Hello once again. After being subjected to watch “Metal Gear Solid 4″ on Youtube, meaning, seeing two minutes of game play and… FORTY FIVE of cut scenes, I thought of all those games I played in my youth (The GOLDEN YEARS of video gaming) that were fun as heck and didn’t involve a multi-million, multi-media advertising explosion before they came out. Heck, I remember when playing video games was the geeky thing to do; now everyone plays video games and geeks just read books.
“You read books?! EPIC FAIL!, dude!!”
Ah, yes, and computers weren’t used by idiots. How times change.
Here are a few games that I consider masterpieces and didn’t involve a 40 million dollar development budget.
Star Control II (1992) – This open ended space tour de force expanded on the ideas of the first and added a great storyline. You could go about your heart’s content and explore the known universe OR you could solve the great intergalactic riddle while exploring the known universe to your heart’s content. Every race, every ship, every solar system has some unique elements. All written by two guys. Why is this game not a TV series is beyond me. There’s so much material here, it’s not even funny. Melee battles are fun when you just want to blow up your friends. It works as an RPG, as a shooter and as a strategy game. Talk about bang for your buck. If you get a chance, try the 3DO version, which is the one released free on the web; it adds voice acting to every species and characters. You’ll love to “play” with the Orz.
Joust (1982) – Easy to learn, difficult to master. Hop on your Warrior Ostrich and fight against evil. The two player aspects of this game are pure joy. Get help from a friend or compete against him, while Buzzard Knights, Pterodactyls, Lava Trolls and disappearing land masses make your life a living hell. I love it and so does Nintendo, I guess. The play mechanics were copied by Miyamoto for the original Mario Bros. He just decided to make the player bump the bad guys from the bottom rather than the top. He just plain copied them for Balloon Fight, which is also a fun game for two people. Top or bottom, it’s always fun for me. Don’t play Joust 2, they overcomplicated stuff and the playing field is much smaller. Nice concept, bad execution. Joust 2: Nay. Joust: YAY!
Ghouls N’ Ghosts (1988) – My favorite game of all time. Arthur needs your help yet again to rescue his beloved Princess Prin-Prin from the clutches of the underworld. Every thing that was wrong with the original Ghost N’ Goblins gets fixed with in this one. Oh, you still have to beat the game twice to get the true ending AND it’s hard as heck, but it’s much more balanced ride than it’s predecessor and successor. Players these days can’t seem to understand that games were not meant to be beaten the same day you buy them. The concept is re-play, which is why some of them were hard. It’s funny that most people talk of the classics and sometimes forget that “hard” today was “normal” back then… when other people started playing, the difficulty had to be dropped. I still don’t understand why, since the majority are just playing Madden or Guitar Hero. I find it’s a much more enjoyable experience to play “Simon” (“electronic” board games; remember those?) with a record blasting away in the background than to play Guitar Hero. Then again, I enjoy playing Ghouls N’ Ghosts. I’m a definite masochist.
Galaga/Ms. Pac-Man “Class of ’81″ (2000) – Yes, this is a cheat. Two games in one. Both are excellent, both are simple and both are FUN! This cabinet was released to waning arcade crowd to get more mainstream play and revenue. I’m sure everyone has seen this cabinet or the originals somewhere that’s not an arcade. That’s how good they are. Both still do their job after almost 30 years. Galaga is a sequel, Ms. Pac-Man is a pseudo sequel, both are better than the originals. See, in the 80′s, most video game sequels were better than the originals; with a few exceptions (et tu, Joust 2…) I mean, Super Mario Bros 3 is better than Super Mario Bros. which is better than Mario Bros…, you get the idea. Give both a try when you get the chance. You’ll like them. What? You don’t like them?! Then go play Madden, go…just go.
Herzog Zwei (1989) – No, it’s not a game about Werner Herzog’s drug induced epic battles with Klaus Kinski on the set of his latest movie; “Cobra Verde”. Talk about ahead of it’s time. When this game came out. No one wanted to touch it with a ten foot pole. What a bunch of tools!!! This is the game that started the real-time strategy genre. A full decade before Starcraft exploded the brains of South Koreans everywhere. A friend of mine had this game and wanted me to try it. After 2 hours, I got the hang of it. After 4 hours, I started “playing” decently. 12 hours later, the Genesis was about to melt and we had no intentions of stopping. Pick red or blue and deploy your battle mech into action. Maps affected strategy as well. Try to find a copy for a decent price on Ebay. Everyone wants it for their collection and I don’t blame them, it’s that good. The early Genesis games had other fine gems as well. If the developers had known the genre would be so popular in the future, I’m sure they would’ve kidnapped some Sega board trustee family member and demanded it received a bigger promotional push. Like a 40 million dollar budget for the sequel and a movie tie-in starring Burt Reynolds. (He was still big back then, not as much as Stallone, but you get the idea.)
That’s it! Go out and play! By “go out” I mean, go to a used game store or an arcade and play them standing up. It’ll do wonders for your constitution.
Until next time.
Merin on 
Captain Z on 
Benton Sartore on 
Jacobo, what an excellent article!
Ah, the memories. I tend to agree with your overall sentiment (Madden and Guitar Hero, indeed.)
Star Control 2 is one of my all time favorites, and it’s exactly as you say – if you want just some quick PVP, there’s melee mode where you and a friend control whatever ships you want. Then there’s the RPG / Story mode, with you exploring, building your main ship and fleet, and uncovering a mystery. So much to a game made back before FPS was even really a thing.
Joust. Ah, what a great game. One of the reasons I picked up that Midway collection disc for my XBOX.
Ms. Pac-man. So much of my youth wasted at that arcade game. My dad would take me to his favorite bar often, and this game was essentially my babysitter (and the jukebox.)
Glad you enjoyed it.
Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga seem to be THE games that everyone has played at least once. Sure, everyone knows of Super Mario, but rarely could you play that one during happy hour or while you waited at the laundromat. Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man really have that mass appeal and easy interaction so many of today’s games lack. Everyone loves the “easy to pick up, tough to put down” concept of videogaming, even if they’re not aware of it.
I think Tetris might be the only other game with as much, if not more, mass appeal.
Ghouls N’ Ghosts certainly left an impression on me. I feel it has the best level design of any arcade platform game from that era. Tough, but once you knew how to play, you “understood” why you died a horrible death, even if you didn’t like it. “Shinobi” and “Strider” are the other two I think come closest.
I know Adam Sessler often lists Super Ghouls N Goblins as his favorite game of all time (that or Sly Cooper, I think.)
Games have evolved over time, and I do think that often good gameplay, story and fun get lost in the quest for better sound and graphics. But there are some amazing games out even now, depending on your tastes.
Going back, I’d list Contra and Gradius those you just mentioned. Seems to me most people I know who were old enough to have an NES played Contra at some point. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, select, start.
River City Ransom was one of those mostly overlooked but great for re-playability classics. I still need to pick that up for the GBA.
Arcade-wise, going before the Street Fighter 2 revolution, I’d have to bring up Tron. Not Discs of Tron, but Tron. That was one of the arcade machines (along with Yie Argh Kung Fu, Pro-Wrestling and Final Fight) that my friends and I would always watch for.