table of contents
previous: 1990-1994: 16-bit excitement
The year 1995 was as critical in videogame history than 1990. Once again, all the areas of gaming were quickly and completely redefined. Sony introduced the PlayStation and took the console market by storm, redefining the rules of the game and dealing a fatal blow to the arcade market. That considerable event was matched in magnitude by the historical launch of Windows 95.
Console wars
As early as 1988, Nintendo had announced a mysterious CD-Rom component for its NES then the SNES, in collaboration with electronic giant Sony. While this never was released, this was how Sony started working in the videogame industry, notably designing the sound chip of the SNES.
- The Playstation
- This little grey box was Sony’s ticket in the videogame business.
With the amount of expertise it had accumulated working on the Super Drive project, Sony planned to release a multimedia console that could play CD-Roms and SNES games. Like the CD-Rom add-on for the SNES, this was postponed, rescheduled, and cancelled, but eventually, the PlayStation (PSX) was released in december 94 in Japan, and in September 1995 in the US, and was successful like no other game system ever was.
- The Nintendo 64
- Note the absence of CD-ROM and the trident-shaped controller.
Meanwhile, Nintendo had been announcing its next-generation system, the Ultra 64, since 1993. It was supposed to be released in 1995, but was postponed until 1996, when it was launched under the less definitive name of Nintendo 64 (N64).
Other hardware makers of the era included Sega, which released the Saturn just before the PlayStation, Atari, with the Jaguar, SNK with the Neo-Geo and 3DO. Unfortunately for the them, Sony and Nintendo almost completely dominated the market during that era.
Sony introduced something completely new to the world of videogames. That wasn’t 3D, or the ability to play audio CD on the PlayStation - although those features were certainly novel. No. The biggest advance was in marketing: since the early eighties, games typically targetted the 8-16 years olds. With the PlayStation, the focus shifted on young adults. This allowed the game audience to be considerably broadened. Videogames were no longer reserved to those children who don’t like sports, but had their place in every household, with or without children.
- Wipeout, Playstation, 1995
- Ten years down the road, Wipeout’s cutting-edge design is still in.
Games were no longer promoted with Pepsi or McDonald’s, but in cool and hype places like exclusive night-clubs or MTV shows. The one game that perhaps illustrated that the best is WipeOut. WipeOut is a futuristic racing game featuring ships designed by the hype agency Designers Republic and music by superstar DJs and electronic music geniuses like the Chemical Brothers or Prodigy. This was a game made by cool, young adults for cool, young adults, not by geeks for geeks like it always had been before.
Like the Sega Genesis before it, the PlayStation’s success was based on avoiding game genres where Nintendo usually reigned supreme, and on investing new, promising game genres, that would then be associated with the specific PlayStation’s flavor. And indeed, PlayStation excelled at combat games, such as Battle Arena - ToShinDen, and most significantly Tekken.
Nintendo eventually released the Nintendo 64 console, which was true to the Nintendo tradition of intemporal games, suitable for the whole family. One strong strategic choice that Nintendo made was not to use CD-Roms like Sony and, increasingly, PC game makers did. Game cartridges ensured fast loading time, which is what gamers want, thought Nintendo. True, but on the downside, they are much more expensive to produce, which was reflected on the retail price of N64 games, significantly higher than PSX games. This also meant that the manufacturing of games would be completely controlled by Nintendo.
Indeed, for the next five years, the battle raged on between the two Japanese game giants. Nintendo, which once held as much as 90% of the US market, was never able to take the better on Sony though.
Landmark games were published on both systems. They both had excellent (for the time) 3D capabilities, but it was difficult for developpers to understand how to use them well. Initially, 3D games really looked like "prettier" videogames, but not conceptually much different from their sprite-based ancestors.
Landmark games
- Super Mario 64, N64, 1996
- This game was the first to exploit the gameplay potential of 3D.
- Tekken, Playstation, 1996
- 3D makes character animation so much easier!
In character-based games, 3D could be used to simplify the animation process greatly. But that wasn’t that obvious to the player - Tekken didn’t look much better than the current version of Street Fighter. 3D was also used to produce special effects, like particles. Again, this was nice but not significantly novel. Then, Nintendo released Super Mario 64, the first 3D platform game. This game bent the rule, and demonstrated to the game community that it was possible to create game levels, with a beginning and an end, complete with obstacles, puzzles and enemies, in complete 3D, rather than as a succession of game screens.
- Final Fantasy VII, Playstation, 1997
- A typical combat scene in FF7.
- Final Fantasy VII, Playstation, 1997
- Sephiroth. One of the worst villains of all times.
In 1997, Square published Final Fantasy VII on the PSX, which many regard as the best game of all times. The game was visually incredible, relying on a mix of pre-calculated 3D environments and real-time 3D characters. Instead of using the machine’s limited power to draw backgrounds, the game stored them instead on the game vast CDs. While the characters, during the exploration phases, were simplistic and blocky, they were extremely detailed and well-animated during combat phases, which also featured never-seen-before, breath-taking special effects. The game also featured an extremely deep game system, and a dark and compelling story. To top it all, it had absolutely gorgeous full-motion videos. The game was by all standards a super-production, with a budget of over $45million and over 500 people listed in the end credits (count them!)
Then, Capcom released the first Resident Evil, also on PSX. This game, which pioneered the Action-Adventure genre, which would become the dominant genre for the next five years, also used the technique of real-time 3D characters on splendid precalculated environments, with an unprecedented visual quality. The athmosphere was very innovative for a videogame, which usually occur in happy, colourful environments. Resident Evil took place in a creepy, zombie-infested manor, and the hero had so little ammunition at his disposal that it was usually a good idea to escape, rather than fight his way through and die trying...
- Zelda: Ocarina of Time, N64, 1998
- The first 3D adventure for Link.
In 1998, Nintendo published its first N64 Zelda. All set in a gorgeous 3D environment, the game made also excellent use of a new peripheral, the rumble pack, that enabled the joypad to vibrate: one could feel each of the steps of the horse, or detect hidden items with just the sense of touch...
Despite many excellent, innovative games, Nintendo was clearly fighting a losing battle. It had introduced new models of its ever-successful gameboy, the slim super GameBoy and then the GameBoy Color. But virtually every GameBoy game was a mere adaptation of a license, and despite some excellent titles (Kirby, Zelda), the GameBoy was becoming just a toy for younger children. The now centenial Nintendo was on the bringe of bankruptcy, when an unexpected, fantastic new game saved the day...
That game, which everyone knows, is of course Pokmon, originally released on Gameboy. The game looked like a classic top-down RPG, where the hero embarked on a story with a beginning and an end. The original feature is that the hero himself did not fight, but rather, he relied on his pocket monsters (pokmons) to do the dirty job. He could then capture the pokmons he would encounter. But what made the game truly revolutionary is that it existed in two versions, red and blue. In each version, the pokmons that could be found where slightly different... in other words, in order to "catch ’em all", it was necessary to have access to both versions of the game... that is, multi-player gamig was no longer a secondary feature of the game, it was required if the player wanted to play the game to its fullest! Also, it was possible to train one’s pokmons far further than what was necessary to beat the solo game. Because of the stress put on multi-player gaming, some players would spend hours, well, days, trying to compose the ultimate roster of pokmons, one that would beat not only the game, but any human opponent...
On the top of the craze, Nintendo intelligently created a TV show, a movie, and thousands of pokmon gadgets. The world was invaded, but Nintendo was saved.
The downfall of the arcade
The advent of that new generation of consoles was the meteor that sent the dinosaurs of the arcade business into an age of eternal glaciation. Now, the technical chasm between home and arcade systems had been bridged: in fact, the hardware that ran arcade machines was often the same that equipped home consoles. Moreover, the ports of the major arcade games on consoles usually included extra modes.
Like the proverbial chicken whose head has been cut off, the ailing arcade business went on for a few years before being completely extinct. A few games were still released, using special peripherals that only an arcade environment could provide, like realistic drivers seats, intricate guns, motion detectors and what not. Acute videogames publishers usually used those games as promotional tools for their console version. But the arcade lost its attraction to gamers, and hence to game developpers, and by the same token, it lost its social role as well.
Computers
In the early 90s, Microsoft released its first version of Windows, providing PC owners with a graphical operating system, just like every other computer family at that time (Amiga, Atari, MacIntosh). Strangely enough, this didn’t have much of an effect of game development, although it can be argued that providing every computer owner with games such as Minesweeper would contribute to the education of a whole generation of casual gamers. Windows was behaving just like another application, which ran on top of DOS, and suffered from the same limitations. PC gamers of that time had to tweak their system for each new game, trying to find a few kilobytes of spare conventional memory to be able to run them. Despite the availability of early modems (9600-28800 bauds), they, too, were very difficult to set up: users had to write their own PPP scripts and in case of error, they had to pay close attention to the odd sounds of the modem to diagnose where the problem could come from.
This changed definitely in 1995 with the introduction of the revolutionary Windows 95, which really replaced DOS for good. Incidentally, at this time, as the other computer families were aging, and the Apple users were apparently interested in some other pursuits than gaming, computer gaming became synonym with Windows-equiped PC gaming.
- Master of Magic, PC, 1995
- My favorite game of that period. Very underrated!
Windows 95 finally unleashed the power of the PC, allowing developpers to tap into the full capacity of the system, rather than being limited to the legendary 640Kb. Also, by elegantly providing drivers for all possible hardware configuration, it freed the developers from the burden of taking care of every compatibility scenario, a task that was becoming increasingly difficult. Later, Microsoft would introduce DirectX, a development environment for multimedia applications and game. This meant that in theory, games developers didn’t have to venture into the depths of low-level programming. Finally, Windows 95, with its internet wizard, brought network connectivity to the masses. Now it was finally easy to set up an internet connection. This had several majors impact on gaming:
multi-player gaming over a network was now a possibility, and was an exclusive feature of computers. This would be increasingly important over the years, leading to the creation of internet-only games.
discussion forums, FAQs, walkthroughs and other solutions were becoming more and more easily available over the web. This may seem anecdotical, but this indirect impact was maybe the turning point of modern game design: the player no longer had to tolerate to be stuck.
- Starcraft, PC, 1998
- This was a good single player strategy game. The mutliplayer mode would be more adequately described as a new religion!
Before, a difficult puzzle required the player to patiently look for a solution, by themselves or with the help of their immediate social circle. These obstacles, to some extent, generated attention and required the player to concentrate and to keep on playing for longer period of times to overcome the issue.
Now, the players can discuss the game with a much wider social network. Not only can they launch a worldwide call for assistance, but failing that, they can find an authoritative solution to their problem - not by using a special-rated phone number, which put the players in a position of inferiority, but by finding the answer on the internet, reversing the power relationship between game designer and player.
- Diablo, PC, 1996
- An action/RPG game played with ... a mouse?
If a puzzle was difficult, the player won’t spend as much time trying to solve it as before, but would rather find the solution outside of the game. If the puzzle was fair, but tricky, the player will still appreciate the design effort, but on the other hand, if the puzzle was arbitrarily difficult, illogical, relying on blind luck or other, then the player will progressively lose interest in the game, and even worse, voice their discontent on the internet.
This also means that the game could be used within (i.e. played) or without itself: players would spend considerable amount of time and effort writing and discussing the game.
this was the beginning of the infamous downloadable "patches": while console games had to undergo a stressful quality assurance phase from the console manufacturer to be accepted and retailed, PC game publishers had no formal obligation to release a completely bug-free game, which was impossible as games were more and more complex, especially if this meant delaying the launch.
Finally, this spurred the development of piracy, both occasional, thanks to the development of barely legal ftp sites, and later peer-to-peer networks, and professional. Thanks to the internet, any game stolen by an insider could quickly be distributed worldwide.