This week! A little time zone talk before we launch into the games what we done played in the last seven days. That includes Resident Evil Revelations demo, Mario Kart 7, Gran Turismo 5, Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Hero Academy, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, The Darkness II, Order Up! To Go, Puzzlejuice and more. Plus: matchmaking, Sega Channel, Golden Sun, Mario Kart DLC, etc.
Check out Greg’s new web series Generation 16 (Episode 2 now available) – click here. And take a trip over to Phil’s YouTube Channel to see some awesome retro game vids.
Own an iPhone/iPod touch? We’ve got an app for that–the Player One Podcast player app is available now. Play shows new and old, read show notes, access the show Twitter, website, email, voicemail line and more! Plus, you’ll be able to access bonus audio and video content (soon, once we figure out what that is). Click here to download.
Publisher: EA Sports
Developer: Extended Play Productions
Release: 1994
If you follow this website you probably know about my other series, Generation 16. The episode I’m currently working on there features the first soccer game on the Genesis: World Cup Soccer.
By coincidence, FIFA International Soccer is the next game in WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL. And playing these two games back to back drives home the fact that the 16-bit era is really when console sports games became a big deal.
Sports games were very basic on consoles in the early days. The point was mostly to recreate the on-field experience in the simplest way possible, with almost no thought given to presentation, authenticity or even accessibility. Camera angles were always either directly overhead or “television” angles that did not give players a big enough view of the field.
During the 90s, publishers like EA started taking sports games more seriously, looking to make simulations rather than arcade experiences. Licensed teams and players had a lot to do with this, sure. But more importantly, sports games were being made with the player in mind. Case in point: the isometric view used in FIFA International Soccer.
With this view you see a huge amount of the field, and thus can set up passing plays a lot easier than in a lot of previous soccer games. In fact, it just makes overall field awareness so much easier than earlier sports games, where it felt like players who weren’t on the screen weren’t really even on the field.
Not that this was the first game to do this (in fact, the FIFA series itself hit the Genesis a year before the Sega CD version was released), but it’s definitely a great example of the leaps and bounds sports games in general made between the late eighties and mid nineties. And, of course, we all know what kind of business the genre has become in the years that followed.
FIFA International Soccer on the Sega CD also showed off the system’s capabilities in another way, beyond your standard redbook audio and full-motion video clips of real players doing amazing things on the pitch. The sound effects were incredible – especially the crowd noise. One thing that a lot of people don’t remember about the Sega CD is that it boosted the much-maligned sound system from the barebones Genesis. The combo still wasn’t able to produce a lot of the quality stuff you’d hear on the SNES, but it sure sounded a lot better than what you’d get on a cartridge if the development team bothered to take advantage.
I think the crowd sounds incredible in this game. And I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with using redbook audio. You can hear great recreations of crowd chanting and reactions to plays on the pitch. Alternatively, EA’s NHL Hockey on the Sega CD used a recording of an arena crowd played on a loop, augmented by reaction effects done through the standard sound system. The feature was quite effective, too, until everything went quiet when the recording ended and the laser had to seek to the front of the track again.
I think FIFA sounds better.
This series received a lot of much-deserved praise back in the day, and FIFA on the Sega CD stands as one of the best representations of it on a 16-bit console.
This week! It’s a bit of a slow time in terms of new releases but not of demos. So we talk about a a few – Choplifter HD, Grand Slam Tennis 2, Asura’s Wrath, and Final Fantasy XIII-2. Plus the full games we’ve been playing this week like The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, Abobo’s Big Adventure, Zen Pinball 3D, Mario Kart 7, LEGO: Life of George, Run Roo Run and Azarashi. Refreshing!
Check out Greg’s new web series Generation 16 (Episode 2 now available) – click here. And take a trip over to Phil’s YouTube Channel to see some awesome retro game vids.
Own an iPhone/iPod touch? We’ve got an app for that–the Player One Podcast player app is available now. Play shows new and old, read show notes, access the show Twitter, website, email, voicemail line and more! Plus, you’ll be able to access bonus audio and video content (soon, once we figure out what that is). Click here to download.
Listen up, pardners, it’s our 25th Game Club, and to celebrate, we’re tackling the most recent (although still seven years old) entry in Lorne Lanning’s Oddworld series, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath. It’s an (*ahem*) odd hybrid of first- and third-person shooters set in a whimsically bizarre version of the old west. You play as the Stranger, a bounty hunter looking to score loads of moolah by bringing in the orneriest outlaws in the land. Of course, there’s much more to the story, but to spoil it (and its twist) would be a disservice.
The game’s biggest gimmick is the literal “live ammo”–living critters that you must first hunt before loading them into your crossbow to use against the enemy. You also have the choice of bringing your quarry in dead or alive. You’ll earn a higher bounty if they’re still kickin’, but it’s usually more difficult to do this than finishing ‘em off first.
Originally released on the Xbox (and sadly not backwards compatible on the Xbox 360), we were lucky enough to get an updated version of the game recently. Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD is currently available on the PlayStation Network for $14.99. The regular ol’ version of the game is also available on Steam for $9.99 (with a free HD update coming in a few months).
We’ll be discussing Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath in episode 275 of the Player One Podcast. So get playing and share your comments and/or memories. You can post them in this thread, in the official thread on our forums, on Twitter (@p1podcast), drop us an email, or leave a voicemail (713-893-8069).
This week! This is a podcast about games, so we talk about them a lot. Oh, and also, parenting. But back to games – this episodes contains discussions of Swapnote, NFL Blitz, Bionic Commando, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Space Pirates and Zombies, Gemini Rue, and Stranger’s Wrath HD, just to name a few. Plus, full game trials, PS Vita models, most anticipated games of 2012, and more. Enjoy it!
Check out Greg’s new web series Generation 16 (Episode 2 now available) – click here. And take a trip over to Phil’s YouTube Channel to see some awesome retro game vids.
Own an iPhone/iPod touch? We’ve got an app for that–the Player One Podcast player app is available now. Play shows new and old, read show notes, access the show Twitter, website, email, voicemail line and more! Plus, you’ll be able to access bonus audio and video content (soon, once we figure out what that is). Click here to download.
This week! It’s our 2011 wrap-up show where we go down the line and read off our favorites of the year just passed, commentating and discussing as we go along. What won our favor for the year? You will just have to listen and find out, because we won’t spoil that here. But you might have want to played most of the big releases this year otherwise there may be some spoiler talk within. Enjoy!
Check out Greg’s new web series Generation 16 (Episode 2 now available) – click here. And take a trip over to Phil’s YouTube Channel to see some awesome retro game vids.
Own an iPhone/iPod touch? We’ve got an app for that–the Player One Podcast player app is available now. Play shows new and old, read show notes, access the show Twitter, website, email, voicemail line and more! Plus, you’ll be able to access bonus audio and video content (soon, once we figure out what that is). Click here to download.
Here it is! The second episode of Generation 16, the series where I explore the games of Sega’s Mega Drive. This episode features the games released in the first part of 1989, leading up to the American release of the Genesis.
Games featured in this episode are:
- Phantasy Star II
- Tommy Lasorda Baseball
- Super Daisenryaku
- Thunder Force II
- Last Battle
This week! After a special Christmas greeting from the hosts, they talk about the following game tapes: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Call of Duty: Black Ops, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Tetris, Pushmo, Swapnote, Mighty Switch Force, Super Mario 3D Land, Sonic Generations, And Yet It Moves, Magicka, VVVVVV. Plus! Steam sales, the lack of legitimate kid-game reviews, and favorite Christmas specials.
Be sure to enter our Humble Indy Bundle Gift Code Contest!
And remember to tune in next week for our 2011 Awards Extravaganza!
Check out Greg’s new web series Generation 16 – click here.
Own an iPhone/iPod touch? We’ve got an app for that–the Player One Podcast player app is available now. Play shows new and old, read show notes, access the show Twitter, website, email, voicemail line and more! Plus, you’ll be able to access bonus audio and video content (soon, once we figure out what that is). Click here to download.
You know how publishers fall all over themselves to release first-person shooters nowadays? Well back in the early ’90s, the hot genre was one-on-one fighting games. Street Fighter II ruled the world, while everyone else scrambled for Capcom’s table scraps.
Most failed. But one publisher/developer in particular managed to gain a foothold in the genre by pumping out one fighting series after another – many times taking character designs and moves right out of Capcom’s playbook – on their own hardware. SNK seemed almost entirely focused on beating Capcom at their own game back then. Their Neo Geo hardware was home to series like Art of Fighting, King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, World Heroes, and of course, Fatal Fury.
And each of the games in the above list was a series. Fatal Fury Special is actually an update to Fatal Fury 2. This was a pretty common practice during the time – Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II Champion Edition, Street Fighter II Turbo, etc. Fatal Fury Special features all of the fighters from FF2, along with playable boss characters, extra fighters from the original Fatal Fury, and even a cameo by Ryo Sakazaki from the Art of Fighting series.
While they were generally good, SNK’s fighters tended to be pretty experimental. While SNK was attempting to emulate Capcom in some ways, it was also trying to create its own, unique style of fighting game. And so a lot of these earlier brawlers had their share of warts.
Fatal Fury, for instance, featured a multi-plane level design, where characters were able to leap from the foreground to the background whenever they liked. Although this added an element of depth not seen in a lot of other fighters, it also made things pretty confusing. As I played I found myself spending more time hopping from plane to plane than actually engaging my opponent.
As far as quality goes, Fatal Fury Special on the Sega CD doesn’t stand up to the Neo Geo original – the animation is relatively choppy and the voice samples disappointing – but it’s still a very strong port. In fact, most of the SNK fighting game ports for the 16-bit consoles were pretty decent back then, and I remember the Genesis ones in particular garnering some praise.
Fun fact: this is one of the first published games developed by Norwegian software house Funcom. Their first three games were all SNK fighter ports for the Sega CD (along with a port of World Heroes that was never released). Some of you may recognize the name as the publisher/developer of the long-running MMO Anarchy Online, which has been going strong for over a decade now.
This week! We talk about the following game tapes: Super Mario 3D Land, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Pushmo, Sonic CD, the Humble Indie Bundle, Rage, InFamous 2. Plus! The 3DS gets the GBA Ambassador games, Club Nintendo offering downloadable games, PlayStation Vita, holiday-themed gaming traditions, Pokemon Warriors and more.
Check out Greg’s new web series Generation 16 – click here.
Own an iPhone/iPod touch? We’ve got an app for that–the Player One Podcast player app is available now. Play shows new and old, read show notes, access the show Twitter, website, email, voicemail line and more! Plus, you’ll be able to access bonus audio and video content (soon, once we figure out what that is). Click here to download.
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