(3)2-EXTREME BITS

Today in 32 Bits: I play a game so screamingly 90s that even its menu screens are extreme; a sequel to a Playstation launch title, it proved the last success in a short-lived franchise. Also, pinball.

32 Bits is a series where I play and review the most popular games of the past – the games that sold well in their day, not what we look back on fondly now. Why were they popular, what did their success mean, and do they hold up today? Some are loved, others loathed, and many more forgotten. 

Information on what games will be reviewed can be found here; my reviews of 1995′s games are archived on this page, while links to reviews from the current season – and a list of those to come – can be found here.

New posts are made every Sunday, while Sega Saturn reviews are posted on some Saturdays.

2Xtreme

Developer	Publisher	Release Date	Best-Seller in	Playstation Review Number
Sony Interactive Studios America	SCEA	10/31/96 (North America) 4/11/97 (Japan) 3/6/97 (Europe)	North America (Greatest Hits)	#43

Previously: I played ESPN Extreme Games, a Playstation launch title that tried to give an extreme sports veneer to the Road Rash formula. I didn’t like it.

2Xtreme is undoubtedly the most 90’s video game name ever conceived, a name that makes one run to the nearest source of Mountain Dew and Doritos. And the game is extreme. It’s extremely lazy, extremely poor, and you could make an extremely good case it killed off its series – despite its success. But more on that later.

2Xtreme begins with the typical mid-90s EXTREME TO THE MAX intro where athletes jump, ski and do tricks over a computer-generated mountain. Hilariously, even the game’s menu is extreme: not only is every option accompanied with a blaring explosion noise, each choice brings on a short, first-person cinematic of a skateboarder going down a half-pipe. At the end? You jump up to the other menu you chose. Amazing. Watch it above.

ESPN Extreme Games, this game’s predecessor (renamed 1Xtreme when it came out as one of Sony’s Greatest Hits) posited the existence of a race that sent skateboarders, mountain bikers, rollerbladers and street lugers careening through jungle temples and city streets. The shoulder buttons allowed the player to punch and kick their fellow racers. If the tracks didn’t go on forever, it might have made for some quick, zany fun. Unfortunately, it was just tedious.

2Xtreme plays similarly to the original: you race down courses, you go through gates to get money and power-ups (I honestly can’t remember if these were in the original).

But street luge’s out and snowboarding is in (and get used to snowboarding, folks, because I have Cool Boarders coming up at the end of the season and I don’t doubt that eventually every other game I review will feature snowboarding). Each race only allows for one type of vehicle: Japan for snowboarding, LA for skateboarding, Las Vegas for rollerblading and “Africa” for mountain bikes. The four vehicles mean four courses – less than the original – but each has three stages.

Los Angeles, night.

Los Angeles: a city strewn with barrels in the street. You play this stage on skateboards. Features a night stage that’s, amazingly, just the same level but dark. No streetlights or anything…even though, you know, they’re right there.

Las Vegas: rollerblade down the strip – or a generic city with occasional casinos you see in passing. Casinos with a suspicious lack of neon.

Africa: Where in Africa? The place with elephants, zebras, huts in the middle of the street, and that one tree that’s on the cover of every book set in Africa, of course. Probably the most fun track – to look at, not to play. Just like the South American track in 1Xtreme, jungles resemble every other indoor area, painted green.

Japan: A snowboarding track in Japan. Lots of snow.

Nothing else is different: the game still plays the same in every respect except, hey, you have snowboards now. You still pass through gates. You still face a large pack of racers – though I believe it’s less than the original.

Courses wind on and are largely identical in terms of actual challenges; the 2D sprites used for the characters are still jerky and indistinguishable from one another; the Road Rash-esque mechanics just don’t fit, and the “XTREME” trapping make navigating the game’s menus an incredibly tedious experience.

I didn’t think it could be possible, but 2Xtreme is somehow worse than the original, and the original was awful. The mind-numbing extreme elements, the lack of content, the graphics (which aren’t just bad by modern standards like most Playstation games, but bad by the standards of the 1996), the lack of any change…

The top-selling Playstation games of all time allegedly include Gran Turismo (10 million copies), Final Fantasy VII (9), Gran Turismo 2 (9), Tekken 3 (8.5) and Final Fantasy VIII (8). On the list from 1996: of games I’ve played already, Crash Bandicoot (6.8), Resident Evil (5), Tekken 2 (3), Mortal Kombat Trilogy (2). Games I’ll play soon: Tomb Raider (7), Twisted Metal 2 (1.7), Jet Moto (1.2).

And 2Xtreme sold over a million copies.

I can almost understand why. 2Xtreme’s extreme! Arguably extreme to the max. And people enjoyed the first game. But just like Battle Arena Toshinden, people would reject the game’s third installment. After all, the standards for a launch title are lower and many

1999’s 3Xtreme reinvented itself as a fully 3D game, but kept the same gameplay. Letting the series lay dormant for three years probably wasn’t wise, since the resulting the game was hardly a masterpiece. Unlike its predecessors, I’ve played it before.

I only had a Playstation at the tail end of the system’s life. So in 1999 I popped in a demo disc. There was awkward, failing 3Xtreme. And next to it? Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. One promised dull racing, the other speed and freedom. In 1999, this series was on the way out. The other was just about to spawn arguably the system’s greatest game.

It’s not even extremely bad.

WHO MADE IT?
In 1998 developers Sony Interactive Studios America were renamed 989 Studios, remaining Sony’s internal development division. They developed mainly sports games, but they also made games people like, such as 1997’s Rally Cross. But they also made Spawn: The Eternal, one of the system’s worst games. They also handled the post-SingleTrac Twisted Metal games – neither of which were exactly loved.

Their 1998 game Blasto was a comedic third-person action game starring Phil Hartman, and was released a short time before his death.

They’re also credited with publishing 1999’s Syphon Filter, a popular series in the Playstation’s last years, and the Cool Boarders games, as well as 1998’s animal racer Running Wild and NFL Blitz-esque NFL Xtreme (sigh).

A division of the company developing online games such as 1997’s Tanarus was spun-off into a new division that developed EverQuest, one of the first big MMOs. Now named Sony Online Entertainment, they continue to develop games like Planetside 2.

TRUE PINBALL

Developer	Publisher	Release Date	Best-Seller in	Also On	Playstation Review Number
Digital Illusions	Acclaim	May 96 (Europe) 5/31/96 (Japan) September 96 (NA)	Europe (Platinum)	Saturn	#44

There’s something ghoulish about playing a pinball video game. You’re experiencing pinball on the platform that killed it. Walls of video games crowded pinball machines out of arcades in the ‘70s.

The decline of pinball wasn’t due to creative sloth. Pinball designers responded to video games by merging the two forms. Pinball machines gained voices, LED screens, and new mechanics. This wild innovation sparked a brief pinball resurgence in the 1990s – ironically as arcade video games were themselves dying.

True Pinball’s surprisingly slick presentation offers up several different pinball tables, all emphasizing the kind of multimedia gimmicks you’d find in a contemporaneous pinball game. On the Viking table a fight begun on the screen above the table between two knights; I don’t quite know what happened, but I did acquire a grail, so there’s that.

The square button controls the right flipper, while the left arrow controls the left. Tilting is accomplished by the X button, R1 and L1. It’s an interesting layout since it spaces out the movements in a way that largely makes sense.

I need to confess: I’ve never even played a pinball machine. Except maybe one in the corner of a movie theater. The arcade age passed me by. I discovered them now and then: in a bowling alley, or scattered across hotels in a chintzy vacation town (my favorite: a hotel with a single Crazy Taxi machine in a random hallway). You find a good one occasionally, but it’s fleeting: most will be gone the next year.

In 1996, you’d have been better off playing a real pinball table – if you could find one.

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Next Time: I try to dethrone the 95-96 Bulls with an unlikely team in a review of the Saturn’s NBA Action; I look at Tokyo Highway Battle and Formula 1.

Guardian Heroes, X-Men and More: The Saturn Games of April ’96

32 Bits is a series where I revisit the most popular games of the recent past; from the launch of the original Playstation to the last days of the Xbox 360. Why?

• To chart the evolution of games.

• To destroy people’s nostalgic feelings by playing the “classics” they all know…alongside the detritus everyone played at the time, but no one remembers.

• To rediscover games unjustly forgotten by history.

The time is May 1996: five months into the Playstation’s first full year. The Nintendo 64 is several months away; while Sega’s Saturn system is fading fast.

As the Saturn was an unpopular console, I can’t just play its popular hits. Here I play a representative sample of the Saturn’s library; this post covers three games from April-May 1996.

Saturn #26:
Guardian Heroes

Developed by Treasure, published by Sega
Released: April 24th 1996

Guardian Heroes is one of the Saturn’s most popular games. So in other words, it’s the cult classic with the largest cult.

It’s developed by Treasure, a cult developer founded by former Konami developers; they often make shooters, but are against dragging out series with endless sequels.

I was nervous before playing Guardian Heroes. This game is beloved to this day, yet its genre – the beat’em’up – bores the hell out of me. Saturn reviews in general make me nervous due to my ignorance of the system, and my inexperience with common Saturn genres like scrolling shooters and 2D fighters.

No need to be nervous: Guardian Heroes is fantastic, and in many ways is the apex of the beat-em-up.

The best innovation Treasure crafted for Guardian Heroes: simplifying movement. You don’t move around in a wide area, but leap between 2D planes. The three planes work like fighting game arenas: you can hit behind you and in front without fear of missing. It can be hard to see your character at times as the screen is crowded with enemies and as you leap from back to front.

Selecting a story path in Guardian Heroes

Some depth is added by a leveling system and branching paths that make each run different; in the story mode, you’re joined by a powerful AI ally you can command. Levels are kept brief but the branches in the story thanks to choices and morality, and the different playstyles of the character, keep the game fresh.

In terms of multiplayer the usual co-op mode is joined by a frantic versus mode that lets you play as any character unlocked in the story mode. Six combatants fight – they can be on teams, or every man for himself.

The innovative mechanics added to the beat-em-up formula, shaking up a moribund genre by drawing inspiration from the fighting games it spawned, make Guardian Heroes a towering achievement from Treasure. Turns out Guardian Heroes deserves all the praise it earned in 1996 and continues to attract today.

Saturn #27:

X-Men: Children of the Atom

(Slowdown and poor quality because of the recording, not the game; Guardian Heroes wouldn’t record at all!)

Developed by Capcom, published by Acclaim

Originally developed for arcades

Released: April 5th, 1996

The dawn of 3D graphics led to an unfortunate devaluation of 2D graphics – just as they grew to be more sophisticated than ever before in terms of color palette, size and detail, as developers with extensive 2D experience took advantage of new technology. Tekken looks primitive today, but in ‘96 it was valued over the gorgeous visuals of a game like X-Men: Children of the Atom.

With many 2D games released on the Saturn and Playstation, the Saturn port was arcade accurate, while the Playstation port was terrible. The Playstation version of Children of the Atom was delayed two years. When it was finally released in 1998, it was riddled with missing animation frames and slowdown.

Like Street Fighter Alpha, Children of the Atom uses a clean, colorful animated look instead of more jagged sprites. This game’s levels are also gorgeously detailed, from the partiers drifting by in Iceman’s stage to sea life passing by Omega Red’s undersea base.

Playable X-Men include Wolverine, Iceman, Storm, Cyclops, Colossus, and Psylocke; playable villains include one of the mutant-hunting Sentinels, the tentacled Omega Red, Silver Samurai and the multi-armed alien Spiral. It isn’t a large slate of characters, but at least all of them have their own style and a strong central concept – a wonder compared to the generic battlers of Battle Arena Toshinden or many other derivative fighters.

X-Men: Children of the Atom tweaks the Street Fighter formula in many small ways. It’s the first Capcom fighter to allow you to break through the floor of an arena to reach a new level. It also has an Alpha-style power bar.

Children of the Atom kickstarted a series of Marvel-licensed fighters from Capcom; though those games overshadow their ancestor, and it’s rather sparse, it’s still a well-animated and colorful game and one of the best fighters of its day.

Saturn #28:
Iron Storm

Developed by SystemSoft, published by Working Designs
Released: May 8th 1996

This World War II-set strategy game is the first Saturn installment in the long-running Daisenryaku series; it’s also the first game in the series to be released outside of Japan. Most of the following games are Japan-only.

You can play as Germany, Japan or the United States. Other powers, most notably the Soviets, remain NPC factions. The American release was handled by Working Designs (who also exported Arc the Lad); they must have felt strange about releasing a game that’s dominated by the Axis and lets you guide them to victory, as a portion of the game’s proceeds were donated to the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

A hex-based strategy title, Iron Storm renders battles in full 3D cutaways. These dynamic cinematics are fun at first, but eventually just slow down the pace of the game. Luckily, they can be skipped, but that makes the game a bit drab.

Challenging yet surprisingly accessible, Iron Storm is a well-designed but limited strategy game whose main draw, the 3D skirmishes, are dated now.

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Next Time:

On Saturday – another round-up of Saturn games. Fairly boring ones!

On Sunday – a look at the…exciting world of track and field games.

Look Upon My Mediocre Gameplay, Ye Mighty, and Despair: A Trio of Forgotten Playstation Games

32 Bits is a series where I revisit the most popular games in the past console generations, from the launch of the original Playstation to the last days of the Xbox 360. 

The time is March 1996: three months into the Playstation’s first full year. The Nintendo 64 is several months away; while Sega’s Saturn system is fading fast.

The only thing the Playstation games I play have in common: membership in Sony’s Greatest Hits line, or its European and Japanese equivalents. These games all sold at least 150,000 copies and are a guide to what everyone played then.

Some of these games are remembered fondly, some are despised and many are forgotten completely. Why were they popular then, and what can we learn from them today? Find out in 32 Bits.

I knew this would happen one day.

Getting into this, one of my goals was to portray gaming as it really was. The era of the Playstation and Nintendo 64 isn’t just the era of the games everyone talks about, of Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy, Banjo-Kazooie and Ocarina of Time. It’s also a time of hundreds of other games. Good ones, bad ones, bland ones; ones that failed in their time, and once-popular games and franchises whose empires faded into dusty memories as the years advanced, without even a cult fanbase to keep them alive.

Today’s three games fall into the latter category. I knew one day I’d devote a whole post to games that are utterly forgotten, though all of today’s games have important pedigrees. A 2D platformer starring an iconic character, a cutesy puzzle game and a racing game that started an enduring franchise – all popular in their day, all successful and well-known, and now hardly discussed. Why were they popular? Why were they left behind? And did they deserve it?

Playstation #25:

Mickey’s Wild Adventure

Developed by Traveller’s Tales, published by Sony

Released: March 1996

At first I was hopeful about playing Mickey’s Wild Adventure. It’s a classic, after all! Then I realized I had it confused with Sega’s Castle of Illusion, and in fact this was no lost classic but instead a mediocrity from then-fledgling developer Traveller’s Tales (now famous for Lego games). Ah, well, I’ll try to make the best of it.

Why was it popular? Mickey’s Wild Adventure stars arguably the most iconic cartoon character of all-time.

Where was it popular: Europe; the Playstation version seems to be exclusive to that region. It qualified for the Platinum line but no others. Oddly enough, it’s apparently available for the American Playstation Network as a PSOne classic.

Does it deserve to be forgotten? Yes.

I enjoy 2D platformers; I think it’s a crime that they were pushed aside in favor of tedious 3D collect-a-thons for two generations, and I’m pleased at their comeback in recent years (the greatest platformers in ages are 2011’s Rayman Origins and its 2013 sequel, Rayman Legends). Yet games like this are an example of not the worst in its genre, but the chaff in the genre – the “just good enough” time wasters that don’t do anything especially special with their gameplay but does just enough, and does it generally competently.

In Mickey’s Wild Adventure you take Mickey through several of his old cartoons; he rescues his past selves and occasionally teams up with Pluto. The first level is based on his first appearance in Steamboat Willie, and the last is inspired by The Prince and the Pauper, a 1990 Mickey short that preceded the now-forgotten Disney feature The Rescuers Down Under, a sequel to a 70s film out-of-place among Disney’s early-90s successes.

Throughout these levels you hop, you bop, you throw fruit at birds – the usual platformer antics. It’s playable, alright, but not particularly memorable. The Playstation port features some 3D effects that blend in poorly with the 2D sprites that make up most of the world.

The one point I must praise is the game’s graphics: they’re detailed, colorful and well-animated. Actual Disney animators are said to have had a hand in them.

Traditional platforming is broken up with a pair of “chase” sequences, where Mickey outruns a moose by moving towards the camera. You’ll also see these sequences in several contemporaneous games, most famously Crash Bandicoot. I was surprised to learn that the Genesis and SNES versions of this game also had these scenes – but their treatment on those older systems is technologically superior. For whatever reason, on the Playstation the chase scenes are slathered in a fog so thick it makes Silent Hill look like a nice summer day at the beach.

As is normal for mediocre platformers that are strange spikes in difficulty, that give no indication of a gradual ascent in challenge to match the player’s growing skills. The first level is a breeze. The second features skeleton enemies that explode in a shower of deadly bones, and a minecart level that starts you just seconds away from a wall of buzzsaws. But then the game will throw a relatively easy section at you. There’s no thought given to how to best deploy challenging elements.

Despite its quality artwork, nothing about Mickey’s Wild Adventure stands out.  I had trouble remembering it as I wrote this review, and I just played it yesterday! There were dozens of games like this in 1996, and this one only succeeded due to its licensed star. Games like this are forgotten five minutes after they’re completed, and that’s the way it should be.

Playstation #26:

Bust-A-Move 2: Arcade Edition

Developed by Taito, published by Acclaim

Released: March 1996

Is there a type of game less memorable than puzzlers? The games themselves live on for years, but individual installments? Many people can rank the Mario games from favorite to least favorite; how many have a favorite version of Tetris?

Why was it popular? The second “Puzzle Bobble” game, itself a spin-off of the Bubble Bobble games of the 80s, Bust-A-Move 2 is an entertaining puzzle game with a cute aesthetic.

Where was it popular? Japan and Europe, though it was released everywhere.

Does it deserve to be forgotten? Eh.

It’s a high quality game for its day. If this were 1996, then no, it shouldn’t be forgotten. But today?

In Bust-A-Move 2: Arcade Edition you shoot bubbles at other bubbles. Connect three or more bubbles of the same color to make them pop. You can create chain reactions where eliminating one line of bubbles will knock down others supported by it.

The game is played on a rectangular board. You shoot bubbles off walls to bounce them at your intended target. Every few turns, the top of the board collapses a little. All bubbles are pushed down, and now you have less space to work in. If any bubbles cross the line at the bottom of the board, you lose. If you pop every bubble, you win.

There’s the traditional “puzzle” mode and single-player, plus multiplayer. And playing Bust-A-Move 2 is an entertaining time waster. It’s no one’s idea of a must-play game; it’s the kind of game one would play on their iPhone on the way to work.

Except there were no phone games in 1996. The idea of a full-priced console release for a puzzle game is a strange relic of a bygone era. Today, you could make far more money than many console game developers by selling a game like Bust-A-Move 2 for a couple bucks in the App Store or in a console’s downloadable section.

Digression aside, Bust-A-Move 2 provides a charming arcade experience that there’s no real reason to revisit – that you aren’t meant to revisit. After all, the Playstation alone would see two more Bust-A-Move games before that system faded away.

 Good for its day; not too memorable now.

 Playstation #27:

Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed

Developed by EA Canada, published by Electronic Arts

Released: March 1996

Why was it popular: This simulation racing game was critically acclaimed in its time, and was one of the few gems to escape the ill-fated 3DO.

Where was it popular: North America.

Does it deserve to be forgotten: No.

Need for Speed surprised me. All I knew about the series was that later installments focused on street racing and police chases. I don’t know what I expected, but what I found was an admirably realistic and well-made racing game.

The sports cars you drive don’t handle like the dream cars of arcade racers. Instead they handle like bricks on tar: all subtle adjustments and slow build-up. Much like bricks, they’re also blocks – but this is the Playstation 1 era, so “car-like blocks on wheels” is on the higher-end of car depictions.

The simulation roots of Need for Speed bleed into every aspect. It is the only game in the series to be tied into Road & Track magazine, establishing the game’s gearhead credentials. They didn’t just lend their name to the game, but advised on how each car should handle. If you fall behind in a race, catching up again is difficult and maybe even impossible.

The game has several tracks and modes, some of them hidden. A “head to head” mode pits the player against just one another driver, but peppers some tracks with oncoming traffic and even police to add in some additional challenge.

There is only one element missing from this racing mélange, and that’s speed.

Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the high-definition era but it’s hard to get a sense of speed from this game. You’re racing at over 100 miles per hour and it feels like you’re hardly moving at all, no matter how fast the scenery clips along.

It’s hard to say this game is forgotten, exactly, since it did spawn an extremely popular and durable franchise. But how many people remember its first installment? One of the better racing games for the original Playstation, the variety and commitment to realism in Need for Speed distinguishes the game.

notes

• Unexpected credits: David Jaffe, of Twisted Metal and God of War fame, worked on Mickey’s Wild Adventure; Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino wrote special tracks for it as well.

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Next Weekend: A round-up of Saturn games from early ’96.

32 Bits 1996: D & Alien Trilogy

32 Bits is a series where I revisit the most popular games of the recent past; from the launch of the original Playstation to the last days of the Xbox 360. Why?

• To chart the evolution of games.

• To destroy people’s nostalgic feelings by playing the “classics” they all know…alongside the detritus everyone played at the time, but no one remembers.

• To rediscover games unjustly forgotten by history.

The time is March 1996: three months into the Playstation’s first full year. The Nintendo 64 is several months away; while Sega’s Saturn system is fading fast.

In each post I review two games; each came out at roughly the same time. Sometimes they’re connected; usually, they’re unrelated. The only thing they have in common: membership in Sony’s Greatest Hits line, or its European and Japanese equivalents. These games all sold at least 150,000 copies and were what everyone played in their day. Why were they popular, and what can we learn from them today?

Playstation #22:

D

Developed by WARP, published by Acclaim

Originally developed for the 3DO

Playstation version released: December 1995 (Japan), March 1996 (North America/Europe)

Best-Seller in: Japan (The Best)

In 1994, a new game company formed in Japan – founded by a musician who would become one of game design’s biggest rebels.

Kenji Eno, founder of the short-lived company WARP, created an inventive body of work. He developed for unpopular systems; he delivered special editions personally, and packed games with special WARP condoms. And befitting his career as a musician, he made creative use of sound.

32 Bits #6 and 7: WWF Wrestlemania and Air Combat

32 Bits is a series about how the popular games of the past influenced gaming today. We’re currently in September 1995, and the Playstation has just launched in North America.

Today we finish up the Playstation’s launch titles with Air Combat and move into October. On October 31st, 1995, Brad threw a Halloween party while Mark was sick on a brand-new Home Improvement, so I’d say it was a good month overall.

Playstation #6: WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game

Developed and published by Acclaim

Released: October 18, 1995

Best-Seller In: United States (Greatest Hits)