1. Higher Priced Games
The saying goes "You get what you pay for" and it holds meaning. However, the standard price for most games was set at $50. But every now and then, a game would come along that would cost almost twice that amount. Phantasy Star II, amazing game that it was, set the buyer back a whopping $90. Can you believe that? Final Fantasy III (VI as it's now called) sold for $80. Even for a gamer with an allowance, $80-$90 is a lot for a game. Heck, that's a lot for a game today, and depending on the title, you may pay that amount or more for a used game. Even worse, if you weren't a working gamer or had no allowance, you had to rely on mom and dad to get the game for you. One look at a price like that it became much easier for your parents to deny you what you wanted. Today you'll pay around $90 or so for the special edition of a game and it comes with some extra stuff like an arcade stick, an art book, figurines, or soundtrack CD. Back then? The game was all you got for that price!
2. Mascots with Attitudes
As much as I love Sonic the Hedgehog, he was responsible for creating one of the worst crazes to ever sweep the face of gaming. When other companies saw how successful Sonic was doing on the Genesis, they scrambled to shove their breed of talking animals down our throats. These developers must have missed that little detail about Sonic having a good game underneath all the foot-taping, smirking and finger wagging. Instead of a quality product, publishers put out the annoying Bubsy, the obnoxious Awesome Pawsome, and a slew of other rejects that escape me. To make matters worse, some of these animal critters did not know when to shut up, which was what made you want to kick them in the face while wearing golf shoes. Now not every mascot character with 'tude had a bad game. Actually, the first Gex was a good platformer, but he was one of those types that had clearly never heard of quiet time.
3. Crappy Licensed Games
Granted this problem still exists to this day, it isn't near as bad as it was 30 years ago. With a few notable exceptions like Konami and Capcom, many licensed titles were even bigger crap than that pile that Jeff Goldblum mentioned in Jurassic Park. Gamers had no idea E.T, Total Recall, Back to the Future and Friday the 13th were expensive coasters until they played them. I also fell victim to this when I rented Batman Forever, which was basically Mortal Kombat as a beat 'em up. I would have been more angry had I bought that game but as it stands, it was still a waste of $4.26 and more importantly, my time.
4. Bigger than Life Consoles
Lots of video game consoles of the past were bulky but some were big enough to have their own zip code. The Atari 5200 is notorious for being one of the largest systems out there. Panasonic's 3DO was also pretty beefy. Microsoft's first system the Xbox was as heavy as it was big. They got with the program with the 360, a much smaller, sleeker console.
5. AC Adapters
The Atari 5200 was not only a giant, so was the AC adapter you used to plug the system in. The NES, SNES and even the Genesis, while not as large as the 5200's AC adapter were still guilty of being outlet hogs.
6. Long CD Cases
With the coming of the 32-bit gaming era, gamers were treated to even more CD-ROM based games. NEC's Turbo Duo used slim CD cases for it's games, which saved on shelf space. Sega of America was still using the bulky, unattractive long CD cases from the Sega CD with Saturn games, cases that cracked very easily. Sony also had long boxes butt hey were a little bit slimmer and not made of plastic glass. Eventually, Sony wised up and went with standard jewel cases. Sega of America didn't start doing this until the Dreamcast.
7. Ridiculously Long Passwords
You just finished a tough level, or you lost all your lives. Time to get that password so you can save your game. Annnnnnd here comes the insanely long character password system. Metroid, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Kid Icarus, River City Ransom; some of the most fondly remembered classics are not void of the cumbersome string of passwords that plague older games. It gets worse when you realize that some of the inputs on those passwords aren't all that clear on what's what. If you wrote down the wrong character, you were screwed.
3 comments:
its what we had at the time.
looking back and making criticism in retrospect is fun but it just is not the same. I loved those games and the systems and did not think any of this was a problem at the time so I don't really think it is anything to gripe about.
You were even OK with those insanely long passwords, Jim? Even back then, those were pretty annoying.
The ISS games on the SNES had the most ridiculous passwords, don't think I ever completed many tournaments due to them.
Still great games though.
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