The "Sony Games" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
With talk of new consoles at this year's E3, I love looking back over an earlier time and seeing just what shaped our past gaming habits and what surprised us back then.
Here's something I wrote a long while back, looking at an even earlier time when the console and PC markets were in a very different state...
I’d like to take you a bit further back, if I may, to the summer of 1998, when the Playstation 2 was just a big black dot on the horizon and the Saturn was still kicking around the games shops.
Back in June 1998 there were some classic games appearing and talk of something special. The Playstation seemed to have the market sown up gamewise and it was no co-incidence that it was producing some of the best games ever seen on a console at that point. Of course, the major release at this time was the excellent Gran Turismo, with graphics and an attention to detail never seen before in a driving game. Most people who played it agreed that it lived up to the title ‘The Real Driving Simulator’ and most of the magazines that reviewed it at the time devoted 3 or 4 page spreads to the review.
Gran Turismo soon became Sony’s pride and joy, a racing game that was ultimately responsible for selling thousands more Playstations (before the next big game arrived, but more on that later) The fact that there were so many licensed cars and the physics were as real as anyone had ever got to ‘real’ driving just made it all the more unbelievable and players who completed the arcade section were surprised to see the addition of a really nice hi-res 60fps mode which made the graphics even sharper. The most unusual aspect, though, was that this was a SUMMER game, rather than some major blockbuster brought out to sell consoles at Christmas, as was usually the case.
A mixed bag of releases followed this on the Playstation, but then it’s main strength always was the diversity of the titles. Dead or Alive showed that fighting games weren’t just a pretty face (they were also about how well endowed the female fighters were..), Sentinel Returns re-created the 8-bit days of hiding behind rocks in a scary sequel, still as good as the original and twice as nerve-racking. Star Wars was still going strong, despite its age and fans were catered for by the questionable quality of Masters of Teras Kasi, people seemed to agree that the creators of this fighting game at least got the Kasi part right! Armoured Core showed just what you could do with a mech game and put the ultimate mech creation engine to good use, allowing you to change every part of your robot, while Point Blank kept gun fanatics happy with its comedy shooting antics.
The big news that had every PSX owner buzzing with excitement was this new game that went by the title of ‘Metal Gear Solid’ It sounded wonderful, with great attention to detail, but at the time all we could do was wait and hope that it would turn out to be as wonderful as all the magazines suggested it would be, little did we know that it would surpass even those predictions.
The N64 had it’s fair share of major releases too, but it looked as though the games were starting to die down a bit for the console. Mission Impossible tried to re-create the success of Goldeneye, but due to some bad design flaws and control system it failed to catch the imagination, Wetrix gave puzzle-heads something to think about, while at the same time enthralling new converts with its graphics and addictiveness. It was certainly an under-rated classic puzzle game where you had to create pools of water, which needed to then be evaporated, sometimes creating rainbows, earthquakes and all manner of earth changing effects, lovely and original too. Nintendo fans had to wait another couple of months though before anything else that would set their world alight appeared.
The Saturn too was falling on hard times, but still managed to entertain with three amazing titles. Burning Rangers saw the player take on the guise of one of three fire fighters who specialised in fighting giant flames and alien creatures, it played really well and the fire effects were fantastic, but the limited number of Saturn owners left meant that it didn’t really get the attention it deserved. Shining Force 3 carried on the Megadrive’s popular series of RPG wonderings and delivered a very nice plot and some lovely set pieces, all overshadowed by the Playstations Final Fantasy series. Lastly, Vampire Savior continued the Night Warriors chronicles in Capcom’s fantastic beat-em up series. It had all the flare and colour of the Street Fighter series with loads of added extras and some wonderful characters, unfortunately it never really reached these shores as a UK release, but sold extremely well through importers, something that the Saturn owners seemed quite happy to do with releases drying up over here.
The PC, not to be outdone by the consoles, came up with Half-Life to the gasps and amazement of the crowd. It was hailed as one of the best 1st Person shooters of its time and quickly became a classic, spawning many add-ons and the now oft-played internet additions. War Games asked us whether we’d like a little game of Thermo-Nuclear war and was pretty playable to boot and a glut of sports games kept fans happy, featuring the likes of Pete Sampras in a re-release and more football titles than you could shake a goalpost at.
Talking of football, the whole console scene seemed to be over-run with men in shorts, Fifa released a half-decent title in World Cup 98 on nearly every format going, the Playstation got around a dozen other titles too, while Saturn owners had World League Soccer or the Sega Worldwide soccer 98 to choose from. Football was the order of the day all round, it seemed and somehow it wasn’t really that surprising either.
1998 was a pretty good year for gaming all round, it was the year before everything changed and people looked towards new formats to give them that little bit extra. No one was expecting the Dreamcast and PS2 at the time and they were happy and sometimes even pleasantly surprised with the resulting games.
Here's something I wrote a long while back, looking at an even earlier time when the console and PC markets were in a very different state...
I’d like to take you a bit further back, if I may, to the summer of 1998, when the Playstation 2 was just a big black dot on the horizon and the Saturn was still kicking around the games shops.
Back in June 1998 there were some classic games appearing and talk of something special. The Playstation seemed to have the market sown up gamewise and it was no co-incidence that it was producing some of the best games ever seen on a console at that point. Of course, the major release at this time was the excellent Gran Turismo, with graphics and an attention to detail never seen before in a driving game. Most people who played it agreed that it lived up to the title ‘The Real Driving Simulator’ and most of the magazines that reviewed it at the time devoted 3 or 4 page spreads to the review.
Gran Turismo soon became Sony’s pride and joy, a racing game that was ultimately responsible for selling thousands more Playstations (before the next big game arrived, but more on that later) The fact that there were so many licensed cars and the physics were as real as anyone had ever got to ‘real’ driving just made it all the more unbelievable and players who completed the arcade section were surprised to see the addition of a really nice hi-res 60fps mode which made the graphics even sharper. The most unusual aspect, though, was that this was a SUMMER game, rather than some major blockbuster brought out to sell consoles at Christmas, as was usually the case.
A mixed bag of releases followed this on the Playstation, but then it’s main strength always was the diversity of the titles. Dead or Alive showed that fighting games weren’t just a pretty face (they were also about how well endowed the female fighters were..), Sentinel Returns re-created the 8-bit days of hiding behind rocks in a scary sequel, still as good as the original and twice as nerve-racking. Star Wars was still going strong, despite its age and fans were catered for by the questionable quality of Masters of Teras Kasi, people seemed to agree that the creators of this fighting game at least got the Kasi part right! Armoured Core showed just what you could do with a mech game and put the ultimate mech creation engine to good use, allowing you to change every part of your robot, while Point Blank kept gun fanatics happy with its comedy shooting antics.
The big news that had every PSX owner buzzing with excitement was this new game that went by the title of ‘Metal Gear Solid’ It sounded wonderful, with great attention to detail, but at the time all we could do was wait and hope that it would turn out to be as wonderful as all the magazines suggested it would be, little did we know that it would surpass even those predictions.
The N64 had it’s fair share of major releases too, but it looked as though the games were starting to die down a bit for the console. Mission Impossible tried to re-create the success of Goldeneye, but due to some bad design flaws and control system it failed to catch the imagination, Wetrix gave puzzle-heads something to think about, while at the same time enthralling new converts with its graphics and addictiveness. It was certainly an under-rated classic puzzle game where you had to create pools of water, which needed to then be evaporated, sometimes creating rainbows, earthquakes and all manner of earth changing effects, lovely and original too. Nintendo fans had to wait another couple of months though before anything else that would set their world alight appeared.
The Saturn too was falling on hard times, but still managed to entertain with three amazing titles. Burning Rangers saw the player take on the guise of one of three fire fighters who specialised in fighting giant flames and alien creatures, it played really well and the fire effects were fantastic, but the limited number of Saturn owners left meant that it didn’t really get the attention it deserved. Shining Force 3 carried on the Megadrive’s popular series of RPG wonderings and delivered a very nice plot and some lovely set pieces, all overshadowed by the Playstations Final Fantasy series. Lastly, Vampire Savior continued the Night Warriors chronicles in Capcom’s fantastic beat-em up series. It had all the flare and colour of the Street Fighter series with loads of added extras and some wonderful characters, unfortunately it never really reached these shores as a UK release, but sold extremely well through importers, something that the Saturn owners seemed quite happy to do with releases drying up over here.
The PC, not to be outdone by the consoles, came up with Half-Life to the gasps and amazement of the crowd. It was hailed as one of the best 1st Person shooters of its time and quickly became a classic, spawning many add-ons and the now oft-played internet additions. War Games asked us whether we’d like a little game of Thermo-Nuclear war and was pretty playable to boot and a glut of sports games kept fans happy, featuring the likes of Pete Sampras in a re-release and more football titles than you could shake a goalpost at.
Talking of football, the whole console scene seemed to be over-run with men in shorts, Fifa released a half-decent title in World Cup 98 on nearly every format going, the Playstation got around a dozen other titles too, while Saturn owners had World League Soccer or the Sega Worldwide soccer 98 to choose from. Football was the order of the day all round, it seemed and somehow it wasn’t really that surprising either.
1998 was a pretty good year for gaming all round, it was the year before everything changed and people looked towards new formats to give them that little bit extra. No one was expecting the Dreamcast and PS2 at the time and they were happy and sometimes even pleasantly surprised with the resulting games.
It was a time when I was relatively new to gaming on anything but a 16-bit system or earlier. I think I preferred gaming then.
Thanks DL.
Thought about doing specific ones for certain years. Might get around to it if anyone's interested in reading them.
Thought about doing specific ones for certain years. Might get around to it if anyone's interested in reading them.
Morning pb. What an excellent review, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it :¬)
With talk of new consoles at this year's E3, I love looking back over an earlier time and seeing just what shaped our past gaming habits and what surprised us back then.
Here's something I wrote a long while back, looking at an even earlier time when the console and PC markets were in a very different state...
I’d like to take you a bit further back, if I may, to the summer of 1998, when the Playstation 2 was just a big black dot on the horizon and the Saturn was still kicking around the games shops.
Back in June 1998 there were some classic games appearing and talk of something special. The Playstation seemed to have the market sown up gamewise and it was no co-incidence that it was producing some of the best games ever seen on a console at that point. Of course, the major release at this time was the excellent Gran Turismo, with graphics and an attention to detail never seen before in a driving game. Most people who played it agreed that it lived up to the title ‘The Real Driving Simulator’ and most of the magazines that reviewed it at the time devoted 3 or 4 page spreads to the review.
Gran Turismo soon became Sony’s pride and joy, a racing game that was ultimately responsible for selling thousands more Playstations (before the next big game arrived, but more on that later) The fact that there were so many licensed cars and the physics were as real as anyone had ever got to ‘real’ driving just made it all the more unbelievable and players who completed the arcade section were surprised to see the addition of a really nice hi-res 60fps mode which made the graphics even sharper. The most unusual aspect, though, was that this was a SUMMER game, rather than some major blockbuster brought out to sell consoles at Christmas, as was usually the case.
A mixed bag of releases followed this on the Playstation, but then it’s main strength always was the diversity of the titles. Dead or Alive showed that fighting games weren’t just a pretty face (they were also about how well endowed the female fighters were..), Sentinel Returns re-created the 8-bit days of hiding behind rocks in a scary sequel, still as good as the original and twice as nerve-racking. Star Wars was still going strong, despite its age and fans were catered for by the questionable quality of Masters of Teras Kasi, people seemed to agree that the creators of this fighting game at least got the Kasi part right! Armoured Core showed just what you could do with a mech game and put the ultimate mech creation engine to good use, allowing you to change every part of your robot, while Point Blank kept gun fanatics happy with its comedy shooting antics.
The big news that had every PSX owner buzzing with excitement was this new game that went by the title of ‘Metal Gear Solid’ It sounded wonderful, with great attention to detail, but at the time all we could do was wait and hope that it would turn out to be as wonderful as all the magazines suggested it would be, little did we know that it would surpass even those predictions.
The N64 had it’s fair share of major releases too, but it looked as though the games were starting to die down a bit for the console. Mission Impossible tried to re-create the success of Goldeneye, but due to some bad design flaws and control system it failed to catch the imagination, Wetrix gave puzzle-heads something to think about, while at the same time enthralling new converts with its graphics and addictiveness. It was certainly an under-rated classic puzzle game where you had to create pools of water, which needed to then be evaporated, sometimes creating rainbows, earthquakes and all manner of earth changing effects, lovely and original too. Nintendo fans had to wait another couple of months though before anything else that would set their world alight appeared.
The Saturn too was falling on hard times, but still managed to entertain with three amazing titles. Burning Rangers saw the player take on the guise of one of three fire fighters who specialised in fighting giant flames and alien creatures, it played really well and the fire effects were fantastic, but the limited number of Saturn owners left meant that it didn’t really get the attention it deserved. Shining Force 3 carried on the Megadrive’s popular series of RPG wonderings and delivered a very nice plot and some lovely set pieces, all overshadowed by the Playstations Final Fantasy series. Lastly, Vampire Savior continued the Night Warriors chronicles in Capcom’s fantastic beat-em up series. It had all the flare and colour of the Street Fighter series with loads of added extras and some wonderful characters, unfortunately it never really reached these shores as a UK release, but sold extremely well through importers, something that the Saturn owners seemed quite happy to do with releases drying up over here.
The PC, not to be outdone by the consoles, came up with Half-Life to the gasps and amazement of the crowd. It was hailed as one of the best 1st Person shooters of its time and quickly became a classic, spawning many add-ons and the now oft-played internet additions. War Games asked us whether we’d like a little game of Thermo-Nuclear war and was pretty playable to boot and a glut of sports games kept fans happy, featuring the likes of Pete Sampras in a re-release and more football titles than you could shake a goalpost at.
Talking of football, the whole console scene seemed to be over-run with men in shorts, Fifa released a half-decent title in World Cup 98 on nearly every format going, the Playstation got around a dozen other titles too, while Saturn owners had World League Soccer or the Sega Worldwide soccer 98 to choose from. Football was the order of the day all round, it seemed and somehow it wasn’t really that surprising either.
1998 was a pretty good year for gaming all round, it was the year before everything changed and people looked towards new formats to give them that little bit extra. No one was expecting the Dreamcast and PS2 at the time and they were happy and sometimes even pleasantly surprised with the resulting games.
Here's something I wrote a long while back, looking at an even earlier time when the console and PC markets were in a very different state...
I’d like to take you a bit further back, if I may, to the summer of 1998, when the Playstation 2 was just a big black dot on the horizon and the Saturn was still kicking around the games shops.
Back in June 1998 there were some classic games appearing and talk of something special. The Playstation seemed to have the market sown up gamewise and it was no co-incidence that it was producing some of the best games ever seen on a console at that point. Of course, the major release at this time was the excellent Gran Turismo, with graphics and an attention to detail never seen before in a driving game. Most people who played it agreed that it lived up to the title ‘The Real Driving Simulator’ and most of the magazines that reviewed it at the time devoted 3 or 4 page spreads to the review.
Gran Turismo soon became Sony’s pride and joy, a racing game that was ultimately responsible for selling thousands more Playstations (before the next big game arrived, but more on that later) The fact that there were so many licensed cars and the physics were as real as anyone had ever got to ‘real’ driving just made it all the more unbelievable and players who completed the arcade section were surprised to see the addition of a really nice hi-res 60fps mode which made the graphics even sharper. The most unusual aspect, though, was that this was a SUMMER game, rather than some major blockbuster brought out to sell consoles at Christmas, as was usually the case.
A mixed bag of releases followed this on the Playstation, but then it’s main strength always was the diversity of the titles. Dead or Alive showed that fighting games weren’t just a pretty face (they were also about how well endowed the female fighters were..), Sentinel Returns re-created the 8-bit days of hiding behind rocks in a scary sequel, still as good as the original and twice as nerve-racking. Star Wars was still going strong, despite its age and fans were catered for by the questionable quality of Masters of Teras Kasi, people seemed to agree that the creators of this fighting game at least got the Kasi part right! Armoured Core showed just what you could do with a mech game and put the ultimate mech creation engine to good use, allowing you to change every part of your robot, while Point Blank kept gun fanatics happy with its comedy shooting antics.
The big news that had every PSX owner buzzing with excitement was this new game that went by the title of ‘Metal Gear Solid’ It sounded wonderful, with great attention to detail, but at the time all we could do was wait and hope that it would turn out to be as wonderful as all the magazines suggested it would be, little did we know that it would surpass even those predictions.
The N64 had it’s fair share of major releases too, but it looked as though the games were starting to die down a bit for the console. Mission Impossible tried to re-create the success of Goldeneye, but due to some bad design flaws and control system it failed to catch the imagination, Wetrix gave puzzle-heads something to think about, while at the same time enthralling new converts with its graphics and addictiveness. It was certainly an under-rated classic puzzle game where you had to create pools of water, which needed to then be evaporated, sometimes creating rainbows, earthquakes and all manner of earth changing effects, lovely and original too. Nintendo fans had to wait another couple of months though before anything else that would set their world alight appeared.
The Saturn too was falling on hard times, but still managed to entertain with three amazing titles. Burning Rangers saw the player take on the guise of one of three fire fighters who specialised in fighting giant flames and alien creatures, it played really well and the fire effects were fantastic, but the limited number of Saturn owners left meant that it didn’t really get the attention it deserved. Shining Force 3 carried on the Megadrive’s popular series of RPG wonderings and delivered a very nice plot and some lovely set pieces, all overshadowed by the Playstations Final Fantasy series. Lastly, Vampire Savior continued the Night Warriors chronicles in Capcom’s fantastic beat-em up series. It had all the flare and colour of the Street Fighter series with loads of added extras and some wonderful characters, unfortunately it never really reached these shores as a UK release, but sold extremely well through importers, something that the Saturn owners seemed quite happy to do with releases drying up over here.
The PC, not to be outdone by the consoles, came up with Half-Life to the gasps and amazement of the crowd. It was hailed as one of the best 1st Person shooters of its time and quickly became a classic, spawning many add-ons and the now oft-played internet additions. War Games asked us whether we’d like a little game of Thermo-Nuclear war and was pretty playable to boot and a glut of sports games kept fans happy, featuring the likes of Pete Sampras in a re-release and more football titles than you could shake a goalpost at.
Talking of football, the whole console scene seemed to be over-run with men in shorts, Fifa released a half-decent title in World Cup 98 on nearly every format going, the Playstation got around a dozen other titles too, while Saturn owners had World League Soccer or the Sega Worldwide soccer 98 to choose from. Football was the order of the day all round, it seemed and somehow it wasn’t really that surprising either.
1998 was a pretty good year for gaming all round, it was the year before everything changed and people looked towards new formats to give them that little bit extra. No one was expecting the Dreamcast and PS2 at the time and they were happy and sometimes even pleasantly surprised with the resulting games.