Longest Game System's Media Support

From what I have been able to determine, the Nintendo Famicom was the longest known media-based console continuously produced.  It was released on July 15, 1983 in Japan.  At the end of the console's life, Nintendo discontinued the original model with the RF output and attached controllers and released the new-and-improved Famicom AV on December 1, 1993.  Nintendo stopped manufacturing the Famicom AV in September, 2003.  I am not aware of another console being continuously produced for nine to ten years without a redesign except the Playstation 2 slimline.

While the Sega Master System may have had a longer lifespan in Brazil, I have unearthed no evidence that cartridge-based consoles were manufactured for a continuous twenty-year period.  Moreover, Nintendo also holds the record for hand-held systems. Nintendo released the Game Boy on April 21, 1989 and only discontinued its Game Boy Advance (which is backwards compatible with Game Boy and Game Boy Color games) in 2008.  As Game Boy games are region free, that copy of Super Mario Land purchased at launch would still work in the last Game Boy Advance SP handheld systems sold in North America in 2008.

However, Sony's PS3 is still in production and Sony has stated that it will support it at least through 2015. Even today, the PS3's backwards compatiblity with PS1 titles has eclipsed Nintendo's media support. Playstation games have seen continuous support since 1994 even if the consoles were last manufactured in 2004, because they will work on Playstation 2s and Playstation 3s.

The Famicom Disk System - Impact, Issues and Ports

Nintendo released the Family Computer (Famicom) on July 15, 1983 in Japan for a cost of 14,800 Yen.  Cartridges for the system typically cost 4,500-5,500 Yen.  On February 21, 1986, Nintendo released the Family Computer Disk System accessory at a cost of 15,000 Yen.  Disks with new games typically cost 2,600-3,400 Yen, but the cost to rewrite a game was only 500-600 Yen.  At the time, Nintendo heavily promoted this peripheral as the future of gaming as it saw it.

Nintendo focused its efforts on the disk system for quite a long time.  The last cartridge game it released for the Famicom before the disk system's release , Mach Rider, was released on November 21, 1985.  It did not release another cartridge for two years (Punch-Out!!, November 21, 1987) and only had released ten cartridge games by the end of 1991. By contrast, excluding ports and revisions of cartridge games, Nintendo released twenty-six FDS games during the same time period.

The actual situation with cartridges became more complex than Nintendo wanted.  While Nintendo was off in magnetic-media land, its third parties carried the disk-less console and developed new cartridge hardware to increase drastically the amount of ROM space available to the games.  While the Disk System was not Nintendo's greatest success, it was hardly a failure.  19.35 million Famicoms were sold compared to 4.5 million disk systems.  As it found its way into at least 20% of Japanese Famicoms, as an add-on it would appear to be successful.  This is despite buyers having already paid 14,800 Yen for a Famicom.  Nintendo made money off each console sold.  Also, after the release of Famicom Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally on April 14, 1988, Nintendo no longer devoted exclusive games to the system, with the exception of PC-style adventure games.

Third parties interest in the system and the number of games released for it dried up by the end of 1988.  Some major developers like Capcom and Namco did not devote much attention to the disk system.  The main advantages of the disk system, namely space and saving, had quickly become affordable in cartridges and companies would charge extra for the privilege. Moreover, Nintendo's own licensing policies swallowed up a large portion of the profits, already smaller due to the lower prices for disk-based games.  Piracy was pretty commonplace, despite Nintendo's security measures.

Nintendo set up Disk Writer kiosks in stores across Japan to allow gamers to purchase new disks and rewrite old disks.  Considering that renting games was illegal in Japan, this was a good way to allow children to sample many games at reasonable prices.  This may have worked relatively well in Japan's more densely populated urban areas, but the more rural areas may have felt left out due to the distance required to travel to get to a shop with a Disk Writer.  Nintendo had to periodically service these machines with new games.

Unfortunately, this device is probably the most unreliable device Nintendo ever made.  The disk had no dust cover on them, making them prone to dust.  Like floppy all disks, the magnetic media can wear out over time and stray electromagnetism can make bits unreliable.  In fact, I have read of people recently buying disks sealed in the box and having them fail.  ROM cartridges are far more robust.

The disk drive itself has a head that will need cleaning, and the custom format means that getting disk cleaning disks will be tricky.  The drive belts will become loose, can break over time or even melt, and the circumference is a custom length.  Although the NES front loader cartridge connector will win no awards here, the pins can be cleaned and bent back.  Nintendo must have had made a pretty penny replacing drive belts for systems out of warranty and they offered the service until 2003.

The disk system came with a RAM adapter.  Inside this RAM adapter was a custom ASIC chip called the 2C33 that interfaced with the disk drive, provided the extra sound channel and came embedded with an 8KB BIOS ROM.  The sound channel modulates an arbitrary 6-bit waveform.  The RAM adapter also contained 32KB of RAM for Program Memory and 8KB of RAM for Character Graphics Memory.  Not unlike the Starpath Supercharger for the Atari 2600, the use of RAM allowed games to split the amount they would use for code and the amount of extra RAM they could use.  To load new data required reading from the disk.  Reading from the disk introduced load times to Famicom players.  For example, it can take 10 seconds to create a new character in Legend of Zelda and 45 seconds to load a game from the menu in Metroid, not accounting for the time it takes to flip the disk.

The disks are 3" wide, narrower than the common 3.5" disks.  They are Mitsumi Quick Disks with some extra plastic on the end that is molded with NINTENDO.  Real Nintendo disks are usually yellow and have no metal dusk cover, but Nintendo did release some special blue disks with metal dust covers.  This acts to prevent non-Nintendo disks from being used because the drive has a mold that must fit some of the holes in that word, but this was quickly circumvented.  The disks themselves can offer up to 65500 usable bytes of storage for a game on each side of the disk.  However, some of that space is taken up by sychronization bits, checksums and headers, so the actual space available to the programmer is less than the nominal amount.  With a cartridge, just about every byte is freely available for the programmer to use.  Also, there are no load times with cartridges and if the game is larger than 64KB, no disk swapping is required.  Standard Famicom cartridges could store only 40KB without additional hardware.  A 128KB cartridge game has more space available to it than a double-sided disk game.

The drive itself could be powered by the included AC adapter (you can use a Sega Genesis adapter here in the US) or 6-C Cell batteries.  Apparently power strips were not yet ubiquitous in Japan and there was no room left in the outlet when the TV and Famicom were connected.  The batteries, beastly as they are, should last for quite a while because the disk drive's motor is not always active.

Interestingly, Nintendo had already released a keyboard for the Famicom that plugged into the Famicom's expansion port.  This keyboard came with and was only used with the Family BASIC cartridges.  Family BASIC saved data to the the Famicom Data Recorder, a cassette recorder that plugged into the audio ports of the keyboard.  The cartridge contained only 32KB/8KB of ROM and 2KB or 4KB of battery backed RAM.  Nintendo could have had their console behave more like a "Family Computer" had they released a BASIC disk, but never did so.  Disk based storage is far more preferable to cassette based storage.

Most FDS-exclusive games came one disk, using two disk sides.  Many of the cartridge ports only required one side of a disk, leaving the other side free for a different game.  The PC-adventure style games were typically released in two parts with part 2 being released typically later than part one and require four disk sides.

One thing the FDS had going for it is Zelda no Densetsu : The Hyrule Fantasy (The Legend of Zelda overseas).  No console, let alone an add-on, could ask for a finer launch title.  Many game designers would be happy if they produced one bona-fide classic, but Shigeru Miyamoto produced his third indisputable masterpiece after Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros with Zelda.  Zelda offered Famicom players a unique experience.  It had puzzles, tons of secrets, unique enemies, multiple items to equip and for the time what must have seemed like a gigantic world.  Yet though that world was large, it was finite and almost no two screens were exactly alike.  Unlike many other games, then and now, it did not force you to do things in strict sequence.  As icing on the cake, when you completed the game, there was a second, harder quest thrown in for free!

To me and many other non-Japanese NES fans, the most interesting aspect of Famicom Disk System games are the games that were ported to the NES.  Fortunately Nintendo released Zelda as its first battery-backup cartridge overseas.  It knew it had something special on its hands, and sought to impress people with a shiny gold box and cartridge.  Considering Zelda sold several million copies, they were literally on the money.

Zelda cartridge is a good port of Zelda FDS.  You loose the extra sound channel, but it is chiefly used during the intro and ending credits, like most other of Nintendo's FDS games that were ported to cartridge.  Nintendo did not seem to use the extra sound channel for music during gameplay but did use it for sound effects.  Sound effects like Link throwing his sword and the doors opening in Metroid sound much more impressive compared to their NES counterparts.

When Nintendo ported Zelda to cartridge and released in July, 1987, they implemented a battery backed save mechanism.  The battery would keep an S-RAM in the cartridge powered so it would not lose its memory when the system was turned off.  It was the first NES cartridge released with a battery backed save.  The next battery backed cart would be Zelda 2, released in December, 1988.  Battery backed games were expensive, but far less common in the US than in Japan.  Of the roughly 750 US cartridges released during the NES's lifetime, only 56 had batteries.  By contrast, even though there were just over 1,050 Japanese Famicom cartridges, at least 200 had batteries.  Also, every FDS game had the potential to save.

Back in the 1980s, when Japanese games were ported to the US, many had minimal text to translate.  Some Japanese games used English throughout (if the game was fairly light on text) because most Japanese children would be expected to understand some English words and even simple sentences. Other games would use Japanese mostly or entirely thoughout.  The more text, the less likely the port as translation cost time and made things more difficult when porting.  Many of the games that were text heavy and saw ports usually had lots of "Engrish" until development companies began assigning these tasks to people who could actually speak English.  This would be apparent in games with lots of text like both Zelda and Castlevania II.  The Engrish in those games made many dialogues and hints seem truly cryptic.

However, games in the 1980s themselves were pretty cryptic when it came to clues.  Ultima : Exodus, even before it was ported to the NES, was very terse when it came to clues.  Limited disk or cartridge space and the lack of compression tended to cause text to get the clipped shrift.  The FDS version of Zelda also had its obscure hints, as you can read here : http://legendsoflocalization.com/the-legend-of-zelda/first-quest/  Dracula II : Nori no Fuuin, another text heavy FDS game that was ported over to the NES as Castlevania II : Simon's Quest, also has its fair share of head-scratchers : http://bisqwit.iki.fi/cv2fin/diff

Several FDS games, including Link no Boken, Doki Doki Panic and Dracula II, when ported, used 256KB carts.  The porters had more than double the space, and not all of it was taken up by the extra space needed to store English text over Japanese text.  In the US version of Zelda II, each dungeon had its own set of background tiles, some bosses were redesigned and the battle music is more complex.  Castlevania II has much better music than Dracula II, the percussion channel in the NES is used to better effect than the extra FDS sound channel.  Super Mario Bros 2 has much more animation than Doki Doki Panic.  However, Jackal has an extra stage, cut-scenes and can scroll the screen horizontally as well as vertically compared to its FDS counterpart (Akai Yousai) and the cart only has 128KB.

There can be some subtle differences between the original cart release and an FDS port.  Two games that original appeared as a cart, Wrecking Crew and Excitebike used the Famicom Data Recorder (a cassette recorder) to save custom levels and tracks.  When ported over to the FDS (the latter as Vs. Excitebike), they saved to disk.  While Super Mario Bros. for FDS does not support saving to disk, it does have a completely different minus world (consisting of three levels) that can be completed.

Many games, when ported over to cartridge, lost their ability to save games.  This includes Castlevania, Castlevania II, Dr. Chaos, Kid Icarus, Metroid, Mystery Quest and Super Mario Bros. 2., and Section Z.  Castlevania II, Dr. Chaos, Kid Icarus and Metroid use passwords, and the ability to have fun with custom passwords today makes them, in my opinion, more interesting than standard save games.  Of course, Japanese gamers did not have to write down these passwords and hope they did not make any errors or confuse a 0 with an O or a 1 with an l.  (At least we weren't subject to the intimidating 52 character long passwords of Dragon Quest II or the insane 104 character long password of the Japanese version of Maniac Mansion).  The rest allowed for continuing after you died (limited in the case of Super Mario Bros. 2).

Toward the end of the Famicom's life, there were a few ports of games that were released on Disk to Famicom Cartridge.  In each case, Zelda, Akumajou Dracula and Moero Twinbee, the overseas cartridge versions were taken as the base for the reverse port and took what they could and needed from the disk versions.  Cartridge Akumajou Densetsu loses saving, but gains an easy mode.  Moreo Twinbee (released as Stinger in the US) also has the easy mode and retains the three player mode of the disk version, which works by plugging a controller into the Famicom expansion port.

Two FDS games, when ported to NES cartridges were given a complete overhaul.  Roger Rabbit became The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle.  LJN obtained the rights to publish a Roger Rabbit NES game, so Kemco had to replace Roger Rabbit with Bugs Bunny when they released a cartridge based on the FDS game.  The result was little more than a sprite hack, with Roger being replaced by Bugs and the Weasels being replaced by multi-colored Sylvesters.  Crazy Castle also had Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck and Wile E. Coyote as enemies, but they appeared far more seldomly.  Roger Rabbit changes them into the Ink and Paint Club Gorilla, the Penguin Waiters from the Ink and Paint Club, and Judge Doom.  The object of Roger Rabbit is to rescue Jessica Rabbit, Bugs Bunny has to rescue Honey Bunny.  (This was 1989, and Lola Bunny, his modern girlfriend, was created for Space Jam in 1996).

In porting Doki Doki Panic to Super Mario Bros 2, Nintendo made major changes.  The replaced the original characters entirely with Mario characters, changed the plot entirely, modified sprites and replaced music.  In Doki Doki Panic, each character had to progress through the levels on their own, and the player could save the game for each world they completed with a character.  For Super Mario Bros 2., Nintendo allowed the player to select from any of the four characters each time they entered a new level or lost a life, but they also eliminated the ability to save your game.  Finally, to see the true ending in Doki Doki Panic, you had to complete the game with all four characters.  The NES version will show you the full ending by beating the game once, but only allows you two continues.  Here is a more visual and detailed depiction of the changes : http://www.themushroomkingdom.net/smb2_ddp.shtml

If you look inside a Metroid or Kid Icarus cartridge, you will see an extra RAM chip.  In fact, these games use the same cartridge board as Zelda, and even have a place on them for a battery.  Apparently, these games needed the flexibility of more RAM than the NES could provide.  The FDS could provide more RAM (at the expense of ROM), but they needed extra RAM for the cartridge versions.  It seems that Nintendo didn't want to spend the extra nickel to put in a battery or the programmer's work on the password system was too far to revert before they discovered that the games needed extra RAM.  Similarly, Super Mario Bros. 2 also has an extra RAM chip, but its board does not have space for a battery.

Super Mario Bros. 2 for the FDS was not released for the NES, but was released for the SNES as "The Lost Levels" and a portion of it (Worlds 1-8 only) for the Gameboy Color as Super Mario Bros. Deluxe.  It is well known that Super Mario Bros 2. FDS was rejected for being too difficult for the US market. However, there are differences between the original FDS version and the SNES remake.  The SNES cart remembers the level saved, unlike the FDS version which only remembers the world.  World 9 requires the player to complete every level of Worlds 1-8 without warping, but the FDS only gives you one life and loops back to 9-1 after you beat 9-4.  This is closer to the original minus world concept of Super Mario Bros.  In the SNES version, you go to World A-1 when you beat 9-4.  Also, the player must beat the game eight times in the FDS version and press A on the title screen to progress to World A-1, whereas you only need to complete Would 8-4 (with or without warping) to get to World A-1.  Thus the FDS game does save how many times you beat the game.

One annoyance with FDS games is that, unless you obtain a pristine, new-in-box copy of a game, you are likely going to be saddled with somebody's old saves.  Most NES games allow you to delete old saves and those deletions will stick  If the NES game does not, the game will be restored to its pristine condition when the battery fails or is removed.  While the two Zelda games allow you to restore the game to a pristine state with no save games, the rest of the games mentioned here do not.  Zelda and its sequel will write to disk if you kill a game or start a new game, but the others will only write to disk if you start a new game.  Therefore you will always have at least one character on your disk.

Retro Releases - Working within Limitations

When a home video game console is developed, often the designers could not predict how long the system would last.  The Atari 2600 was designed in 1976 and the last games were released for the system in 1990.  During the lifespan of a successful console, programmers would often push the hardware to limits well beyond what was thought possible when the system was designed.  

Console systems that relied on cartridges had one severe limitation, space.  The larger the ROM cartridge, the more costly it was for the publisher to make.  Adding special features like battery-backed save RAM or advanced functionality (like a MMC chip for a NES game, an MBC chip for a Gameboy/Color game, or a SARA chip for an Atari 2600 game) was even more expensive.  However, as manufacturing costs for cartridges decreased, larger games would become more economical.  Eventually, there came a point where space and functionality could, late in a console's life, only go so far to hide the age of the underlying hardware.

For an Atari 2600 game, 16KB was considered a large cartridge at the end of the console's life.  512KB would be about as large as most NES, SMS and non-color Gameboy games would get, 3MB for a Sega Genesis game and 4MB for a Super Nintendo game.  Even though most of those systems had larger games available, at those sizes the games were approaching the upper limits of what was feasible during the console's lifespan.  

Today, many, many programmers and developers make retro-themed games.  Often these games would have graphics that would hearken back to the 8-bit or 16-bit eras and have music to match.  Almost always, these games would be released for the Windows PC platform, the Intel-based Macs, or for Android or iOS mobile OSes.  Many would be available to download through a digital download source like Steam or an App store.  

These games lack at least two crucial features of real console games.  First, they have no permanent form, they exist entirely within the digital domain.  If your hard drive is wiped and your Steam account is deleted, there goes your game.  Sometimes they have DRM, so if Steam goes down then your access may be gone forever, despite having the program on your hard drive and backup.  By contrast, a cartridge (or a CD) has its own existence and the game's survival depends only on how well you treat the cartridge.  You can sell or trade or lend the cartridge as you please.  Licensing restrictions really never worked to keep people from doing any of these things.  

The second issue is that most of these games will never be remembered with the same fondness as Super Mario Bros. or Sonic the Hedgehog.  Those games were played by tens of millions of people, were ground breaking and state-of-the-art in their day, had significant cultural impact and historical significance.  A retro-style game may be very well received today, but its impact will probably pale in comparison to the giants that came before it.  

Retro-style games have a substantial advantage over the classic console games : they are run on vastly more powerful hardware.  Retro programmers tend not to have to worry about CPU cycle counting, assembler optimization, IRQ timing, sprite limitations and lack of sound channels.  By modern standards, it is a miracle that the NES and similar systems were able to run such games as they did.  No retro-style game need put up with these limitations, and even some that claim to do so (Mega Man 9 & 10) cheat when necessary.

Of course, with a game developed for a particular system, it must be contained on a cartridge if you want people to play it.  It simply was not feasible for most programmers to self-publish a cartridge in the 1980s or 1990s or even into the 21st Century.  Any such publishing was typically limited to Atari 2600 games, which are among the simplest cartridges to make.  

For more advanced systems, there are many difficulties in releasing a new game.  Burning EPROMS and soldering them onto donor carts to test games was not attractive to most people. Moreover, using donor carts is just not feasible for publishing a new game, new cartridge boards had to be produced. Unlike a pre-crash game, which could be programmed by one person, a complex game for the NES, SNES or Sega Genesis typically requires a team of several people.  Whatever price the game is sold for will not pay for the thousands of man-hours it took to create a game.  Game development must be balanced with real-life realities.  Also, there is a real probability that once your game is released, the ROM will be dumped and spread across the Internet.  

However, even though a game may be developed or ported to work on a real hardware system, there are examples when the hardware is simply way too advanced for the console.  At this point, the console becomes little more than a generic device that supplies power and inputs to the game.  The SNES MSU-1 is an example of too much hardware.  It can store and allow the SNES to access 4GB of data!  Not even if the canceled CD-ROM attachment came out could the SNES access so much storage space.  CD-ROM attachments were not seamless, players had to suffer load times, CD audio track reloading and the ever present drive noise.

I respect any game developer who is willing to work within reasonable constraints and able to produce memorable games.  Pier Solar is an example of a game that, while it pushes the limits of a Sega Genesis a bit (8MB cart), is still an original game that fits within the Genesis RPG library.  Battle Kid 1 & 2 for the NES are excellent games that would not have seemed out of place during the NES's heyday.  However, the number of new, substantial (not puzzle games) cartridge games for home consoles is still very few in number.

One last comment on homebrew games is that I cannot feel that a game is fully legitimate unless it is released on a cartridge.  ROMs are nice, and if they run on a flash cart that is great, but to have a unique cartridge, preferably with a box and manual, truly confirms a game as legitimate and tends to avoid issues with them being lost to time.

A related issue is the release of "VGA upgrades" to old adventure games like King's Quest I, II & III, Space Quest II, Quest for Glory II.  The trouble I have with them, besides the inconsistent quality of the updated graphics, is that while they purport to look like an SCI1-1.1. game, underneath they are anything but.  They do not use Sierra's SCI engine but Adventure Game Studio.  While they do nothing that would push a 486, they are meant to run on nothing less than a Pentium II and create 100MB save games.  Totally inefficient and wasteful.

As of June 13, 2015, here are the NES Homebrew carts that you can buy.  Items in yellow are currently out of stock.

Title	Company/Developer	Includes	Optional	Ordering Site
2 in 1 Geminim/Siamond	Sivak	Dust Sleeve		http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=59
Armed for Battle	Rizz	Dust Sleeve	Box & Manual	http://www.infiniteneslives.com/armedforbattle.php
Battle Kid 2: Mountain of Torment	Sivak	Manual, Dust Sleeve	Box & Art Book	http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=121
Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril	Sivak	Manual, Dust Sleeve		http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=86
Beerslinger	Greetings Carts			https://www.etsy.com/listing/234297536/beerslinger-nintendo-nes-brand-new?ref=shop_home_active_2
Blow 'em out	Greetings Carts		Box & Manual, Personalized Cart	https://www.etsy.com/listing/215571036/blow-em-out-a-personalized-original
Chunkout 2	James Todd	Dust Sleeve		http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=65
GemVenture	Tom Livak			http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=&products_id=92
Glider	RetroZone	Manual, Dust Sleeve, Box, Insert		http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=58
Homebrew World Championships (HBWC) 2012	Multiple	Dust Sleeve		http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=129
Larry & the Long Look For a Luscious Lover	KHAN Games	Manual, Dust Sleeve, Box, Insert		http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=133
Mad Wizard, The	Sly Dog Studios			http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=137
Mystic Pillars	Sivak	Dust Sleeve		http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=55
Nighttime Bastards	One Bit Games	Manual, Dust Sleeve	Box	http://www.infiniteneslives.com/nighttimebastards.php
Nomolos: Storming the Catsle (Re-release)	Gradual Games	Manual, Dust Sleeve	Box	http://www.infiniteneslives.com/nomolos.php
Star Versus	Studio Dustmop	Manual		http://starversus.com/
Study Hall	KHAN Games	Dust Sleeve	Box & Manual	http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=128
Super NeSnake 2	Matrixz	Dust Sleeve		http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=60

Sitting this One Out - The Lack of an American Presence in the Third Generation of Console Video Games

After the video game crash of 1983-84, there were far fewer companies making video games than at the height of the second generation of home video game consoles.  What companies remained focused solely on home computer games.  When the NES kick started the third generation of console games and revived the console industry, few people overlooked the fact that Nintendo was a Japanese company.  Nintendo thoroughly dominated the 3rd generation of home video game consoles.  Sega was also a Japanese company, although its console had less impact in the United States and Canada, it still competed with Atari for 2nd place.

If you looked through the credits of most NES games (that had credits), the names would typically be Japanese names.  Of all the great, classic NES games, virtually all came from Japanese developers.  Some of the best known are Shigeru Miyamoto, who created Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, Kenji Inafune of Mega Man fame, Hironobu Sakaguchi, original designer of the final Final Fantasy series, Yoshio Sakamoto, designer of Metroid and Kid Icarus, Genyo Takeda for (Mike Tyson's) Punch-Out!! and the Startropics games, and of course no list can be complete without Yuji Hori of Dragon Quest/Warrior renown.

I do not wish to be ignorant by implying that America did not have an important role to play in the third generation, as it most certainly did.  Americans bought millions of systems and games and millions were spent to get them to buy those games.  Success in America transformed the console from a single-country (Japan) success into a global phenomenon, even if it was not as dominant in Europe.  Nor do I ignore the important contributions of several Americans like Howard Phillips, Howard Lincoln, Henk Rogers and (indirectly) John Kirby.  Without them, Nintendo of America may never have been able to make the console a success.

However, when it comes to classic console games of the third generation, virtually none can be traced back to American developers.  What few nuggets did come from the States were ports of well-regarded home computer games.  AD&D Pool of Radiance, Hillsfar & Bard's Tale, Boulder Dash, Raid on Bungeling Bay, King's Quest V, Lemmings, Maniac Mansion, Might and Magic, Pipe Dream, Pirates!, Prince of Persia, Skate or Die!, Ultima III and IV, Wizardry I & II.  Many of these games were good ports but most lost something in translation, or their appeal was lost on NES gamers.

The U.K. developer Rare cannot be overlooked in this article.  Rare(ware) made great original games like Snake, Rattle & Roll, Battletoads and its sequel Battletoads & Double Dragon, the Ultimate Teamup.  It also made the R. C. Pro-Am and Wizards and Warriors series.  Although the latter series is uneven, #3 is quite good.  Their pinball ports, Pinbot and High Speed, are probably the best pinball games on the NES.

While there were several American unlicensed companies that released NES games like Tengen, American Video Entertainment and Color Dreams, Tengen's best titles were ports of games already released for the Famicom (Alien Syndrome, Fantasy Zone, Rolling Thunder, Shinobi) by other companies and the other two were bottom feeders that almost never released good games.  Many of AVE and Color Dreams games were games developed in Taiwan.  Codemasters was  a U.K. company that made at least one great game, Micro Machines, good ports of the Dizzy games (which originated on the U.K. home computers) and demonstrated that they could compete with Nintendo's official licensees.  Camerica distributed Codemasters games in the US and Canada.  There were a few decent games from the unlicensed US NES developers, but if you are looking for classics, look elsewhere/.

Most American designers were commissioned by outfits like LJN and Acclaim to make licensed games.  Virtually all suck.  If I had to list all the crappy licensed games made for the NES, we would be here for a while.  Some of the Star Trek and Star Wars games are okay, but nothing spectacular.  Games based on gameshows like Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy fulfilled a need, but the individual games are largely forgettable.

Things are not completely hopeless on the U.S front.  One arguable classic from U.S. shores is David Crane's A Boy and his Blob.  I consider this as close to an official David Crane's Pitfall 3 as he ever got.  The graphics were drab, the music repetitive, the controls somewhat loose and the scrolling notable for its absence.  However, the design is first rate, with all the things the blob can do and all the ways you need to do it to solve puzzles and explore the game world.

Regarding the NES's two closest competitors, there were few American original games released for the SMS, and the ports were typically done by Japanese or Europeans and released only in Europe or Brazil.  The 7800 had some great arcade ports, but it had a small library and few original games for the console.  No classics here.

This situation would continue into the 16-bit generation.  The big two consoles, the Genesis and the SNES, still had the bulk of their classics from Japan and Europe.  At least U.S. game developers were starting to take consoles seriously, but it would take at least another generation or two before the U.S. could boast of parity with the Japanese and European developers.  In the fourth generation, we have such lustrous titles and series like Earthworm Jim, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Super Star Wars, the Lost Vikings, all developed primarily by US developers.  LucasArts never shined on the NES, but on the SNES, it was a different story with the above and games like Metal Warriors.  The Sega Genesis may be a bit more egalitarian than the SNES, but only because Nintendo really just kept hitting the home runs on its 16-bit wonder.  Of course, I could mention all the sports games like Madden and NBA Jam and quality arcade ports of the Mortal Kombat series.

Nintendo Power - When they Got it Right and When they Got it Wrong

When the NES was released, video game journalism did not exist.  Nintendo Power became a hugely popular magazine and practically required reading for NES players.  One did not use it like a movie review column, which would tell you which films were worth seeing and which were worth skipping.  Instead, you subscribed to the magazine to find out about the hottest new games that were to be released.  Nintendo Power began to assign ratings to games with Issue 5, but the ratings were a joke.

I remember salivating over all the great games revealed in its pages every other month.  Most of the time, Nintendo Power gave proper coverage to those games that deserved it.  A game with a cover or a feature indicated, usually, a certain level of quality.  Some games were overlooked, and in this blog I will offer a tip of my hat when the classics are given their due and a wag of my finger when they are not.  I will start by briefly going through the Nintendo Fun Club News and then proceeding to the issues of Nintendo Power published in 1988 and 1989.  During this period, all games with a cover were genuine classics (with one exception), and the coverage gravitated toward good to great games far more often than not.

Nintendo Fun Club News, Issue 1, Winter 1987

Game(s) on Cover : None

Game(s) on Cover : None

Featured Games : Super Mario Bros., Excitebike, Hogan's Alley

Previews : Pro Wrestling, Slalom

Comments : The NES was released in October, 1985 in test markets and nationwide in 1986.  By the end of 1986, the console had been sufficiently successful that Nintendo could put out a newsletter





Nintendo Fun Club News, Issue 2, Summer 1987

Game(s) on Cover : None

Featured Games : The Legend of Zelda, Volleyball, Slalom, Pro Wrestling, Super Mario Bros.

Previews : Metroid, Kid Icarus

Product Feature: NES Advantage

Comments : There is not much to say about issues 1 and 2, they function more as advertisements for games rather than detailing strategy, displaying maps and giving hints and tips.  Nintendo released "Hot to Win at Super Mario Bros." and "The Legend of Zelda - Tips & Tactics" booklets around this time.



Nintendo Fun Club News, Issue 3, Fall 1987

Game(s) on Cover : The Legend of Zelda

Featured Games : Metroid, Kid Icarus

Previews : Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Rad Racer, R.C. Pro-Am, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Product Feature: NES Advantage

Comments : Issue 3 is the first issue with a full-page artwork cover.  There will be many repetitions of featured games.  Nintendo was featuring games it was publishing at the time.  Nintendo published games developed by third party developers like Rare (R.C. Pro-Am), Square (Rad Racer) and Irem (Kung Fu).  Advertisements for third party games begin to appear in Issue 3

Nintendo Fun Club News, Issue 4, Winter 1987

Game(s) on Cover : Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!

Featured Games : Rad Racer, The Legend of Zelda

Previews : Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Dragon Warrior

Product Feature : Hands-Free Controller

Comments : Issue 4 would begin Nintendo's magazines' long love affair with Zelda II, but Dragon Warrior would not arrive on U.S. shores for almost two years.  The Nintendo Hands-Free Controller was eventually released, but in a more streamlined design.




The Official Nintendo Player's Guide, 1987

Featured Games : The Legend of Zelda, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Commando, Super Mario Bros., Ghosts 'N Goblins, Top Gun, Double Dribble, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Metroid, Rad Racer, Ring King, Gradius, Kid Icarus, Pro Wrestling, Castlevania, Excitebike, Arkanoid, Rush 'N Attack, Donkey Kong, Rygar, Spy Hunter, The Goonies II, Ikari Warriors, Kung Fu

Capsule Reviews : Deadly Towers, Baseball, Golf, Soccer, Slalom, Tennis, 10 Yard Fight, Volleyball, Winter Games, M.U.S.C.L.E., Family Fun Fitness, Stadium Events, Tag Team Wrestling, Karate Champ, Side Pocket, Lunar Pool, Track & Field, Pinball, Balloon Fight, Ice Climber, Urban Champion, Clu-Clu Land, Star Voyager, 3-D Worldrunner, Tiger-Heli, Super Pitfall, Chubby Cherub, Ninja Kid, Spelunker, Stinger, Raid on Bungeling Bay, 1942, Trojan, Section Z, Mega Man, Kid Niki, Breakthru, Karnov, Zanac, Sqoon, Jaws, The Karate Kid, Athena, Alpha Mission, Sky Kid, The Legend of Kage, Renegade, Mighty Bomb Jack, Solomon's Key, Hogan's Alley, Duck Hunt, Gumshoe, Wild Hunman, Gotcha!, Mach Rider, Wrecking Crew, Lode Runner, Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Jr., Popeye, Donkey Kong 3, Burgertime, Elevator Action, Gyromite, Stack-Up, Donkey Kong Jr. Math

Comments :  This publication was much thicker than the Fun Club News issues, and had the ambitious task of "reviewing" every game available for purchase for the NES as released from October 1985 through December, 1987.  When I say "reviewing", I do not mean giving a critical review of the game title but a description of the game in an advertising friendly format.

Games that should have been relegated to the Capsule Reviews sections, in my opinion, include Commando, Top Gun, Ring King, Donkey Kong, Spy Hunter, Ikari Warriors and Kung Fu.  Commando is too repetitive and buggy, Top Gun and Ring King aren't great, and Ikari Warriors and Spy Hunter are poor arcade game conversions.  While classics, Donkey Kong and Kung Fu are too simple for the pages they take up.  I would have instead have given the following games full reviews : 3-D Worldrunner, Ice Climber, Trojan, Mega Man, Wrecking Crew, Zanac and maybe Renegade or Kid Niki.  Mega Man and Zanac are classics that were Criminally Overlooked (Nintendo eventually righted this wrong with Mega Man), Trojan is pretty good for an early Capcom game, and Ice Climber and Wrecking Crew are two pre-SMB Nintendo Classics.

Even in 1987, the number of crap games is fairly disturbing, and many games from the early period simply haven't aged well (most of Nintendo's early sports titles).  The NES would have been better served if garbage like Deadly Towers, Star Voyager, Urban Champion, M.U.S.C.L.E., Super Pitfall and Athena were never released.  Arcade ports were in many cases, Karnov, Spy Hunter, Ikari Warriors, Karate Champ, 1942 rather uninspired.

Nintendo Fun Club News, Issue 5, Feb/March 1988

Game(s) on Cover : R.C. Pro-Am

Featured Games : Ice Hockey, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, The Legend of Zelda, The Goonies II

Previews : Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Super Mario Bros. 2, Return of Donkey Kong (never released), U.S. Golf (eventually released as NES Open Tournament Golf)

Product Feature : NES Max

Comments : First issue to feature a game published by a third-party developer, Konami's Goonies II.  One of the greatest NES games ever, Contra, was released in February, but you would hardly know about that by reading this magazine.  Criminally overlooked during the transition from the Fun Club News to Nintendo Power.  I like Metroid-style games like The Goonies II alot.

Nintendo Fun Club News, Issue 6, April/May 1988

Game(s) on Cover : Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Featured Games : Double Dragon, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, The Legend of Zelda

Previews : Super Mario Bros. 2, U.S. Golf

Comments :  Technos' Double Dragon NES port first rears its infamous head in this magazine, there were many better games that could have been featured.







Nintendo Fun Club News, Issue 7, June/July 1988

Game(s) on Cover : Sports Wrap-up 1988 -  Ice Hockey, Rad Racer, R.C. Pro-Am, Pro Wrestling, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!

Featured Games : Metroid, Wizards & Warriors

Previews : Super Mario Bros. 2

Comments :  Five of the best sports games for the NES are on the cover.  Wizards and Warriors was a bit too easy because it had infinite continues, but is still a fun game.  This was the end of the Nintendo Fun Club News magazine, its successor, Nintendo Power, would be much larger and better.  More and more third party games were being released, so Nintendo's first party and published titles need not have to carry so much of the slack.

All the covers for and most of the featured games in the Nintendo Fun Club News were classics.

Nintendo Power, Issue 1 - July/August 1988

Game(s) on Cover : Super Mario Bros. 2

Featured Games : Legend of Zelda, Double Dragon

Now Playing : Gauntlet, Contra, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, R.B.I Baseball, Bases Loaded & Major League Baseball

Video Shorts : Legendary Wings, Iron Tank, Gun.Smoke, Rambo, Dragon Power, Metal Gear, Bionic Commando, City Connection, Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road, Star Force, Freedom Force

Poster : R.B.I Baseball, Bases Loaded & Major League Baseball

Howard & Nester : The Legend of Zelda

Comments : Super Mario Bros. 2 was huge at the time, and Double Dragon was a something of a classic even if it wasn't especially true to the arcade.  The arcade game was especially difficult for home console and computer ports to capture.  While classics like Metal Gear and Bionic Commando are relegated to the shorts section, they would get their due in later issues (and Metal Gear came with a map in the box). Contra's relegation to four pages in the Now Playing section utterly failed to do that game justice.  Its a much better arcade port than Double Dragon, in fact, it may be one of those rare games where the home console version is better than the arcade original.

Nintendo Power, Issue 2 - September/October 1988

Game(s) on Cover : Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

Featured Games : Bionic Commando, Life Force, Super Mario Bros. 2, Renegade, R.C. Pro-Am

Now Playing : Golgo 13, Blaster Master

Video Shorts : Xenophobe, Seicross, Superman, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf, 1943, Jackal, Hudson's Adventure Island, Magmax, Donkey Kong Classics, Pac-Man, Defender, Millipede, Joust, Xevious, Galaga

Poster : Bionic Commando

Howard & Nester : Super Mario Bros. 2

Product Feature : Power Pad

Comments : The featured games are all classics (Bionic Commando, Life Force, SMB2) or at least very good (Renegade, R.C. Pro-Am) for their time.  While the AVGN (back when he was the Angry Nintendo Nerd) began his Internet career with a roast of Castlevania II, I still believe it is a very good game despite its flaws.  The graphics and sound are first rate, the open world is vast and the item collection and multiple endings by game time completed are obviously inspired by Metroid.  The stiff controls, enemy hit bounce back, easy bosses and losing all your hearts when you lose your third life.

Like many games to come, Nintendo spread out its coverage of SMB2 into two magazines.  There is alot of crap in the shorts this month, but a classic like Jackal or a very good game like 1943 should have been in the Now Playing section over the middling Golgo 13.  Most of the classic arcade ports are pretty decent, or very good (Donkey Kong, Galaga).

Nintendo Power, Issue 3 - November/Decembet 1988

Game(s) on Cover : Track & Field II

Featured Games : Mickey Mousecapade, Blaster Master

Now Playing : Ultima: Exodus, Legacy of the Wizard, Anticipation, Blades of Steel, Cobra Command, Racket Attack

Video Shorts : Bubble Bobble, Paperboy, Ghostbusters, Tecmo Baseball, Challenge Pebble Beach, Dr. Chaos, Tecmo Bowl, Platoon, Milon's Secret Castle

Poster : Blaster Master

Howard & Nester : Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

Product Feature : NES Advantage & NES Max

Comments : I am no expert on sports games, but if one had to be featured, it is best that it is a Konami title.  I like Mickey Mousecapade more than its reputation would suggest.  Its fairly difficult for a child-oriented game.  Cobra Command should have sent to the shorts section and Bubble Bobble put in its place.  

I have used both the NES Advantage and the NES Max, and I am not particularly found of either.  While I appreciated the trubo fire for Contra, the Advantage's joystick was too imprecise for many games and the buttons could stick.  The circle thing on the Max was not nearly as useful as the features made it out to be.

Nintendo Power, Issue 4 -  January/February 1989

Game(s) on Cover : Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Featured Games : Wrestlemania, Sesame Street 1-2-3, Skate or Die

Now Playing : Marble Madness, Operation Wolf, John Elway's Quarterback, N.F.L. Football, Tecmo Bowl, Metal Gear

Video Shorts : Friday the 13th, World Games, Star Soldier, Dr, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bump'n Jump, Rampage, Othello, RoboWarrior, Spy vs. Spy, Gyruss, Q-Bert

Poster : Skate or Die

Howard & Nester : Track & Field II

Product Feature : Hands Free Controller, Playchoice-10

Comments : In case Nintendo hadn't covered it enough, this is the first of two features for Zelda II. In my opinion, there are exactly two good wrestling games on the NES, one had been released early in the console's life, and Wrestlemania is not the other one.  I know the WWF was big at the time, but the game sucks.  In addition, two out of three of the football games also suck, but Tecmo Bowl more than makes up for them.  Skate or Die, World Games and Spy vs. Spy were better on the C64.  All-in-all a slow pair of months, which is probably why Zelda II got the cover.  

The Hands Free Controller got a redesign, and its actually fairly usable in practice.  Its certainly no harder to use than the Power Glove or the U-Force.  You can watch a video of it being used here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKzKp3QGg6M

Nintendo Power, Issue 5 -  March/April 1989

Game(s) on Cover : Ninja Gaiden

Featured Games : Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Hudson's Adventure Island

Previews : Strider, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Cobra Triangle, The Adventures of Bayou Billy

Video Shorts : World Class Track Meet, Dance Aerobics, Super Team Games, California Games, Taboo : The Six Sense, Nobunaga's Ambition, Desert Commander, Mappyland, Airwolf, Predator, Flying Dragon

Poster : Strider

Howard & Nester : Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Product Feature : None

Comments : A classic game in Ninja Gaiden, another two part feature.  Hudson's Adventure Island seemed a bit dated by the time it was featured.  The shorts were mostly deserved, but Desert Commander is a decent wargame for the time.  The Koei strategy titles were intimidating and boring back then and have aged very poorly.  

Nintendo Power, Issue 6 -  May/June 1989

Game(s) on Cover : Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Featured Games : Ninja Gaiden, The Adventures of Bayou Billy, Cobra Triangle, Life Force

Previews : Mega Man II, Faxanadu, Fester's Quest, Clash at Demonhead, Dragon Warrior

Video Shorts : Super Dodge Ball, Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle, Fist of the North Star, Kung Fu Heroes, Street Cop, Athletic World, Amagon, Monster Party, Adventures of Lolo, Hydlide

Poster : Mega Man II

Howard & Nester : Ninja Gaiden

Product Feature : None

Comments : TMNT is one game that did not deserve its vaunted status as one of the top ten bestselling NES games.  The game is a flawed effort from Konami, but not without its redeeming features. Unfortunately, its merciless difficulty earned it a reputation as black as its box.  Its biggest sin, in my opinion, is that it didn't have the same feel and tone as the ultra-popular cartoon series of the time.  Fortunately, Konami would improve its TMNT licensed games for the next two games in the series.  

Another Konami game crippled by the difficulty was The Adventures of Bayou Billy.  Unlike Golgo 13, this game did two out of three of its gameplay types well.  Unfortunately, the main gameplay type, the side-scrolling beat-em up, is plagued by stiff controls, too few moves and too many palette swapped enemies.  Life Force is the best Konami game in this issue, and it was already featured back in Issue 2.

Super Dodge Ball, despite slowdown and flicker, deserved better than the video shorts section, as did Adventures of Lolo, Kung Fu Heroes and Monster Party.  Interestingly, there is a "HOT" label next to the listing for Mega Man II in the table of contents, indicating that the editors knew something good was coming. The poster included would also tend to suggest this.

Nintendo Power, Issue 7 -  July/August 1989

Game(s) on Cover : Mega Man II

Featured Games : Faxanadu, Dragon Warrior, Strider

Previews : Robocop, Duck Tales, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Ironsword: Wizards and Warriors II

Video Shorts : Bad Dudes, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Guerrilla War, Defender of the Crown, King's Knight, To The Earth, Shooting Range, Sesame Street ABC, The Adventures of Dino-Riki

Poster : Robocop

Howard & Nester : Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Product Feature : Nintendo Game Boy

Comments : Few better games were ever released for the NES than Mega Man II.  Dragon Warrior was a classic and extremely important for JRPGs, but the first game plays like a cross between Wizardry and Ultima II.  The extremely stingy awards of experience and gold made the game far, far longer than it had any right to be, which was essentially the norm of 1980s RPGs, console and computer alike.  Strider is kind of buggy and no patch on the arcade game, but it is interesting in its own right.  Guerrilla War, which like Ikari Warriors was released by SNK, is a great game that deserved a Feature.  Criminally overlooked, and better than all three Ikari Warriors games for the NES combined!  Interestingly, To The Earth was a Nintendo published game, but still relegated to the shorts section.

This issue is the first issue to feature a new Nintendo console, the hand-held Nintendo Game Boy.  In its own way, the Game Boy would be at least as important as the NES for video gaming history.  

Nintendo Power, Issue 8 -  September/October 1989

Game(s) on Cover : Duck Tales

Featured Games : Dragon Warrior, Hoops, Fester's Quest, Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Previews : Willow, River City Ransom, Batman, NES Play Action Football, Tetris (Game Boy)

Video Shorts : Air Fortress, Bad Street Brawler, Casino Kid, Castlequest, One on One, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Sky Shark

Poster : Batman

Howard & Nester : Mega Man II

Product Feature : Nintendo Game Boy, NES Satellite, NES Cleaning Kit

Comments : Although perhaps not universally acknowledged as such, Duck Tales is a great game made by the team responsible for the Mega Man series.  The game captures the spirit of the cartoon perfectly, the graphics are colorful and cartoon-like, the music is brilliant and the levels are well-designed.  The only knocks against it are the too liberal hit detection and the awkward pogo control scheme.  Its easily better than any of the other featured games.  Fester's Quest and Roger Rabbit are both deeply flawed, but far from worthless, games.  Roger Rabbit does much better than Fester's Quest at capturing the spirit of the licensed material. 

For all those gamers who blew on their consoles to get their games working, advertised here was the NES cleaning kit.  Foolishly, the kit tells the user to use water instead of alcohol to clean the contacts.  Water corrodes contacts, isoprophyl alcohol does not.  

The NES Satellite saw its first mention, and its first supported game was NES Play Action Football. Relatively few good four player games were ever released.  M.U.L.E. may be the best of the bunch, even if it has some gameplay differences from its home computer originals.  Bomberman II is a good game and supports three players and Nintendo World Cup may be the best soccer game for the NES.

Nintendo Power, Issue 9 -  November/December 1989

Game(s) on Cover : Tetris (Game Boy)

Featured Games : Willow, Tetris (NES), Ivan Stewart's Super Off-Road, Ironsword: Wizard & Warriors II, Robocop, N.E.S. Play Action Football

NES Previews : Wheel of Fortune Jr., Jeopardy Jr., The Three Stooges, Stealth Eagle, Godzilla, Shadowgate, Silent Service, A Boy and His Blob, 720°, The Guardian Legend

Game Boy Previews : Super Mario Land, Revenge of the Gator, Castlevania - The Adventure, Motocross Maniacs, Tennis, Baseball, Alleyway

Video Shorts : Goal!, Thundercade, P.O.W., Twin Eagles, Back to the Future, 

Product Feature : Power Glove, U-Force

Comments : For the last issue of the 1980s, a Game Boy game gets the cover art for the first time.  However, the NES version was also featured in the same issue.  Willow is an excellent Zelda-inspired game, another Capcom game that used a license well.  Unlike its predecessor, Ironsword is too unforgiving.  Rare would strike the best balance in the third game.  Robocop was given far too much attention as it is not a very good game.  In fact, none of the Robocop games for the NES are very good, but the sequels are better.  

Unfortunately, although the glorious Game Boy had been released, so too had the infamous Power(less) Glove and U(seless)-Force.  Both are typically fodder for "Worst Video Game Controllers of All-Time" lists. 

Future Issues

If I receive positive feedback, I believe I can continue this series to encompass the remainder of the NES's lifespan.  

One Computer, Console and Handheld from Each Decade

I have had the privilege of owning at least one console, handheld and computer system from each of the five decades from the 1970s to the 2010s (with one exception).  These are just the current systems I have or had within the past two years or so :

Video Game Consoles :
1970s - 2600
1980s - 5200, NES, Genesis (and SMS by virtue of a Power Base Converter).
1990s - SNES, PSX, N64
2000s - Gamecube, Wii, PS3
2010s - Wii U

Computers :
1970s - Atari 800
1980s - IBM PC 5150, IBM PCjr., Commodore 64, Tandy 1000SX, 1000TX & 1000TL
1990s - Custom Built 486DX2/66
2000s - Custom Built Pentium III 600E (case is from the 21st century)
2010s - Custom Built Intel Core i7-870, Custom Built Core i7-4770K

Handhelds :
1970s - None (I have never owned a Microvision)
1980s - Gameboy
1990s - Gameboy Pocket
2000s - GBA, GBA SP, DSi XL
2010s - 3DS

If I wanted to include every system I have ever owned during my lifetime, the list would expand considerably.  I do not have the space nor the funds to acquire arcade machines.  But if I had to choose one game from each decade, it would be :

1970s - Space Invaders
1980s - Tempest
1990s - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles : Turtles in Time
2000s - Class of 1981 / 20 Year Reunion Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga (and Pac-Man, yes this is cheating, but its my list.) :p
2010s - Mario Kart Arcade GP DX

Ron Gilbert, Maniac Mansion and Modern Computer Adventure Game

Ron Gilbert may not have a huge number of adventure games (not for children) to his credit, but his influence in adventure gaming far surpasses the number of games on which he was credited as designer.  He has two bona-fide classics to his name, 1987's Maniac Mansion and 1990's The Secret of Monkey Island, and I would also include Monkey Island 2 : LeChuck's Revenge as a classic.  In this post, I want to talk a little bit about why his first game, Maniac Mansion, is a classic, both from a design perspective and and a thematic perspective.

In Sierra's games, Death is your ever present companion.  He lurks on most screens, ready to frustrate the player who forgot to save within the last five minutes.  In Gilbert's Maniac Mansion, death is possible but its more of an accomplishment to kill one of your characters.  How to figure out another way to kill a character is really akin to solving a puzzle.  And the ways in which you can die are reasonable and make sense in the context of the game.  If you let the reactor go uncooled for too long, there will be a meltdown.  If you show Weird Ed his dead hamster (which can only be killed by certain kids), he will kill you.  Since you have three kids, you may still be able to beat the game if one dies.  In both King's Quest V and Leisure Suit Larry, there are screens that if you enter them, you are guaranteed to die due to a monster or there is a monster there every time ready to kill you.

The worst you can typically expect in Maniac Mansion

Another lazy design issue in other adventure games is putting the game in an unwinnable state.  Typically this is because the player forgot to pick up an item or do something at a timed event and now can no longer do it.  This is a poor way to extend the gameplay and increase the challenge because it is so unfair.  It is difficult to get Maniac Mansion in an unwinnable state unless you are truly careless.  Leisure Suit Larry 2 is particularly cruel in this regard, in more than one part of the game if you fail to do everything you need to do before a time limit, you will lose the game.   

A third, truly lazy design choice in adventure games is the use of maze-like environments.  These were amusing when Zork was king, but Sierra was using them to obnoxious effect twice in King's Quest V. Maniac Mansion has no mazes and no generic or featureless screens.  Each screen has at least some visual interest, and most contain either an item or is part of a puzzle.  In the later Monkey Island games, the maze-like environments were just another puzzle to be solved.

I'm not sure how accurate that map is, but that is the rough number of rooms in the game.

Even so, Gilbert encouraged exploration of the mansion at the player's leisure.  Although the game may seem to have a limited time, this is not the case.  No matter how long you take, the meteor will not possess Sandy.  Only during the end game does a timer countdown.  In the ICOM simulations like Shadowgate and The Uninvited, there always was some limiting factor in the game like the number of torches available or that you will be possessed.  

Random monsters are no fun.  Sierra used them not only to kill but also to cause an unwinnable game state.  If the Dwarf steals one of the three treasures in King's Quest, you cannot win the game.  In Maniac Mansion, the "monsters" have fixed schedules and locations, and at worst they inconvenience you.

The scheduling and cutscenes in the game help to show that this game is a living, breathing world.  In most other games of the time, the game simply reacts to what the player does.  Here cutscenes propel the story forward.  The various actors in the Mansion have clearly defined characteristics, Weird Ed is a commando, Nurse Edna is kinky, Green Tentacle is a wanna-be musician, etc.  The large sprites used for the characters help give each kid and character a unique look.  The heads are big enough to allow for the graphics engine to show them talking, which helps with the immersion.

If this was a Sierra game, the Green Tentacle would have killed you here.

Another terrible design issue is the use of obstacles that you have to climb or cross very carefully.  Stairs in the King's Quest series are serious obstacles, especially in II and IV.  The rock path from Mannanan's house in III is particularly evil.  The whale's tongue in IV is no fun, but the Waterfall Cave must have been designed by the development team after an all-night office party.  Not only is there a random monster, who follows you from screen to screen, the cave is dark and the lantern sheds little light.  Finally, there is a pit you have to cross, and you can easily die trying to find the edge.  Nothing like that exists in any LucasArts game.  In fact, Maniac Mansion includes pathfinding and indirect control of the character by cursor, something that would be ubiquitous in the 1990s.

Gilbert believed the text parser interface to be truly archaic for graphic adventure games.  He despised trying to play "try to guess what the designer wants you to type".  While Maniac Mansion was not the first game to use an icon-based interface, it firmly put paid to the notion that adventure games would be too easy without the text parser.  Although the icons are words, not graphics, nonetheless they serve the same function.

The graphics in the original Maniac Mansion are in a low, 160x200, resolution.  To avoid any need to "guess" what an item is, Maniac Mansion had a "What Is" command that if the pointer hovered over the object, the game would tell you what it is.  In fact, using the What Is command allowed you to identify all the "hot spots" in the room.  Early Sierra games had no generic "look" command, but eventually their AGI games would generally tell you what was important in the room.  The later 16-color SCI games allowed a right click on the mouse to function as a "look at" on the object clicked on. 

Maniac Mansion was one of the first adventure games intended to be replayable.  The different combinations of kids allowed the game to be won in more than one way.  There are also multiple endings, and each combination can access some of the endings.   This helped make up for the relative smallness of the game world.

Choices, choices...

Maniac Mansion is a "funny game".  Funny games are memorable.  Really humorous characters tend to be more memorable over the long run than bland or serious characters.  A goofy 8-bit mansion is more likely to be iconic than a "realistic" 8-bit castle and more memorable.  Games that aren't mean to be taken truly seriously tend to hold up better than a lot the portentous, supposedly-meaninfgul crap of the 1990s and 2000s.  It is also easier to be funny than dramatic on less capable machines.

Gilbert deserves credit for developing Maniac Mansion for the Commodore 64.  The final game shipped on one double sided diskette (340KB) and could be run within the 64KB of RAM of that system.  By contrast, Sierra's AGI games in 1987 took up at least two disks (360KB) and required twice the RAM on an Apple IIe/IIc and four times the RAM on a PC (they didn't run on a Commodore 64).  To be fair, the ports of Maniac Mansion to those systems required the same amount of RAM on the Apple IIe/IIc and PC.  The opening music was unusually good for a US Commodore 64 game, something lost in the Apple & PC versions (except on a Tandy 1000).

Commodore 64 - No NTSC Love

Despite the Commodore 64 being the best selling computer model of all-time and being manufactured by a US company, all the major vintage enthusiasm for the machine seems to be centered on its presence in the UK and Europe.  In NTSC countries like the United States and Canada, there is arguably much more of a vintage interest in the Apple and Atari 8-bit computers.

In Europe, software for the Commodore 64 came primarily on cassette tape.  The Commodore 1530 C2N Datasette was competitively priced, the Commodore 1541 Floppy Disk Drive was not for what was came to be seen primarily as a games/hobbyist machine.  Virtually all European software came on tape, while only the pricey US imports like Ultima and Wizardry came on disk.  Cartridges, which were not dominant in the US after 1984, were seldom seen in Europe.

The tape medium imposed sharp limits on the varieties of games that could be played on a C64.  A full load of the 64KB of RAM took several minutes from tape, and once loaded, that was it for the game.  Since precise loading of data from one side of a tape was not very friendly to the player, one side of the tape equaled one load of a game.  Platformers, shumps, soccer (association football) and fighting games were very popular genres.  Turn-based strategy games, lengthy text-based adventures and RPGs were not popular on tape. Imagine having to fast forward a tape until the counter reached 200, 300 or 500 to load a town or a map. Wasn't going to happen.

The real problem is that most U.S. developers came late to the Commodore 64, having cut their teeth on Apple or Atari computers.  To most developers, the C64 was just one more machine that would need a port of a popular game.  Eventually U.S. developers did develop some games natively for the C64.  Maxis' Raid on Bungeling Bay and SimCity was developed for the C64, as was Microprose's Gunship and Sid Meier's Pirates!.  Activision contributed Little Computer People. Lucasfilm offered Labryinth, Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, and from Electronic Arts there was Skate or Die! and Interplay contributed Neuromancer.  SSI developed its famous AD&D Gold Box engine for the C64 including Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds.  Epyx was prolific when it came to C64 development with Impossible Mission and other classics, but unfortunately that company foundered on what would become the Atari Lynx.  By the end of the 80s, all these US developers had shifted their focus to the generic IBM PC Compatible platform.

Many US-originated games are popular with Commodore 64 enthusiasts, even in Europe.  LucasArts' classics top many lists, and you can usually find an Ultima, M.U.L.E., Wasteland and others.  On more than one list of the top C64 games, roughly half come from US companies.  However, I have heard more than one commentator say that the NTSC C64 is crap and that you should get a PAL one instead.  Most US games will work (18% more slowly) in a PAL machine, while most of the good PAL games rely on timing that will break in an NTSC machine.

Many European C64 games were not as widely ported.  Some went to the Amiga, and some Amiga games like Turrican received very high quality ports to the C64.  While many games were ported to the ZX Spectrum, no one was going to favorably compare a ZX version to the C64 version, except perhaps in price.  Many companies decided develop their advanced efforts on the Commodore Amiga (the 500 was priced well in Europe) or the Atari ST instead of the boring PC clones.  Other than Cinemaware, US developers did not really embrace the Amiga, and the Atari ST and Apple IIgs saw even fewer natively developed game titles.

One great advantage of the Commodore 64 is that virtually all the classic US PC games of the early and mid-1980s, and even many late 1980s games, found native releases or ports to the system.  Some of the later Infocom games require a Commodore 128 to play (A Mind Forever Voyaging, Beyond Zork, Trinity) and some can take advantage of the 128's features (Ultima V, Hitckhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).  Developer interest virtually disappeared in the Atari 8-bit line after 1985 outside of Atari, and the Commodore offered far superior graphics and sound to the Apple II line.  By 1988, PCs had come down sufficiently in price that game developers could target them.  Decent graphics (EGA) and sound (Adlib) made the PC less of a chore to develop for than in the days of CGA and the PC Speaker.  However, the advent of affordable hard drives, and the enormous increase in functionality they provided, really helped establish the PC as a programmer's best friend.

The use of cassette tape had its advantages as well as its drawbacks.  Since the tape usually took some minutes to load, the programmers could send a static picture first and a musical tune to entertain the player while the game loaded.  The disk was faster but servicing it seemed to require the computer's total attention, so this sort of thing was not common for disk games.  Another advantage of the cassette game was that they were easier to copy and rip than disk games.  Cassettes were cheaper than disk, and the games were generally much, much smaller.  It's quite easy to distribute most of them as a simple Commodore executable file these days if you just want to play the game.   It is not so easy to do that with, say, Ultima V, which came on four double-sided floppy disks.

If the C64 has an Achilles Heel, it is undoubtedly the speed of the disk drive.  The standard speed was only 300 bytes per second.  An IBM PC Floppy drive was faster by almost two orders of magnitude, and even the slower Apple II and Atari 8-bit disk drives were faster.  Some have been converted from their slow floppy format to more mass-storage friendly solutions, but there is a great deal of work to be done in this area.  But perhaps it is this reason, most of all, which tends to put off US gamers from the C64.

Early PC CD-ROM Games

The Compact Disc may have been first prototyped in the 1970s, and the first CD-ROM drives available in the late 1980s, but it was the 1990s when CD-ROM games came to PCs.  At first, however, they were little more than the same games on floppy disks with some kind of Redbook CD-Audio. Not long afterward, they were used to store digital audio in files and more detailed or higher resolution graphics and movies.

The first known CD-ROM game released for the IBM PC was The Manhole.  This was a port of the floppy disk version of the B&W Macintosh original by Robyn and Rand Miller.  The Millers would later go on to create Myst, but in the Manhole, you can see a definite beginning of the style of game for which they would become famous.  The Manhole was released sometime around July, 1990.  It supports VGA, MCGA, EGA and Tandy graphics.  However, while the game uses VGA and MCGA graphics modes and supports a much wider variety of colors than the 16-color EGA and Tandy graphics modes, it displays no more than 16 colors on the screen at any one time.  This was common back in 1989 when the floppy disk version was released, as using many more colors meant redrawing the graphics.

The CD format for The Manhole was a mixed-mode CD, consisting of one data track and one or more audio tracks.  The CD standard can support a maximum of 99 tracks, and the Manhole uses 95 audio tracks  (this does not count the data track) to store music, speech and sound effects.  There is no need for a sound card to hear full audio with the CD version.  Since there is no save feature, the game is run entirely off the CD-ROM.  The floppy disk version supported Adlib, Roland MT-32 and Tandy 3-Voice music and Sound Blaster and Tandy DAC for speech.  The audio is obviously much improved in quality and quantity over the floppy version.  The graphics, however are exactly the same as the disk version.  This version of The Manhole is very obscure today, and the game was re-released twice on CD-ROM format, once for DOS and Windows as The Manhole - New and Enhanced Edition (also on floppy) and once for Windows as The Manhole - CD-ROM Masterpiece Edition.  These editions are much more common, much more impressive graphically, and use far fewer CD Audio tracks.

Just about one year later (1991), Sierra began to release its first CD-ROM conversions.  While there probably were other games released beforehand, this was the first time a gaming company committed substantial resources and effort into promoting the new "multimedia" experience offered on disc. First came Mixed-Up Mother Goose, then Jones in the Fast Lane, followed by Stellar 7, King's Quest V and Space Quest IV.  Like the Manhole, all had previously been released on floppies.  They were also more expensive than the older floppy versions.  Don't forget that a CD-ROM was a very expensive proposition in 1991, Sierra was charging $795.00 for a CD-ROM kit.  At least the hardware, a SCSI CD-ROM and a Mediavision Pro Audio Spectrum (later 16), were high quality products.

Sierra's evolution of the CD-ROM format was simple. Jones in the Fast Lane included all its speech on one large audio track.  The game would instruct the CD-ROM driver to play samples at specific times on the track.   Music would require separate music hardware, as the only one CD-Audio track can play at a time.

Stellar 7 used its single CD-Audio track for speech during cutscenes for voice acting and the music.  Sound effects were unchanged from the floppy version, relegating users to Adlib and MT-32 sound effects.  One benefit to having all the music on one track was there would be less of a pause for the music to restart.  However, preserving the timing of the track was especially critical, especially when making copies.

Mixed Up Mother Goose signalled a different approach.  This time, the CD-ROM would be used strictly as a data CD, with the speech samples stored in one large audio file instead of on an audio track.  A DAC like the Sound Blaster, Pro Audio Spectrum, Thunderboard, Tandy DAC or PS/1 Game/Audio Card would be required to hear the speech, which would be stored in an 8-bit sample format.  Without this innovation, no more than 74 minutes of speech could be stored on a CD-ROM.  Additionally, it was very annoying when the CD had to spin up to play a voice sample.

The most limiting aspect of the CD-ROM was the total inflexibility of pre-recorded audio.  To adjust the parameters of a piece of music played on an MT-32, the programmer would only need to send a few kilobytes of data to the module.  To adjust the music on a CD-ROM meant changing to another track.  With 74 minutes maximum and 99 tracks, the musician could easily run out of space.  LucasArts' games using the iMUSE dynamic sound system would always use the CD-ROM versions for voice acting.

Most CD-ROMs use the ISO-9660 format, which is standard for CD-ROMs and is widely used.  Some of these early CD-ROMs, especially those from Sierra, use an earlier format called the High Sierra Format.  MS-DOS's MSCDEX supports either format, but DOSBox has trouble with HSF.  DOSBox will not IMGMOUNT a HSF image, but will MOUNT a drive using Daemon Tools and read the disc from that drive.  Also, you can convert HSF images to ISO images using a program like Nero Burning ROM.

King's Quest V and Space Quest IV would continue the large audio file approach.  A common approach to voices at this time was to use company members to voice various parts.  Roberta Williams and other employees of Sierra, would lend their voices to many of these CD-ROM releases.  Unfortunately, the resulting quality of the voice acting was somewhat lacking, since these individuals were not trained actors.  Many other companies would follow Sierra's lead.

One company that never went the "Starring the programmers" route was LucasArts, which always sought professional voice talent for its CD-ROM conversions beginning with LOOM and Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis.  Professional voice actors had been relegated to roles voicing cartoon characters, announcers, bit parts and the like.  Now there was a whole new avenue of employment for them for companies who cared enough about their expensive product to spring for decent voice acting.  Eventually, "name" actors would be given roles.

Another type of CD-ROM release which began to appear in 1992 or so is the compilation release.  On these CDs, there was nothing you could not have obtained on a disc, but the size of a CD allowed the inclusion of several (older) games (Interplay 10th Anniversary) or a game and all its expansion packs (Wing Commander Deluxe).

Data compression and relatively low bitrate techniques helped keep the size of speech files in check, and companies began to put full motion video on their discs.  Interplay would re-release its Lord of the Rings : Fellowship of the Rings with animated scenes taken from the Ralph Bakshi movie of the 1970s.  Sierra King's Quest VI CD-ROM would include a longer, better animated version of the introduction contained in the previously released floppy version.

One final issue with CD-ROMs games of the time is that these versions always seemed just to have something goat-glanded onto the floppy version.  When the 7th Guest turned out to be a huge hit in 1993, all of a sudden the market for CD-ROM only games became attractive to developers.  The 7th Guest used high resolution graphics throughout, digitized video around every corner and plenty of voice acting.  It also came on two CD-ROMs.  Far too much would have had to be cut to put the game on floppies, so Trilobyte took a gamble and did not bother to release a floppy version.

Just after The Seventh Guest, LucasArts released Day of the Tentacle simultaneously on floppy and CD.  Up to this point in time, CD releases would lag several months behind floppy disk releases.  Additionally, by the time the CD was released, there would be interface changes and the like.  For DOTT, the game was more or less identical except that the CD version had a very large audio file.  Floppy users still had the benefit of speech during the opening scenes.  By the end of 1993, many, many games were being designed with CD-ROM first and then a cutdown floppy version would follow, usually compressed onto many disks.

The 8-bit TMS9918 "Not Quite a Standard"

Released in 1979, the Texas Instrument TMS9918 Video Display Controller chip or its derivatives and successors was used in an enormous number of home computing devices, starting with the unsuccessful TI-99/4.  It was the nucleus of devices as varied from the MSX computers to the Colecovision and the Sega SG-1000.  The base design called for a common 8-bit CPU, some ROM and RAM, a 3-voice sound chip and some IO.  For the CPU, the 8-bit Z-80 processor, running at 3.58MHz, was by far the most common used.  For the sound chip, the TI, Coleco and Sega systems used a TI SN76489 3-voice PSG while the MSX standard called for the slightly more capable AY-3-8910 chip.

The resolution of the VDP chip is fixed at 256x192, there are 16 colors available in its palette, the text mode uses 40x24 pixel tiles, two of the graphics modes uses 32x24 pixel tiles and the other graphics mode uses 64x32 pixel tiles.  The chip supports 32 one-color sprites on the screen at a time with no more than 4 sprites on a line. The chip  requires 16KB of Video RAM, which is on a separate bus from the CPU RAM.  RAM in those days was at a premium, so main CPU RAM was often smaller (256 bytes for the TI 99/A and /4A, 1K for the Colecovision).

The chips biggest weakness going forward was its lack of support for hardware scrolling.  Scrolling in a game was usually by tile, 8 pixels.  This is not smooth and scrolling looked jerky on these machines.  While this was not a huge issue in the late seventies and early eighties, where one-screen videogames were the norm, when sidescrollers and vertical shooters became popular, the systems with the bare TMS9918 looked jerky.  Smoother scrolling could be done in software, but this was rarely attempted due to the performance penalties incurred.

The TI-99/4 used the TMS-9918, whereas the TI-99/4A used the TMS-9918A.  The "A" version of the chip adds support for graphics mode 2, which is what most games used.  Both systems only had 256bytes of RAM, which was an extreme hinderance for programmers.  Unlike most other machines, this system had a 3MHz 16-bit TMS9900 CPU.  However, only the system ROM and first 256 bytes of RAM were accessed in 16-bit on the TI computers, any official RAM expansions were accessed in 8-bit form.  The programmers usually had to obtain more RAM from the Video Memory, the access of which was terribly slow.

The Colecovision used a 3.58MHz Z80 and a TI SN 76489 sound chip.  It had 1K of RAM, 8K of ROM.  The home computer version, the Coleco Adam, added 80KB of RAM, 32KB of ROM, a keyboard and a dual cassette tape recorder.  The Adam used a 6801 to handle all the additional IO.

Sega's SG-1000 and SG-3000 used the standard VDP and 3.58MHz Z80.  It also uses the TI SN76489 but provided 8K for the CPU RAM.  Sega added support for hardware, doubled the sprite limits, allowed for colorful sprites and a 64 color palette in its VDP upgrade first seen in the Sega Mark III/Master System.  A YM-2143 FM Upgrade was also released for this system.  Sega eventually allowed a palette of 4,096 colors for the VDP variant in the Sega Game Gear.  The VDP of the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis extended this even further, but the original modes no longer work.  By that time the Z80 had been relegated to sound coprocessor status and the TI sound chip was secondary to the Yamaha 4-op FM OPN2 YM-2612.

The Spectravideo SV-318 and SV-328 were the models upon which Microsoft based the MSX standard.  The SV-328 came with 32KB of ROM, half for BIOS and half for BASIC, and 64KB of RAM.  The SV-318 is compatible but has only 16KB of RAM.  They use an Intel 8255 for IO handling and an AY-3-8910 for sound processing duties.  These machines successor, the SV-378, is only slightly different but fully MSX compatible and uses different, MSX-compatible, cartridges.  The MSX had no chance in North America, but did see success in Japan and in some European countries.  While MSX machines could offer 8-64KB of RAM, most offered at least 32KB.  RAM could upgraded beyond 64KB.

The MSX2 standard called for the V9938 VDP variant to be used.  This upgrade allowed for 256 colors, 80-column text modes, 16/256 color paletized modes, more colorful sprites and hardware vertical scrolling.  It required more Video RAM, 128KB.  Some systems also had support for more than 64KB of CPU RAM.  Horizontal hardware scrolling had to wait for the MSX2+ and the V9958 VDP.  The MSX2 and MSX2+ standards still called for the Z80 at 3.58MHz to be used.  Some MSX2+ machines had the YM-2143 OPLL (MSX-Music) chip.  The MSX turbo R was the last iteration of the MSX line and used an R800 @ 7.16MHz as the main CPU with a Z80 for compatibility and had 256-512KB of RAM.

In addition to MSX-Music, there were other musical upgrades for the MSX machines.  MSX-Audio used the Y8950 chip, which was an improvement over the YM2143 and the Adlib OPL2 YM3812 chip.  Certain of Konami's cartridge games had a SCC or SCC+ chip, which could use small waveforms.  Moonsound was a sound board that was released late in the MSX's life and used a YMF-278 chip.  Yamaha built in the equilavent of a FB-01 into its CX5M MSX System.

All the above systems have at least 16KB of Video RAM, all support the Atari-style 9-pin joystick port (often with support for a second button) and all support cartridges of some type or another.  Other systems with the TMS-9918 or its derivatives and similar architecture include the CreatiVision, Memotech MTX, Sord M5, Tatung Einstein and Tomy Tutor/Pyuuta.