New(ish) Rambo shooter

[CheffoJeffo]

How come you guys let a battle with Mr Strongtanium(tm) go on without me ?

Nobody likes to fight Mr. Strongtanium(tm) more than I do!!!!

* CheffoJeffo reads the thread over ...

Oh, wait, he's right.

Damn!

Except that I think that video arcades killed video arcades. All of a sudden there were eleventy12 brazillion machines and the market couldn't support it. Arcades couldn't rotate in new games nearly as quickly as they were being produced (without taking a profound loss). It all collapsed under its own weight in the early 80s.

Sure enough, home technology came along later that was equal to or better than what we had in the arcades. The Dreamcast really was the first to do so overall and was the first console that I bought after my 2600.

[Namco]

I disagree with anyone saying that Cruisin USA looks better than Tekken. In one game you have a box with car textures on it driving past flat sprites. In the other you have two fullly rendered 3D characters with 10x the polygons; arms, legs & joints animated with extremely lifelike motion capture. Ask anyone at the time which is more impressive and they'll all say Tekken.

[Beretta]

wow dude you are lost in the sauce.

Go practice your juvenile comments elsewhere.

why?, this seems like the perfect thread for them.

it's already been stated the .vs system was as close as could be considered "as good".. or maybe you can nitpick that apart.. i can't tell the difference but im sure there is some minute difference in game play and graphics that you'll claim or maybe some minor hardware difference, oh wait you dont have to enter quarters at home and it does'nt say insert coin damn.. not as good.

The Vs. system and PlayChoice were both 1983 NES home console hardware stuck into arcade cabinets years later. It was not developed for the arcade. Nintendo was still developing arcade hardware during the time that they made the NES hardware, and it was far more powerful than their NES hardware (e.g., Punch-Out hardware); because it was intended to be arcade hardware, like nearly all other hardware platforms used in arcade machines.

So of course a NES version of a game was "as good" as the Vs. or PC-10 version; I obviously never claimed otherwise.  

interesting thought if they was good enough for home console then brought ot the arcade that might say something.

you say you original respones started from me stating that playstation was the tipping point where you could get as good or better at home, this lead to the fall of the arcades, i never made a claim that consoles before it did'nt hurt arcade attendance, only i think PlayStation was the point of no return for the death of the arcade.

I never said that you did.

your respones try to make a point that neo geo was as good as the arcade their for somehow im wrong about playstation.. seems to me it's exactly what you're saying, trying to use neo geo as a counter point.

when in fact VERY few people actually had neo geo's dare i say it had zero impact on the death of the arcade.

then there is a rebuttal that the playstatoin was actually the basis for some games in teh arcade, but you come back that oh no those graphics suck..

My rebuttal actually is that the PlayStation was developed as home console hardware; in fact, its development started out as a CD drive add-on for the SNES; and that's why arcade games which used this platform had bad graphics. If Namco had spent the time and money to develop custom hardware specifically for the arcade (where they wouldn't have had to worry about making it affordable for home consumers like console developers did), Tekken could have had far better graphics.

hmm like i said i remember playing tekken in the arcade before playstation was even released, either my memory is bad or your wrong, like i've also said regardless if this is true or not you seem hung up on having EXACT same "game" play on the consoles where my statement was more wider and took in games in general, we're not talking about just "system 11" im talking about games from any hardware platform in the arcade, take your pick if it was ported to playstation more often the not it was as good unless you wanna be a freak about it and find flaws that was'nt obvious.. to me there was'nt any so they was "as good"

i have a hard time beleving PlayStation was to be the ill fated snes cd.

well im not sure if you are claiming the playstation port sucks, or the graphics of the arcade also suck,

They both suck. They're the same thing.

well then the playstation version was "as good" then thank you for agreeing, rather you like tekken does'nt really matter now does it?, rather or not there could have been a better "tekken" is pretty moot cause there is'nt.

btw graphic wise it was better then virtua fighter which although what 6months earlier released? was pretty bad graphics wise.

this is'tn a chicken and the egg argument the point was you could get as games on par with the arcade at the time.

i find it funny that you defend neo geo on the basis of hardware, not the basis of great games or great graphics way back in the way back that you claim is so important for it to trump the playstation.

Neo Geo did have great graphics; equal or better than anything else in the arcades at the time. I've said this before, whether you realize it or not. The reason it had great graphics is because it was developed as an arcade platform; they used a 12 mHz processor; custom graphics chipset; its cartridges supported 330 Mb (41 MB) of ROM (about 6 times the size of arcade SFII); top-end expensive stuff at the time.

just going over mame roms i dont see any early games that used that full 330mega bit cartage space.

i do realize it used the same carts as arcade, do you honestly think neo geo had any impact on the fall of the arcades when very few people actually owned one?

also i distinctly remember playing tekken before playing it on playstation.. it was a 1st generation game on playstation.. so i think your argument that playstation came before the arcade is wrong it was either developed for both uses in mind at the same time OR it was in the arcades first.

It was developed as home console hardware. Somewhere along the line, Namco saw it as a quick and dirty solution, and Namco System 11 was born. They both came out in '94.

yes but what part of 94? and if they're both based on teh same hardware this is'nt unexpected, do you have any proof which came first? on second thought it does'nt matter because this is'nt about hardware it's about whats on the screen, playstation had a lot of "as good" ports regardless of what was originally ran in the arcade.

which does'nt really matter because rather it was used in teh arcade is of no consequence.
the games on playstation was as good or better then what was in teh arcade at the time..

Show me a PlayStation game that can match arcade Cruis'n USA (1994). Given that the newer N64's port couldn't do it justice, the PlayStation wouldn't have stood a chance of doing it justice.

im not gonna go dig up a game to pit it against, but lets say you're right crusin usa is better graphically then anything on playstation at the time, can you come up with more examples? i bet it would be a short list.

this is a blanket statement, this does'nt mean oh you could play neo geo games, oh you could play vs games before it.. no i mean reguardless of platform a large % of the games ported to playstation was as good as what was in the arcade reguardless of their original hardware..

All 3D PlayStation games looked like crap. Fortunately, only a handful of arcade games at the time looked like crap; namely the Namco System 11 games.

come up with some more, i suppose virtua cop, virtua figher, and daytona usa all blew tekken graphics away.. yup thats what they did. i honestly can't think of to many 3d games before playstation came out.

as for playstation not being able to handle cruisin usa, we'll never know since rare ware was in exclusive agreement with Nintendo at the time.

It is easy enough to figure out. The N64 had better looking graphics than the PlayStation, so if the N64 port didn't stack up to the arcade, a PlayStation port definitely wouldn't have. As I've said several times now, compare N64 Hydro Thunder to PlayStation Hydro Thunder to see how the two consoles compare to each other when porting the same game.

funny i had both systems and i only ever had about 12 games on n64, mario was great.. i originally bought the system thinking killer instinct (1) was gonna be on it, but they canceled that KI2 was'nt as good.. i always ended up going with play station for games is'nt that interesting that i would choose the vastly inferior playstation.

course thats a different thread i guess, playstation had better controls also, and squaresoft switching to sony sure hurt them.. i guess thats why sega and nintendo both got their ass stomped by sony.

if it was'nt for the WII Nintendo may not even be around anymore.

sega pretty much was dead by the time dreamcast came out. dont get me wrong i go ta dream cast i think it's a pretty good system.. but by then it was much to late for the arcades or sega.

dreamcast was never nearly as popular as playstation, hence why sega bailed out of the console business, their last hope failed, dreamcast had very little if any to do with killing to arcades far to late.

[MaximRecoil]

I disagree with anyone saying that Cruisin USA looks better than Tekken.

Cruis'n looks good. A screenshot from the game could be an oil painting and it would look good. A screenshot from Tekken as an oil painting would inspire comments such as, "What's that, 'abstract'?"

In one game you have a box with car textures on it driving past flat sprites. In the other you have two fullly rendered 3D characters with 10x the polygons; arms, legs & joints animated with extremely lifelike motion capture.

None of that makes it look good; and the motion is not part of the graphics; not to mention that they looked like they were moving under water.

Ask anyone at the time which is more impressive and they'll all say Tekken.

I don't think so, but either way, you have no basis for that claim. My initial reaction to that game was something like "ugh".

Plus, judging by your screen name, you may be biased.

[Namco]

I disagree with anyone saying that Cruisin USA looks better than Tekken.

Cruis'n looks good. A screenshot from the game could be an oil painting and it would look good. A screenshot from Tekken as an oil painting would inspire comments such as, "What's that, 'abstract'?"

In one game you have a box with car textures on it driving past flat sprites. In the other you have two fullly rendered 3D characters with 10x the polygons; arms, legs & joints animated with extremely lifelike motion capture.

None of that makes it look good; and the motion is not part of the graphics; not to mention that they looked like they were moving under water.

Ask anyone at the time which is more impressive and they'll all say Tekken.

I don't think so, but either way, you have no basis for that claim. My initial reaction to that game was something like "ugh".

Plus, judging by your screen name, you may be biased.

Yeah I'm biased. But my love for Namco games aside, I'm having a hard time understanding how nice looking screenshots equate to how good a platform is. By that definition, the Z-80 based PCB + Pioneer LD player combo is way better than Naomi just because screenshots of Dragon's Lair look good. Sure Killer Instinct looks great, but in my opinion, it doesn't compare to Tekken or Soul Edge as far as gameplay. Sprites vs Polys;apples & oranges, I say.

EDIT: Reading this over my argument is stupid. I said Cruisn'USA doesn't look good, but then go on to say that it looks good, but technically isn't as good. I am stoopid....

[CheffoJeffo]

i have a hard time beleving PlayStation was to be the ill fated snes cd.

Tell me that you are kidding ...  

[Namco]

i have a hard time beleving PlayStation was to be the ill fated snes cd.

Tell me that you are kidding ...  

I remember reading that in a Quartermann article in EGM decades ago. Plus, it's in wikipedia so it's TRUE!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playstation#History

[CheffoJeffo]

dreamcast was never nearly as popular as playstation, hence why sega bailed out of the console business, their last hope failed, dreamcast had very little if any to do with killing to arcades far to late.

I agree with this, but the implication that the PS killed the arcade is, to my mind, an idea born from somebody who didn't actually go to arcades before the real crash (e.g. 1979-1982).

You can argue about stuff that happened in the late 80s or 90s all you want. The Arcade crash happened in 1983.

There was a resurgence after SF2, but it doesn't compare to the widespread cultural permeation that ocurred prior to 1983. If anything, SF2 and the subsequent eleventy12 brazillion fighting games were nails in the coffin -- they appealed to a specific group of players and shut out most others.

G4 did a decent set of shows on this stuff and you can see the people involved with the industry at the time tell you what happened, instead of relying on Wikipedia and some random dude on the innertubes.

My $.02

EDIT: LOL at Namco and I both referring to wikipedia ... 

EDIT2: I just fired up Icons 208 and apparently I have appropriated much of what the folks in there said (including, specifically, "collapsed under its own weight", which was said in that episode by Tim Skelly).

[MaximRecoil]

why?, this seems like the perfect thread for them.

What made you think that? In any event, you thought wrong.

interesting thought if they was good enough for home console then brought ot the arcade that might say something.

Yes, it might say something. In fact, it might just say something completely irrelevant to this discussion.

your respones try to make a point that neo geo was as good as the arcade their for somehow im wrong about playstation.. seems to me it's exactly what you're saying, trying to use neo geo as a counter point.

Neo Geo was high-end, purpose-built arcade hardware that happened to end up in a console. PlayStation was lowly console hardware that happened to end up in the arcade.

when in fact VERY few people actually had neo geo's dare i say it had zero impact on the death of the arcade.

What does that have to do with anything? I've been saying the whole time, indeed, from the first time I mentioned Neo Geo, that it was not mainstream. I only mentioned it to avoid someone mentioning it in response to if I'd simply said that the Dreamcast was the first console to equal or better the arcade hardware of the time; period.

hmm like i said i remember playing tekken in the arcade before playstation was even released, either my memory is bad or your wrong,

That's great. Are you Japanese? The PlayStation was released there 9 months before it was released here.

i have a hard time beleving PlayStation was to be the ill fated snes cd.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation#History

well then the playstation version was "as good" then thank you for agreeing, rather you like tekken does'nt really matter now does it?, rather or not there could have been a better "tekken" is pretty moot cause there is'nt.

Yes it was "as good", in the same way that Excitebike (NES) was "as good" as Vs. Excitebike. Here are a couple of words for you: console hardware.

btw graphic wise it was better then virtua fighter which although what 6months earlier released? was pretty bad graphics wise.

They both suck in terms of graphics. Virtua Fighter ran on Sega Model 1 hardware, which was from 1992 (2 years older than the PlayStation hardware; Virtua Fighter 2 was released the same year as Tekken). It was an experiment that they didn't originally plan to release, and should have stayed an experiment IMO. Trying to render something as visually complex as a 3D fighting game featuring human avatars with such weak 3D hardware as the PlayStation or Sega Model 1 is a recipe for nothing but bad; visually speaking. It is like trying to render a game like Double Dragon on the Atari 2600 hardware... oh wait, they tried that... it didn't rock.

[Namco]

Okay, I read this first half of the first page of this thread and I get what MaximumRecoil is saying. He's saying 1995 era PS hardware < Typical arcade hardware. Beretta said arcades died when people started playing Playstation rather than play arcade games.

I agree with them both. PS hardware wasn't quite as powerful as typical new arcade hardware at the time AND the PS contributed to the death of arcades in that people stayed home to play great games like Tekken 2. I know I did. The killer apps that made me run to the store to buy a Playstation were Tekken, Ridge Racer, Tekken 2, and NBA Jam. Although the PS was technically inferior to the arcade experience, it was good enough.

[DJ_Izumi]

I agree with them both. PS hardware wasn't quite as powerful as typical new arcade hardware at the time AND the PS contributed to the death of arcades in that people stayed home to play great games like Tekken 2. I know I did. The killer apps that made me run to the store to buy a Playstation were Tekken, Ridge Racer, Tekken 2, and NBA Jam. Although the PS was technically inferior to the arcade experience, it was good enough.

This would seem a lot less assinine if they were argueing over which platform, home or arcade of the same game was more FUN than championing graphics as the apparent only key issue to leading people away from the arcade.

All I can say is, I prefered to pay $20 for a copy of Time Crisis 3 for PS2, $15 each for a Guncon 2 and play at home rather than pay for 3 tokens for $1 only to have ---my bottom--- handed to me in the game in the arcades.

[daftspore]

I agree with the last post. I used to go to the arcades while at school and my daily school allowance used to cover at least 5-6 games on Ghost and Goblins (I think it was 20p a go at the time). I used to play for about an hour and a half for £1. It was about getting good at a game and not just getting to the end by any means.

AS things progressed games became more about continuing based so feeding coins in to carry on the game which meant the cost to go to the arcade spiralled.

I went to an arcade about a month ago with my wife and 2 year old daughter and I think we got through about £30 in an hour. This included playing the Rambo game that started this thread which is not bad and various other shooter games like time crisis.

So therefore I think taking the sheer skill away from the game has killed the arcade and it has become more about shoving coins into a machine to play.

The NES had super mario which was an easier version of the arcade version, SNES had SF2 and the PS1 had Tekken and they all contributed to this. If they brought back games people could actually get good at and achieve something from then the arcade could make a revival. Continue with the money grabbing games and it will not.

I have had all the consoles over the years as well as a mame cabinet at home and games are getting easier in my opinion because people nowadays do not like to get stumped by games.

[RandyT]

Obviously, this is going to be a debate that is based upon what any one individual thinks was ultimately responsible for the death of the arcades.

Personally, I believe the system responsible for the decline was the first one that was capable of keeping regular arcade customers home playing it, instead of seeking out new thrills at the game room.  My opinion is that the system was indeed the Playstation.  It raised the bar significantly enough on the home front to start making arcades redundant.  Could it always do everything that the latest shiniest arcade hardware could do?  Of course not.  One can't even say that about PC hardware from one year to the next.  But it was "good enough" for a very long time.  This is evidenced by the unprecedented length of time the system was considered viable in the marketplace.

It's all about the speed in which technology advances.  You can see now that it has, relative to the past, virtually stagnated.  This means that the arcades are very unlikely to provide any experience, in the traditional sense, which cannot be achieved by normal people at home.  The Playstation represented the beginning of that convergence, IMHO.

RandyT

[Aceldamor]

I checked out the video, then started reading the rest of the thread and lost interest. The game it's self looks OK, Are the moving pie charts above the enemies timers to when they are going to "hurt" you? If so, at least it's a nice visual queue as to who needs to be killed first.

Does it have any knife fighting stuff in it like Ghost Squad did? What about shooting the famous bow?


Sorry your thread got jacked dude....epeens are a swingin' on this one.

[Namco]

That Rambo license really grabs your attention, the gameplay seems like pure "arcade" fun, like a direct replacement for older House of the Dead or Time Crisis games.

Aliens vs Predator would have made a fine license for an arcade shooter, but Sega/Rebellion made the (probably wise) decision to make it console title instead of an arcade shooter. Looks great, I think I'll be picking this up when it comes out.


I took a look at that Razing Storm video and that sucker looks amazing as well. I think this one can safely replace some of Namco's older arcade titles and make a lot of money on its visuals and "Gears of War" like theme.


It's funny to see licensing creeping into the arcade gun shooter genre. I wonder if licensing will be as big a deal with these shooters as it was for pinball late in the game.

[Aceldamor]

AvP looks like a re-invent of the old Jaguar title...which was badass

[RandyT]

It's funny to see licensing creeping into the arcade gun shooter genre. I wonder if licensing will be as big a deal with these shooters as it was for pinball late in the game.

It wouldn't surprise me.  There's been a bit of it already, and considering shooters are one of the very few genres making money in game rooms full of redemption machines, it's bound to happen.  Of course, you won't see a "Shrek" shooter, but there are plenty of movies, comics, etc. to draw from.