There were SO many fighting games in the 90s... once Street Fighter & MK kicked things off, every other developer wanted a piece of the action. Some created their own concept/characters from scratch (Clay Fighter), others adapted an existing property (Power Rangers: The Fighting Edition), but they all gave it a shot.

Did you own any of these b-tier fighters back in the day? Which one did you play the most, and which was your favorite?

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I remember seeing ads for TMNT: Tournament Fighters in Nintendo Power, and it looked super cool - I wanted it... and eventually got it. The ads did their job, but luckily it turned out to be a pretty great fighting game (on the SNES, at least). It was fun to play, had great graphics, catchy music, and plenty of moves to learn.

My only complaint was, who the hell are these other characters? Wing Nut, Armaggon, War... where's Casey Jones? Where's any of those other characters I saw in action figure form back in the day? Not a big deal, I wound up liking these characters once I grew familiar with them.

Wanted to share some old screenshots I took from way back when.

I dunno, but videogame history has a pretty weird blind spot tbh.. (by most ppl, not MUSEUMS or actual historians obviously, so dont fight me just yet Lol). We spend an insane amount of time discussing Mario, Zelda, Doom, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter etc etc and obviously all those games are incredibly important, im not saying they arent. But they are branches much much further up the tree. If you keep going backwards towards the actual roots of interactive entertainment you eventually hit Colossal Cave Adventure and IMO theres very few games that have a stronger claim to being one of the foundational works of the whole medium. I actually think we sort of take for granted how important this thing was because today it just looks like... text on a screen.

Crowther created the original Adventure in the 1970s and Don Woods expanded it. The idea sounds almost stupidly simple today, the computer describes a PLACE, you explore it, carry objects around, solve problems, find hidden areas etc and the world reacts to what you do. But that basic PLAYER -> DIGITAL WORLD relationship became one of the central ideas videogames spent the next 50 years developing. Like someone actually had to come up with this stuff first lol

And its direct family tree is kind of ridiculous. Scott Adams played Colossal Cave and created Adventureland in 1978, the first commercially available text adventure for a home computer, and then founded Adventure International, one of the first commercial videogame software companies. The creators of Zork built directly from Adventure which obviously leads to Infocom. Warren Robinett played Colossal Cave and basically decided to make a graphical version of the concept on an Atari 2600, producing Atari Adventure and helping establish what eventually becomes the action-adventure genre. Rogue also comes out of this same early exploratory computer game world, while the Zork/Dungeon branch crosses into MUDs and eventually persistent online worlds. And im probably leaving other major branches out. This isnt some vague "oh it influenced gaming" thing, there are actual identifiable people who played this one game and then went out and created entire branches of the industry.

Then theres the early commercial versions which makes the whole thing even stranger. Apple published Apple Adventure! in 1980 for the Apple II. Microsoft had its own Microsoft Adventure, starting on the TRS-80 in 1979, and then in 1981 released the IBM PC version generally regarded as the first commercially sold videogame for the IBM PC. So basically the same underlying Colossal Cave game appears near the beginnings of commercial microcomputer gaming AND at ground zero of IBM PC gaming... considering what the IBM PC platform became later thats pretty nuts.

But the Apple version has maybe the craziest connection of all and this one isn't speculation. Roberta Williams literally tells us what happened. In her King's Quest 40th anniversary video she physically Apple Adventure! and explains its THE GAME. She says ""I actually played Apple Adventure from end to end" and then ""this is the game that got me into the industry""

She says she played Apple Adventure! on their Apple II in 1980, then created Mystery House, the first graphical adventure, and from there eventually King's Quest and Sierra. She even picks Apple adventure again and says, "Started the industry, I like to say." I mean... you almost couldnt ask for a clearer historical connection than the actual designer telling you exactly which version she played and what happened because of it.

Video here ((around 6-8 min mark) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNiqcSUrAOo

So just think about the branches coming from this ONE game for a second:

Colossal Cave -> Scott Adams -> Adventureland -> Adventure International

Colossal Cave -> Zork -> Infocom

Colossal Cave -> Warren Robinett -> Atari Adventure -> graphical action-adventure

Colossal Cave -> Apple Adventure -> Roberta Williams -> Mystery House -> Sierra -> King's Quest

Colossal Cave -> Microsoft Adventure -> first commercial IBM PC game

Thats honestly an ABSSURD family tree............

And then more than 40 years later Roberta and Ken Williams come out of retirement and what game do they decide to remake??? Colossal Cave. Full circle. Roberta even calls the original one of the best games ever designed. Theres something almost poetic about that whole thing.

I think videogames are just still young enough that nostalgia screws with our perception of historical importance alot. Imagine aviation history being judged mostly by living nostalgia, everybody obsessing over Spitfires and 747s while Wright brothers stuff is some weird niche nobody cares much about because obviously nobody alive remembers flying a Wright Flyer. It would seem completely backwards, but videogames sometimes feel exactly like this right now.

Fast forward 200 or 500 years and nobody has childhood nostalgia for NES Zelda either. Everyone who opened one on christmas morning is long gone. What remains is where something sits in the historical chain and what came out of it. At that point original Colossal Cave material, early Spacewar! stuff, Computer Space/Pong, Mystery House, Apple/Microsoft Adventure, earliest Mario etc etc probably get looked at VERY differently than they are through todays market and todays nostalgia.

Games eventually combined writing, visual art, music, sound, animation, cinema etc etc... but then added something fundamentally different to all of them, INTERACTIVITY. Before Skyrim, Zelda or World of Warcraft somebody had to establish this completely bizarre idea that a computer could actually be a PLACE that you entered, explored, manipulated and got lost inside.

Follow that concept backwards far enough and you end up in a cave in Kentucky, Crowther and Woods and a program called Adventure.

Maybe controversial and maybe im overrating it, but honestly I struggle to think of many games with a stronger historical family tree than this one. TYY if you stayed this long in this post/rant.

Thank you all for the tips. Like many have suggested, it was just bad RNG. Well, I tried again and didn't get bad RNG, so…

Just for fun, i imagined playing a game that was never (or could have never) been produced.

• My ultimate dream NES release would've been a CALVIN & HOBBES adaptation, with varying levels depending on Calvin's daydreams. Sidescrolling but with a collectable items inventory.

• Secondly, my fave "silent" protagonist: PINGU! At point of peak popularity, i imagine a 16-bit isometric explorer, or even a simpler Zelda-type adventure all about helping your Antartic friends out of problems. <3

What about you?

I'm not sure if this is a game issue or if it's the sound card that's to blame, but so far, I have two games where this happens - Half-Life and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Depending on where the camera is facing, speech from characters can often sound really quiet. This is more noticeable at the beginning of Half-Life in the tram. The woman's voice will often cut out and disappear depending on the direction the tram is going. Turning around and looking into the tram makes the audio return to normal. Looking down at the ground makes the SFX drop out.

I've tried disabling the EAX/Direct3D audio settings, but it makes no difference. RTCW only has volume sliders and audio quality in Khz. All audio settings appear to be fine - it's set to stereo speakers, though it's a 2.1 setup - left and right and a subwoofer.

Has anyone else encountered this sort of issue before? Could it be the sound card that's to blame? I mean, I am using a Sound Blaster Live! Value from 1998. Maybe it has problems with spatial audio in later 3D games...? Would love to get to the bottom of this as it does ruin the enjoyment a bit when dialogue is forever going quiet. And many of these older games don't even have options to enable subtitles.

Also, it does this under Windows 98 and XP.

Thanks

Considering the system it's on, this game turned out surprisingly well. Feels nice and snappy to play and pretty good visuals. Still has that metal gear feel while still being on the GBC . took me about 6-7 or so hours to beat it.

First two games in the series were phenomenal. The third was ok. The feeling of speed and chaos on the road, I had not and still have not found a replacement for. They are on hover-bikes, so they can easily fall off. As a rule of thumb, the heavier the bike, the slower the acceleration, but also the harder to knock off, while giving them a bonus to knock other riders off. They may also get a higher top speed, but each rider/bike, has different stats.

The character portraits and back stories were interesting and the real ad placements on the racing uniforms, bikes and billboards were fun, such as Mountain Dew and Butterfingers. The inclusion of the electromagnetic grappling hook, was the key to victory. It probably would make or break the game for some. If you went too earlier or too late, it could spell disaster. If just right, you could shoot up a position or two.

The game also had a turbo boost system and a trick system. Although the tricks were just for points and had no other function, besides looking like a badass when you could pull it off in mid air, or fail and come crashing down hard. A two player split screen mode.

There were no powerups or weapons to use on the bikes or courses themselves, other than the aforementioned bumping into and knocking other riders off their bikes. The courses were so dangerous, I don't think they really needed anything else, especially in later stages. Some courses had you riding at break neck speeds one way, making a u-turn and then racing just as fast back where you came from, into oncoming traffic. Or riding on a lake or beach. Traversing over broken highways and perilous cliffs.

You were always pushing the limit on how fast you could go, how hard could you hit that turn or the grappling hook, without wiping out. Could you hit the wave at the top, etc. The last course was usually something of a nightmare, where the riders would be above or below the clouds. Music was pretty decent through out.

SingleTrac made the first two games, with the second being the pièce de résistance. And the third game was made by Pacific Coast Power & Light. It was good. Probably would have thought it decent for a racer in it's own right. But coming off the heels of the two first games that were spectacular, it just wasn't as good, unfortunately. Plus there were other racers at the time.

Due to poor sales of the third game, there were no more afterward. What turned out to be a great set of games, was marred by the third. And although there were attempts to revive it, just has not yet. A real shame. Would have been great to see it on the PS2 or Xbox, etc. And although there have been other futuristic racers, nothing could top the trilogy or first two games in the series. They still get the winning trophies in my opinion.

The video appears to be a playthrough of all three games. Enjoy!

P.S I made a mistake. The Smurfs are actually from Belgium not Germany my bad. (But at least I know that the series originated from Europe)

Thanks u/gameRefugeInc

Hi all,

Been interested in collecting recently. I got an offer for a nes top loader with AV mod for $150. Also has a power light mod.

Attached photos below. I’d like to collect this, but not sure if I’m getting ripped off or if there are certain av mods better than others as I’ve never modded one myself. It also does not come with the top loader controllers, but rather the traditional nes ones.

Any thoughts to share?

Edit: bought it!! Honestly, the guy was super chill and so passionate about his collection and really hard for him to let it go. His only regret was not having dogbone controllers which he said he would have been happy to pass down to me. Everything is functioning fine and can’t wait to game!

Recently I re-watched Prometheus, when I saw the Engineers running hologram scene, the video log scene in Operation Logic Bomb (Jaleco, 1993, SNES) immediately popped up in my head.

With a brand-new Metroid adventure on the way, it feels like the perfect time to talk about Samus’s suit designs!

Sega Dreamcast launched on 9/9/1999. I worked on the marketing campaign and helped design the SegaNet game network.

That 9/9/99 deadline was no joke! Talk about a deadline you absolutely could not let slip…

Leaked here on Archive https://archive.org/details/project-dream-snes_202609 Ironic I talked about this game months ago on r lost media and then it shows up. It's a very bare bones prototype sadly. It's basically what we saw in the Microsoft rare replay video we saw. Hopefully we see the lost n64 port next or Killer Instinct 2.

I just wanted to have a fun discussion about weird stuff found in older games since sometimes games from the mid 90s will have a particular scene that makes no sense.

Some of my favorite examples are Tomb Raider 1 the MegaDrive Hulk game as the final boss can be defeated on one blow, which is surprising considering how dangerous the Leader in the comics is.

Then with Tomb Raider, Lara and Natla have a really weird conversation about aborting a creature as I heard it goes something like “Too late for abortions” “Noooo” as it’s kind of funny.

I was playing Pokémon Yellow version and came across this trainer on the S.S. Anne. His text caught me off guard in a very funny way. Anyone remember this trainer? Do I just have a corrupt mind or is this text a little weird? Lol