Bungie, had taken a lot of the lessons learned in the PC FPS genre - including the addition of a serious, original narrative – and produced one of the best console FPS experiences ever. The game was almost universally acclaimed, and in 2011 was re-released as the Halo: Combat Evolved 10th Anniversary Edition. It also spawned numerous sequels, two FPS spinoff titles, and even a console-based Real Time Strategy (RTS) game, Halo Wars.

With the release and following popularity of the Xbox, Sony and Microsoft were starting to square off for the major conflict of the console wars. Sega was already out, and Nintendo – despite relatively strong sales – was far enough behind that they were considered a peripheral competitor at best. Nintendo did, however, have an absolutely commanding lead in the hand-held market, which, it can be argued, continues to this day.

Next week we’ll return to the present with the Seventh Generation of consoles, beginning with the second console offering from Microsoft and continuing the heinous, poorly-planned launch of the PlayStation 3, and the upsurge in “family” gaming launched by the Nintendo Wii.

Growing Up (a) Gamer: Part 1 – In the Beginning…

by J. Adams

I was born in 1984 and, though I can’t prove it, I was probably born with a controller in my hand.  That in itself should be odd considering that 1984 was actually the year in which industry analysts – analysts of a young, struggling industry to be sure – were questioning the long term viability of any sort of home video game market in the United States.   It was a great question at the time, since the industry that had been worth around $3 billion the year before was now worth about 3% of that, netting only around $100 million and seeing the demise of nearly all the companies producing home consoles and/or games.

1983 saw a second massive crash in the home video gaming market – the first being in 1977 – in the U.S. that very nearly destroyed the industry before it really got started.   The first and second generation of home game systems included the venerable Atari 2600, the Amiga, the Commodore 64, and the Magnavox Odyssey – most of which you will hear about from Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory - or by the occasional nostalgic gamer geek that says “they just don’t make them like that anymore.”  Personally, I’m rather glad that we’ve moved past it. 

From what I understand, I spent most of 1985 trying to eat various small, brightly colored objects which I believe should have been a clue to my parents as to what my eventual obsession would be. This is the year that, despite predictions of impending doom from Electronic Games magazine, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was released in the U.S.  The initial game library consisted of only a dozen games, including Super Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt, Kung Fu, and my personal favorite, Excitebike.

Behold - The machine that almost
single-handedly rescued the home
video game industry.

During the next few years, the NES had a pretty good stranglehold on the home video game market, since its only competition was the Sega Master System, which wasn’t released until 1986. We still had the Amiga and the Commodore 64, but those weren’t really ‘consoles’ any more than today’s gaming PC is a console. I played a great many of the NES games that came out, but given that I was only 4 or 5, I spent most of that time mashing the couple of buttons on the controllers.

I’m sure that industry “insiders” and people far more well-known than I will disagree, but I believe the true Golden Age of video gaming started in 1991 when the Super Nintendo was released. I was only 7, but I just knew that 16-bit was something magical and I absolutely had to have it – but when my parents asked me what system I wanted for my birthday, I asked for the Sega Genesis. The Genesis had been out for two years before the Super Nintendo’s release and was  advertising a much ‘cooler’ character than the old standby Mario – Sonic the Hedgehog. 

The Glorious Golden Age.   

 As soon as I played the first few levels of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, I was hooked.  The game was fast and colorful – far more than the old Super Mario Brothers on the NES – and I vividly remember being quite simply entranced by what I was seeing.  The Genesis kept my attention for a long time, putting out games like Toejam and Earl – which I used to play for hours with my father – Pirates! Gold, Phantasy Star, (my first “RPG),– General Chaos( which had great puns in it that I didn’t understand until many years later), Altered Beast (“Rise from your grave!”), and so many more that trying to talk about them all would increase my word count for this article without actually saying anything. 

It was probably 1993 when I did eventually get my Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and got reacquainted with Mario and Luigi. Following that act was difficult, but when The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was released, I found myself sinking many more hours at a time into a single activity than I ever had before.  The SNES was also the home of the new (to me) Final Fantasy series – I had played the original on the NES, but I was too young to have the patience to stick with it. Now that I was getting to be a pre-teen, I was, of course, growing far more mature and sophisticated than my parents were giving me credit for. Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III introduced me to the concept of (gasp!) storytelling in a video game, and even today I remember the casts of excellent characters that I spent 60+ hours – per playthrough – working on.

A lot of new third-party developers were getting involved in the gaming market around this time, bringing out dozens of games a month. Even though I was playing video games far more often than I was doing most anything else, I just couldn’t keep up. I made it a point, though, to keep up with a couple of companies that consistently seemed to produce great games – my favorite of them was responsible for the Final Fantasy series, and probably my favorite game of all time, Chrono Trigger. That company was Squaresoft, and this would turn out to be fairly important for me.

Eventually, around the time I was reaching my teenage years, the Sony PlayStation was nearing release – this was going to be something entirely different than anything anyone had seen yet – the games weren’t going to be on cartridges anymore. Instead, they would be using optical discs which promised better graphics, longer games, and – this was hugely important back then – higher polygon counts. I pretended to know what that meant in a more specific way than ‘things will look better’ but I honestly had no clue what any of it meant.

Nintendo had decided to continue on with cartridges on its new Nintendo 64 system. I may have stuck with Nintendo except for one little thing – Squaresoft had made the decision to develop exclusively for the PlayStation and the next game in the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy VII was going to be on the PlayStation. My decision was more or less made for me.

The first PlayStation came out in 1995, and I had one before 1995 turned to 1996. Sony had gotten around not being able to save games directly onto a cartridge by having Memory Cards, and I thought it was just amazingly cool to be able to save so many different games to one device. The technical capabilities of the PlayStation allowed developers to do things that I wouldn’t have thought possible. The graphics on the cutscenes for Final Fantasy VIII made me wonder how anything could possibly look any better without being filmed live.

Glimpsing the Future...

My taste in video games was beginning to solidify with this new system. I didn’t care for racing games, fighting games, or too many of the first-person shooters that were available (which, in all honesty, wasn’t very many).  My gaming dollar was going to roleplaying games, strategy games, and the occasional platformer. This was also the time when I was getting to have some serious brand loyalty. As much as I hate to admit it, I was probably a Sony fanboy for whatever that really meant back then. I didn’t bother with the Nintendo 64 or the Sega Saturn, other than the couple of times I rented the hardware from Blockbuster Video when it was still a profitable company.

Next week in Part 2, I’ll get into the Sixth Generation of the consoles, which is when the “console wars” really began in earnest – and I was old enough to understand and care…at least to an extent.