Mr_8bit_16bit

I remember my Dad being not very interested in our video games at the time. Oh, every so once-in-a-while he'd play with us during the Atari2600 days, but by not too long after we got the NES, he'd lost interest completely. I know there were several more instances, but I can only clearly remember one example of him playing games with me. It was 1989, summer or fall (shorty before we got the NES) and we spent a couple hours playing Super Challenge Football (Atari2600) while listening to the radio. "Another Day in Paradise" by Phil Collins came on. In recent years, Dad has began to get very sentimental over our childhood, and with Video Games being such a huge part of our childhood, it makes perfect sense that he's starting to get into older video games. I love seeing it. Now we play these old games together. (For a while, it was almost every time Jodee and I came over) He's still not huge into the new games, though he did sit and watch me get schooled on xb live Halo2 once. But here's the wierd part. In a way, I'm kinda like the parent here. I am knowledgeable and experienced in gaming, and he's just starting out. And so I'm guiding him through it all, and just like a Dad playing catch with a son would go easy on him, I let Dad win almost as much as I don't. And once or twice, he won on his own. Anyway, Jodee and I don't have any children yet, so I can only go by what I'm told, but they say that once you have kids, and you get to see the magic of christmas for them, it kinda brings back some of that lost magic for you. Well, likewise, seeing Dad learning all of this for the first time, and it's kinda magical for him brings back some of the magic for me too. I can't wait til I get to teach my kids video games. --SIDE NOTE--I have always liked "Another day in paradise". Often times in my memory, I have associated songs to games and games to songs, sometimes even systems. These ties are so strong that EVERY TIME I play that game or that system, I hear that song in my head. And inversely, everytime I hear that song I have visions of that game or system dancing through my head. It's a distraction when you're driving. (just kidding). Anyway, Another day in paradise ties into NES, "If I ever lose my faith in you" by Sting ties into SNES, "True" by Spandeaux Ballet ties into the Genesis (it was on the radio at the time, and the resonance after the end of the chorus reminded me of the resonance in the music in the Genesis Mortal Kombat after a match was over) and three entire Genesis albums tie into the Atari2600. "A trick of the tail", "wind and wuthering", and most of all, "and then there were three" which featured the song "The lady lies" which this effect is strongest on. (Mom was HUGE into pre-pop Genesis and was listening to those three albums excessively at the time we got the 2600. Drove my brother nuts, but not me. I inherited mom's love of stuff like that. She has really great tastes in music (except she's more classical and I'm more Jazz) On rare occasion, I even tie in a game to a TV show and vice versa. The only example I can think of readily is "Plok" and "The Red Green Show." Wierd pairing, huh? It's because I was discovered plok and red green right about the same time, and both were being played and watched respectively a whole lot at the time. But now, this tie is just as strong as the afore mentioned music-games ties. It's interesting the kinds of associations your mind can make without you even being aware of it til years later. And often times, once made, they can never be broken. That's okay, I like being reminded of stuff I like while I'm busy doing other stuff I like.

I knew I remembered it from somewhere! Did they ever take the "Fun Machine" title any further? I don't remember it on any commercials or anything... 1007718[/snapback] I don't think it was really touted as that beyond the box, at least, not that I remember.

meh, you got me on a technicality. I guess it did actually come out. But with only four games? For all practical accounts and purposes, it's vaporware, even if not from a strictly technical aspect.

Actually, that's the sound the metal tray makes... the sound your head makes is thud....as it hits the floor, along with the rest of you.

Or it could be an angry, evil smiling chinese man wearinga two tiered hat.

Of course, I saw how it could be and was clearly meant to be phallic, however, it's way too vauge. That's like saying the tree in your front yard is a giant schlong with hundreds of other smaller schlongs growing off of it. Anything can be made into an innuendo, even the word innuendo itself (I.e. "You wanna see my sexual innuendo?"), but to me, this seems like grasping at straws (also phallic!) What does it look like to me? It looks like a very very ornate, fancy spoon, the kind that only top royalty get to use to have their cheerios (in a bowl made of solid gold, of course......like the toilet.) And then when they're done, and they get lonely...gahh, the dirty mindedness....it's infectious! It's like a creeping malaice (spelled wrong, I'm sure) I've got to get out of here!

I think the easiest way for me to convey my opinions would be to simply quote myself from the non-poll version. I voted straight cube. I allllmmmmost voted cube by a long shot, but thought that was just a teensy bit extreme. So here goes:

Usually, but not always. My first system, as I had said earlier was the Atari 2600, my 4th favorite. And the Sega Genesis, my fourth system is actually my favorite. Hey, wait a minute. My 2nd system, NES is my third favorite, and my 3rd system, the SNES is my second favorite. Wow, I had never thought of it from that angle before. My first four are my top four in reverse order. That's ironic. Thank you for posting that first is favorite thing. I may never have considered this aspect otherwise.

Atari fever started this great thread asking which is the better of the two systems. Great idea to compare the two, I just thought he should've done it in a poll, so I thought I'd fix that. If you've posted in the other one, you may or may not repost that stuff as you see fit, but do vote, so we can talley it up. Thanks!

THIS SHOULD'VE BEEN A POLL!!!! I can't believe nobody's said that yet! I'm gonna start a poll with this same question. But for the sake of this thread, I've gotta give it to the cube. The sheer limitations of the N64's cartridge format totally undermined it's hardware advantages over it's 32-bit rivals. Not that there weren't some improvements, there was virtually no pixelation for instance, but with the space limitations, the textures they used weren't exactly stellar either. Real muddy and smudgy. It seems to me like a lot of times PS1 vs. N64 was like trading stucco for smear. And the jaggies at the edges of the polygons weren't really any better either. Plus, at 90MHz vs 33 PS1 and 28(?) Saturn it wasn't really any faster moving or higher frame rated either. Nor was the polygon count ever any better, it was almost tit for tat as far as that went. Sure, you didn't have nearly the polygon pop-up, well, yes you did, actually, it was just hidden behind a way too close iron thick wall of fog on everything. In any case, it was supposed to be a generation ahead of the 32-bit systems, but when you weigh it's advantages and disadvantages (!) against the "lesser" systems, it pretty much came out a tie, except with the N64, the games often felt half baked due to the space limitation of the cartridges. The Game Cube, on the other hand, doesn't dissapoint at all. Sure, it's no X-Box, and even specs lower than the PS2 in one or two specs. But it doesn't fall below expectations like the N64 did, and that's the biggest difference. It doesn't make a whole lot of grand promises, but it delivers on every one that it does promise. Even with the minidisc format, the games still feel as big and full as their DVD wielding opponents. Side note: has anyone else notice that starting with the N64, Nintendo has seemingly tried to differentiate itself from the crowd through inferiority rather than superiority? N64=space restricting cartridges, plus a vaporware disc drive, and even with it being a cartridge based format, you still had to have a memory card (!!!). GC=1.5GB minidiscs in an age of 4.7GB DVDs, plus a worthless network adaptor port which gets consumed by the GBP anyway if you have one. And now, Revolution: No HDTV support, and no Hard Drive support (especially stupid considering all the downloading the system is going to be doing!) Nevertheless. I've gotten more joy out of my game cube than my N64, even though I've put more hours into my N64. The N64 even has the nostalgic advantage of being the only system I've actually had on launch day (2-days before launch to be exact.) To me, N64 is the start of the decline of Nintendo. Something I don't exactly feel like celebrating.

Wow, that's an interesting name for it.

Well, and again, I'm not saying that it didn't have any impact, but it'd be a poke in the eyes rather than the bullet between them.

No, I disagree. I think the demographics are wrong for big screen sports bars to have killed the arcade. There are too few people who crossover into both camps to have made a make or break difference. In other words, Probably 50% or better, probably better, of the people in the sports bars were never into the arcade scene. And there are too many arcade goers who wouldn'tve been lured out to the bars. Kids mainly, cause they couldn't get en-masse into the bars, and the freaks and geeks who never were sports fans. I'm sure it played a role, but not a deciding one for sure. In order to effect a large enough portion of the arcade demographic, a major change would have to happen internally, in other words, something inside the world of video games. Nothing external could've done it. And that being said, I stand behind my claim that the console hardware catching up to the arcade hardware was the coupe'de'gras that killed a previously weakened arcade.

while it was far from being the best version overall, The 3DO verion of Doom, in my opinion had the best soundtrack. It was the original compositions from the original Doom, but it was redone on real heavy metal instruments and the ocasional electronica. I can't remember which level it was, but there was a level where the music had this deep deep synth bass line on it that shook the place. And this was back when I was still using my 50watt single 8" Optimus sub. I wish I still had it so I could hear how it'd sound now on my 250watt dual 10" Sony sub. I've also got a more powerful and cleaner sounding receiver than I did then, and much better speakers, so the whole presentation would be better, not just the bass.

There were other factors that were weakening the arcade long before the PS1, let alone the DC. And lets not minimize the PS1/SAT's negative impact on the arcade. With Tekken, that was the moment that people really began to realize that arcade perfect in the homes was attainable, granted, it took a whole other generation to see it to fruition, but it was with tekken that gamers and develpers started heading that way. That may be why nothing of note besides sports, fighting, racing, hunting, and DDR games hit the arcade after then. But the Dreamcast -WAS- the actual death of the arcade. Granted, it did not come into a world where the arcade was this great and mighty armored empire, The dreamcast was not David vs. Goliath. That gives the dreamcast way too much credit. Rather, what happened was a frail, weak, sickly old man took a tumble down a long long flight of stairs, gaining speed as he fell until he hit the hard ground below way too fast and was rendered, bloodied, dazed, and paralyzed. A little while later, a man with a knife comes along and slits his throat and allows him to bleed to death. Now, the symbolism in that is this: the old man is the arcade, falling down the stairs is the gradual and long standing weakening of the arcade, the hard, crippling landing at the bottom was the PS1, and the man with the knife was the dreamcast. The reason I chose knife to the throat rather than bullet between the eyes point blank is that with a slit throat, it still takes you a short, painful while to die, it's not instant like the gun. Likewise, it took the arcade about a year to actually die after the dreamcast came out, it was not an overnight thing. But the dreamcasts arrival was when the slice actually happened. (What's up with me and all of these morbid metaphors?)

On your first paragraph: you took the words right out of my mouth. (stop that.) One thing to highlight: The only thing the PS1/SAT put in their coffins with nails were the SNES/Genesis. All the 32-bit generation did in the arcade situation was change the mentality, shift the direction of thought and therefore the direction of the arcade. -PS1 started us down a road that was lead to the dreamcast.- Sure, you might be able to say that the PS1 maimed the arcade, but it certainly didn't kill it. For the arcade, the PS1 was the prophet of the coming apocolypse, and the DC actually was the apocolypse. Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat on the home systems for all accounts and purposes really did nothing more to damage (or bolster) the arcade than Pac Man on the home systems did. On your second paragraph: You forgot racing. But by and large, you are right. There was very very little that came out after the 32-bit systems did that was not sports, fighting, or racing. DDR is the only notable exception I can ready think of. Those Deer Hunting/Target practice games perhaps, but that could also be considered sports. On your third paragraph: You are correct, sir! I think that Tekken was more or less arcade perfect, but as a rule, the PS1/Saturn version always fell short of the arcade version, even in seeminly umimportant ways such as (as I mentioned in the other thread) texture mapping quality, or qty of polygons or size of polygons (I.e. size of characters) or shading effects or even just speed. Arcade games are usually fast and loud, oft times, the home version would be neither. If you really wanna know my take on this, read the other thread. I did a whole lot of posting on that thread.

We actually got to work on one of these machines at the store I work at. Granted, all we as a TV repair store were able to work on was the TV portion of it, but they brought in the whole thing so we could test it......guess who got to be the one to test it.

Oh Contrere. (spelled right?) I think that the eve of a new system is the high point. Sure, we always have fun and we always have a new game to look forward to, but no game ever makes waves like a new system does. Think about it. The excitement, the anticipation, the unknowns. Sure Capitol N could flub it all up, and we'd all be disappointed after the wait is over, but it's that wait, it's the only thing that brings us close to that starry eyed wonder we had at playing games for the first time. It's the only thing that can really take gaming away from the routine everyday, dare I even say, mundane hobby it's become and put it back in the realm of the fantastic. Certainly, we wouldn't want to be on the eve of a new system all the time, having to buy a new system everytime you turn around would get old real quick. But once every 5-8yrs, that's doable. I guess my point is, try to enjoy this time, because there may be some magic in it after it comes out before you can get it, but once you do get it, and the newness wears off, it's just another game system to squeeze into the annuls of history.

Turbo Express is cool. I kinda wish I had one of those. :-)

Many places have bartop games that charge $0.25 and seem to be very popular. The games aren't really any better than what can be found on the web, but nonetheless draw a lot of quarters. And I suspect the $0.25 price has a lot to do with it. I suspect that a lot of arcades have games that would receive more than double the number of plays if the price were cut in half. The difficult thing to assess would be whether the extra revenue was coming at the expense of other, higher-priced games. Personally, I don't think that an amusement arcade is going to be viable as an entertainment destination outside of a few specialty locations (e.g. Dave & Buster's). On the other hand, I think that mini-arcades in airports and other places that people have to kill some time would do very well to focus on things similar to the $0.25 bartop games. Such places aren't really going to be in competition with home systems since the people waiting in airports aren't going to have ready access to those. And on such systems, approachable gameplay will be far more important than super-duper graphics, sound effects, motion feedback, etc. I see no reason $0.25/play shouldn't do quite well at such places. 1003415[/snapback] Alright. I meant the real-deal arcade games. You know, games as significant now as Pac Man was then. Sure you have the little bar counter arcade machines that still only costs $0.25, but what I was saying was that as far as the major production games go, "gone are the days of the $0.25 new arcade game."

They do have those. Around Des Moines, we've got a chain of them called "Loco Joes". It's actually a nickel arcade/pool hall. In other words, for every one quarter you would've put in that machine back in the day, you now put a nickel. (There's a cover charge) Anyway, it is kinda cool, and feels like the authentic arcades of old, but there are some problems with it: 1) The arcade games they use are, of course, used. 2nd hand. And they usually have something wrong with them..sometimes making them unplayable. And Loco Joes either can't afford to, or simply wont have them fixed. So their selection of arcade games is getting slimmer and slimmer and the greatest titles are dissapearing. Yet at the same time, more pool tables are being added. And that's the problem with retro arcades: technical difficulties. These aging systems are gonna have more and more problems, and repair options are gonna get more and more limited and selection will diminish. 2) You're not gonna be creating new memories, you're gonna be reliving old ones. As a nostalgiac, that's not really a complaint so much as an attempt to point out that sticking just to the old games without bringing in newly developed, hot off the press ones is not a rebirth of the arcade, it's as I said earlier: dancing with it's corpse. But dancing with a corpse is exactly what we figuratively do everytime we turn on our Atari 2600, or our Genesis or NES or SNES or whatever else. So I would agree that retro arcades are definitely not a bad thing, especially if they are well kept up and broad in the selection of games they have to offer. And I do still occasionally go to Loco Joes, and would more often if they'd start turning the tide towards video games and not pool, started bringing in more and in some cases, better games, and most of all, keep them up. I hope you can find a retro arcade in your area, or if there isn't one, that one will spring up soon.

That'd be sweet! Two words: Intercontinental Contra.

Honestly, I think the only way to bring back the arcade is to eliminate the reasons for it's demise. Chief of which being, as I said: the hardware supremecy of consoles. That along with the simultaneous availability of a home version of any given game, and as JBanes pointed out, the higher price to play. Those are the big three reasons. So if all the major companies in the video game world would develop arcade hardware that was two-three generations ahead of what consoles today could do, and if you had to wait a year or two for an appreciably inferior home version, and if they were able to keep price of admission down doing it, then giving it about 5 years to catch back on, yes, the arcade would come back, possibly to the same stride it had in it's glory days. We would have "Arcade's Revenge" (I'm such a dork) Let me stress: I do not believe the arcade has even a chance of coming back unless all three, not just one or two, but all three of these things happen. Now, is that likely? Not at all. 1) If I understand the economics of gaming correctly (which I may not) it seems that the R&D going into developing new arcade hardware that only, maybe 20 games are going to be built on and sold only to arcades willing to invest $2k-$10k on would bring in much less revenue to the company than R&D once every 5-7yrs for a new console that hundereds, maybe a thousand games will be built on and sold to the mass consumer who would be willing and able to shell out a comparably easy $200-$400 for. Even if the profit margin on an arcade cabinet is higher than that on a console and corresponding game combined, the profits made on the sheer volume of console and home version game sales would outweigh the profits made on the arcade sales. If arcades were more profitable than consoles, then I believe none of the companies would've allowed the arcade hardware to be eclipsed like that by consoles. It would've been a financially stupid move, and one that I think they would've been scrambling to repair ever since. That's not happening. No, what I think happened is someone was up late, crunching numbers once, when they discovered that they would actually make a greater profit bringing the consoles up to arcade level, making arcade perfect ports for it, and then phasing out the arcade. So I doubt that the arcade will ever get the hardware supremecy back for the sole reason that there's no financial incentive to do so. And perhaps financial incentive to not do so. 2) For better, or probably, worse, we've become accustomed to having what we want right away without having to wait. Too large a percentage of the gaming community would probably scream rape over having to wait that long for a game to come home. Sure some of us older guys (at 25, I'd be in the youngest cusp of "us older guys" but would still be included) spurred by nostalgia or for the ambience of the arcade or some combo thereof would pump some pop money into the new arcade games, but by and large people, especially the youngest ones who wouldn't get the whole arcade thing would not really get into it. Plus, in this age of computer piracy, the fledgling arcade2.0 would probably have it's feet kicked out from under it by hackers downloading it's offerings off the computer. 3) Gone are the days of the $0.25 new arcade game. With games getting more and more complex, R&D costs are going through the roof, and with the demand for more and more, game screens are getting larger and more sophisticated, speakers are getting louder and better and peripherals like rumbling seats are getting fancier too. All of this costs bookoo. That raises the price of the arcade game up significantly, a price which the arcade owner has to pay, and has to recoup if he's to stay in business. If he pays $10k for a game and only charges $0.25-$0.50 a game, he'll never turn a profit..especially with the slow flow of token tossing traffic. So he has to charge $1-$1.50 a turn which culls the herd willing to play significantly which puts him right in the same spot he started in. This will make the arcade owner less willing to invest in a machine which will in turn make the developer less willing to invest in developing one which will in turn make the developer focus more on the home stuff, and so long as they deliver the goods on the home front that will pacify all but way too small a group to effect a revolution for the arcade. The demise of the arcade was caused by a series of factors and a spiral of events that never should've happened, but since they did, it's created a whole new climate, one that will be very difficult to reverse. With everybody worried about their bottom lines, with the extreme risk involved, I don't think anyone, or at least not nearly enough people would be willing to put their neck on the line to financially back the events that would need to take place to begin to revive the american arcade. Is it outright impossible? No. Neither is the entire population of a major metroplitan area each winning the lottery. But they are about equally unlikely. As for me, I guess I'm old enough to miss the arcade and wish that it had not died off, but young enough to be spoiled by having the arcade at home on my DC, PS2, GC and XB. To me (and probably most of my peers) It'd be trading bittersweet for bittersweet. I can either have arcade perfect at home on my big screen and big home theater system and not have to worry about spending money popping it into arcade machines that I won't get to take home and play at 2 in the morning if I can't sleep and in return not have an arcade to go to to immerse myself in and get away from it all for a while and my inner nostalgiac will gently weep. -or- I can have an arcade to go to and play games all day, and cherish, with the din, and the flashing lights, and the darkly painted walls and ceiling, and the prize counter and all the other freaks and geeks and the nostalgia and in return settle with A)being broke all the time and B) always being frustrated and never content with my home version because the characters are smaller, move slower, aren't shaded and textured as well etc...(I'm particular about these things.) And my inner perfectionist will wail in frustration. To simplify: being the nostalgiac and technical perfectionist that I am, it's a choice between not being able to go to the arcade, or having to go to the arcade. Which is the lesser of two evils? I'm hard pressed to say. For some that's an easy decision: bring back the arcades. For others it's also an easy decision: leave well enough alone. For me, I don't know that I can decide. As I said, it's trading bittersweet for bittersweet. I guess, had we never had arcade perfect at home and I was told we could have arcade perfect at home, but it'd kill the arcade, and given the choice, I'd say lets keep the arcades and never desecrate that barrier, but now, that I've gotten used to superior home hardware, it'd be hard to go back, so if I absolutely had to choose, I'd say, with a measure of regret: "Let things stay the way they are. The Arcade a fond memory, the consoles standing victorious over the arcade and increasingly nipping at the heels of PC gaming." I've never been huge into PC gaming, so I don't think I'd mourn it nearly nearly as much if consoles killed the PC as they did the arcade. But, since PCs are so utilitarian, they will never cease to occupy people's desktops and time, and if the PC is right there and readily accessible, I doubt that PC gaming would ever truely die like the US arcade has, but if Console hardware truely gains supremecy over PC hardware, and is able to keep it for more than a few months (which while becoming increasingly less unlikely is still unlikely) the console games could eclipse the PC games to the point of PC gaming losing it's mainstream status, if the console version is as good or better, easier to hook to a big screen home theater system and more comfy to play on the couch and without having possible hardware conflicts and without having to muddle through windows to get to it, an all around console dominance is possible, and becoming increasingly plausable for some future point.

okay, I had only briefly played H.T. on the DC, and only in single player mode. As far as graphics, sound, mechanics etc. it seemed totally authentic. But Crazy Taxi I actually do know more about. And you're right there too. I didn't see any difference from my DC copy when I later tried it out in the arcade. But that neither proves nor disproves my case. It just shows that I didn't get in deep with DC H.T., but then again, I never claimed to. But the difference between DC H.T and N64 H.T is that the N64 hardware was not capable of Arcade Perfect, it would out of necessity have to be watered down. If it even came close (I don't know, I haven't played it) then that's an accomplishment. The DC however could easily handle it, so if there were problems with it's H.T, then blame the programmer.

Well, sure. And I typically don't base things solely on graphics, but in this instance I was. As I had said, the TG16 (Turbo Duo) is really inconsistent with its graphics. Sometimes the game will look almost as good as a SNES/Genesis game, and sometimes it'll hardly look any better than an NES game. With that knowledge I was concerned that there wouldn't be much of a difference between the TG16 Adventure Island and the NES Adventure Island. But when I went to VGMuseum to see what it looked like, my fears were allayed. It looks 16 bit. Granted between frame rate, frame count, character mobility, and speed of game, it probably does play more like an 8-bit game, which most of the 16-bit looking TG16 games do, but in the looks department, it does look 16-bit.