Table of contents for Retro Gamer Presents: Ultimate Flashback To The 90s in Retro Gamer Presents: Ultimate Flashback To The 90s

Are you ready to hop into the Retro Gamer time machine and travel back to the era when pixels and polygons took over the world? In this special edition from the makers of the world’s greatest retro gaming magazine, we’ll explore the time when videogames jumped into the third dimension, when PlayStation made the medium ‘cool’ and when epic cinematic masterpieces showed the potential of videogaming storytelling. We’ll explore the games that defined the decade, from hellish hits like Doom to epic flourishes such as Metal Gear Solid. We’ll reignite the rivalry between Sega and Nintendo. We’ll also spotlight the cultural touchstones of gaming that made the Nineties so great. Sound fly? Wicked. Psych yourself up and join us on a time-bending journey you won’t forget anytime soon!…

At the beginning of the Nineties, gaming was still very much stuck in the Eighties. In the UK, the most popular gaming systems were still the home computers, with many a youngster still enjoying the delights of the Spectrum and Commodore 64. Elsewhere in the world, Nintendo’s NES dominated gaming. All of these systems were technically from the early Eighties, and many players were getting ready to move on, with hardware manufacturers trying to tempt them to leap to their machines. “I worked on CVG in 1989, and during that year things like PC Engine had already come out and Mega Drive was around,” says Paul Glancey, a veteran of games journalism who later moved into game production. “The Amiga had got past its slow-ish start, and it was getting…

Sometimes, one major hit can transform the entire gaming world. It happened with Space Invaders in the Seventies, it happened with Super Mario Bros in the Eighties, and in the early Nineties, Sonic The Hedgehog near-single-handedly propelled Sega to international credibility and cool. “When Sonic came out on Mega Drive, it gave it such a massive kick – it was quite a young audience, but it was quite an aspirational thing. It just looked cool,” says Paul Glancey, formerly of CVG and other magazines. “As a character and as a game, it had such a massive impact, and certainly it gave Sega a massive advantage in certain ways. Hedgehog with attitude versus cute plumber – maybe Mario was the better game, but Sonic just had a bit more of an…

GAMESMASTER Years: 1992–1998 Presenters: Dominik Diamond, Dexter Fletcher, Patrick Moore GamesMaster had competitive events at its heart – partly because it was commissioned by the head of Channel 4’s sports programming. Astronomer Patrick Moore dispensed wisdom as the titular GamesMaster, and a parade of rockstar games journalists provided commentary while Dominik Diamond dropped plenty of double entendres. BAD INFLUENCE! Years: 1992–1996 Presenters: Violet Berlin, Andy Crane This 20-minute CITV show focused more on showcasing games and the latest innovations rather than the videogame competitions of its contemporaries. Z Wright provided reports from the US on emerging tech like virtual reality, while Nam Rood (Andy Wear) offered gaming tips to the ‘slimy furtlers’ at home from his shed. GAMES WORLD Years: 1993–1999 Presenters: Bob Mills, Andy Collins Sky One’s Games World…

How did you become interested in retro handheld consoles? In 2009, I got an issue of the Official Nintendo Magazine, and at the back was this double-page spread which had retro handheld consoles. My mum used to buy me this every month, and this one made me absolutely obsessed with all the retro consoles. So for my birthday that year, a friend of mine gave me his dad’s Game Boy Color. It was pretty much then that I started collecting original Game Boys and stuff. What do you find appealing about the older handhelds? I think the beautiful thing about these devices is that the games are so simple, the soundtracks are often really good. I think we now have access to fantastic mods that make the experience less of…

3DFX VOODOO GRAPHICS PCI RELEASED: 1996 There was a time when 3dfx was the one to beat when it came to PC 3D cards, and the name ‘Voodoo’ is still spoken with reverence. This was the first 3D card that 3dfx released and though it would release additional models throughout the decade, this was a mainstay for many PC gamers. John Carmack once called this card “the benchmark against which everything else is measured”. Lofty praise indeed. NVIDIA RIVA 128 RELEASED: 1997 Nvidia has always been a big player in the PC graphics business, but in the Nineties it was often playing second fiddle to 3dfx. The RIVA 128 was the company’s attempt at throwing big numbers at the problem, though there were other downsides that held it back. However,…

As the new decade dawned, most players in the UK were playing games on home computers. The 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST were tempting more players to upgrade their hardware, with releases like Kick Off 2, Speedball 2, Star Control, Super Cars and Wings all impressing players. Those still playing the venerable 8-bit machines still had plenty to enjoy though, thanks to games like Flimbo’s Quest, Creatures, Lords Of Chaos and Dizzy’s continuing adventures, as well as great arcade conversions like Midnight Resistance and Rainbow Islands. Player preferences were changing, however. The launch of Mean Machines magazine reflected increased interest in the console market and it wasn’t hard to see why players were hooked. Highlights of the year included Dr Mario and Mega Man 3 on the NES and Alex…

This was arguably the year that CD-ROM games finally started to hit high gear and the new magazines GamesMaster, Edge and PC Gamer were there to cover them. Mac owners got the first taste of Myst, while games like The 7th Guest, Star Wars: Rebel Assault and Star Wars: X-Wing sold strongly on the PC. Batman Returns, Final Fight CD and Sonic CD showed that there was more to the Mega-CD than FMV, and the PC Engine Super CD game Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood was arguably the best in the series to date. The console world was starting to become overrun with mascot platformers, with notable examples including Bubsy In Claws Encounters Of The Furred Kind, Aero The Acro-Bat and Konami’s excellent Rocket Knight Adventures. Even the venerable 8-bit consoles…

The long-awaited Nintendo 64 arrived in Japan and North America, and brought with it some expertly crafted 3D games – not just the widely celebrated Super Mario 64, but games like Pilotwings 64 and Mario Kart 64. Despite that, Nintendo hadn’t abandoned the SNES, sending it off with a strong line-up of games including Super Mario RPG, Kirby’s Fun Pak, Donkey Kong Country 3 and an astonishing conversion of Street Fighter Alpha 2. Sega’s commitment to the Mega Drive wasn’t as strong, with Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island being the most notable release of the year. Sega also retired the Master System in Europe. However, the Saturn received some great games including Guardian Heroes, Panzer Dragoon II Zwei and Dragon Force. The PlayStation pulled ahead of the competition thanks to the…

Though the PlayStation hit its fifth anniversary in 1999, it showed no signs of slowing down – Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater revolutionised extreme sports games, Syphon Filter expanded on the growing stealth genre and Ape Escape helped to establish dual analogue controls as the new standard. Then there’s the small matter of Final Fantasy VIII, another epic RPG with incredible production values. The Dreamcast arrived in homes around the world, and brought with it the NBA 2K and NFL 2K franchises, as well as games like Power Stone. 1999’s arcade hits, like Dead Or Alive 2, F355 Challenge, Garou: Mark Of The Wolves, Silent Scope and Virtua Tennis provided glimpses into the console’s future. On the N64, Super Smash Bros, Pokémon Snap and Donkey Kong 64 all earned plaudits. PC…

BEST COMMODORE 64 Despite utilising a finicky multiload system, Lemmings on the Commodore computer impressed many by flinging around up to 50 lemmings, as well as including a massive 100 stages. With the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad versions paling in comparison, the C64 wins the crown of having the best conversion of Lemmings on an 8-bit computer. PLAYSTATION 2 Based on Team17’s PSP version of the game, Lemmings for the PS2 is an updated version of the original game, with all 120 original stages plus 36 brand-new ones. The star attraction is the EyeToy mode, which provides users with some surprisingly smart motion-controlled stages to play. MEGA DRIVE The Mega Drive version isn’t the most accurate conversion, in part because of limitations on the width of levels, and it is…

CLASSIC SONIC Naoto Oshima’s character concept was brilliantly illustrated by Akira Watanabe, and informed the basic expectation of Sonic’s appearance in Japan right up until Sonic Adventure came along. MODERN SONIC While Sonic Adventure was mostly represented with 2D artwork, Sega has subtly moved away from the 3D artwork used in that era to give Sonic the familiar look that he has today in his 3D appearances. MOVIE SONIC Paramount redesigned its movie model, criticised for its weird legs and creepy eyes. The end result, aided by Tyson Hesse, is more furry than spiky but worth the $5 million budget increase. SONIC ADVENTURE SONIC Yuji Uekawa’s visual refresh gave Sonic longer legs, longer spikes and a smaller belly, as well as green eyes. Twisted, dynamic poses mark the 2D illustrations…

When it comes to creating levels, Sonic can be a tricky character to design for. Exploration is often a key part of the platform game genre, and the 16-bit Sonic games in particular are known for having some fairly large, sprawling stages. But with Sonic’s sense of speed in mind, slowing down and checking out every route is something that many players won’t be inclined to do – some might even say it goes against the point of the game. This has been a design conundrum since the very beginning of the series, so how are those things reconciled? “Level design for 2D Sonic games requires application of a core design philosophy – do not create any situation where ‘you cannot proceed if you make a mistake’. It sounds obvious…

SNES MEGA DRIVE STREET FIGHTER II Owners of both consoles could be satisfied that they had great conversions of the hottest arcade game of the era, as Capcom did a fantastic job with both. Nintendo’s version just clinches it, thanks to better colour and clearer voices, as well as a standard pad that actually has six buttons. NBA JAM No matter which version of this classic arcade sports game you play, you’ll enjoy excellent visuals and fast, responsive gameplay. However, the Mega Drive version dunks on the SNES iteration as the latter only features menu music, with no in-game tunes – a truly baffling exclusion, really. MORTAL KOMBAT The SNES should walk this, thanks to superior graphics and the Mega Drive version’s lack of six-button support. But the gore and…

On its release, Doom felt like the culmination of a perfect storm. It featured cutting-edge technology, was freely available to play (thanks to a shareware distribution model) and it delivered an exciting arcade-like experience that few other games could match. Tom Hall, Doom’s director, explains how it all came together and when the development team realised just what it had created. What did directing Doom involve? Well, in early development and early id, [John] Carmack did mainly the engine; [John] Romero, the tools; me, design; and Adrian [Carmack] did art. […] After doing many games together… we did Commander Keen one through three in two-and-a-half months. Romero also blasted out some levels near the end. Same for Commander Keen four through six, where he had more time and did great…

Throughout the Eighties, attempts were made to develop 3D games, but these novel projects involved significant sacrifices. As such, games like Atari’s coin-op Battlezone and the home computer hits 3D Monster Maze, Elite and Revs were defined by limited on-screen elements and either wireframe graphics or blocky visuals. In the late Eighties, these restrictions were tested by the computer games Driller and Zarch, both of which featured shaded polygon graphics. The former was sluggishly slow, but the latter, despite its minimal playfield, was faster and employed 3D lighting and shadows. Then Namco and Atari’s coin-op racers Winning Run and Hard Drivin’ pushed the envelope further with their almost-fullscreen 3D worlds. The arcade rivals continued to develop polygonal titles into the early Nineties, while 3D home computer titles like Graftgold’s shooter…

CHOCOBOS Catching them, riding them, racing them and breeding them – the Chocobo element of FFVII is a game in itself, and becomes bewilderingly complex when you’re looking to breed that lucrative Gold Chocobo, which can reach parts of the map that even the Highwind cannot. SNOWBOARDING On the second disc, Cloud gets the opportunity to snowboard down a mountain. Later in the game, it re-emerges as a tricky arcade game at Gold Saucer’s Wonder Square. This minigame was popular enough to justify a mobile spin-off, which was only available in Japan. FIRST-PERSON SHOOTING Visiting the ‘Speed’ part of Gold Saucer triggers this bizarre but quite impressive first-person shooter section, where hitting a high score lands you a prize. This is notable for its kaleidoscopic visuals, in stark contrast to…

DEVELOPER COMMENTARY FORGOTTEN CAPITAL “As this was to be the location for some of the most important scenes, it needed to be eerie, spiritual and made up from a more limited number of elements. In order to convey the idea of long-dead civilisations, we used the motif of the fossilised prehistoric sea bed, with architecture based on giant shells.” DEVELOPER COMMENTARY MIDGAR “The overall silhouette of Midgar was inspired by looking at a pizza I was eating with friends while I was stuck for design ideas. For the Shinra building, the overall sense of scale came from looking up every day at our company offices, and it also had features taken from structures where practicality influences the design, such as the bridge of a battleship and industrial furnaces.” DEVELOPER COMMENTARY…

Nintendo has always been a company that has set its own agenda, and that has rarely been more apparent than it was with the N64. Rather than following the likes of 3DO, Sega and Sony into the CD-ROM market, it stuck doggedly to cartridges. Instead of simply evolving the SNES pad, it produced a radical three-pronged controller design. Neither of those design choices proved to be the future – it’s a tall order to convince an entire industry to do things differently, after all. The thing that made people take note was Super Mario 64, though – a bold and unique design, just like the machine it ran on. However, unlike its host hardware, it made a profound impact on the rest of the industry, shaping the development of future…

METROID PRIME 2002 ■ Many wondered how the exploration of Metroid could ever work in 3D, but Retro Studios came through with the perfect answer. Encapsulating Metroid’s sense of isolation and freedom, while being a showcase for the GameCube, it’s one of the greatest examples of 2D-to-3D done right. THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: OCARINA OF TIME 1998 ■ Just as it had done with Super Mario 64, Nintendo embraced the third dimension when updating Zelda for a new generation. The game was imbued with a very real sense of verticality that helped make it absolutely jaw-dropping. GRAND THEFT AUTO III 2001 ■ Alongside Super Mario 64 and Ocarina Of Time, GTA III was instrumental in establishing the template for modern 3D games, especially open-world titles. Minimal prelaunch fanfare only made…

For Mark Edmonds, his first contribution to the development of GoldenEye was sitting alone in a room in the Stamper mansion, filleting joints. “I didn’t really know what I was working on,” he explains, understandably. “I was asked to investigate creating filleted joints for an animated 3D character system; basically, a smooth skin over joints, like an elbow, rather than just having a solid block for an upper and lower arm. I had no idea it was connected to James Bond but I must have passed the test because I got moved over to the stable block and onto the team proper. It was great just to be working on my first videogame!” Programmer Mark joined project leader Martin Hollis and artist Karl Hilton and the trio got to work…

You might imagine that the most popular coin-ops of the Nineties would have much in common with those of the late Eighties, but this theory only holds true to a point. Shoot-’em-ups were big business in 1989, but by 1990 they were fading fast, with Tecmo’s Raiden being pretty much the Nineties’ only hit coin-op shooter. However, the same year, Sega’s Super Monaco GP and Namco’s Final Lap proved that arcade racers were still popular. Coin-op beat-’em-ups prospered in 1990 too, most notably Konami’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Capcom’s Final Fight. The following year saw the release of another arcade fighting game that was nothing short of a phenomenon. Street Fighter II was not only the highest-grossing coin-op of 1991, but it repeated that feat in 1992 and 1993.…

There are so many times in life when your only option is to sit down and wait. You could be passing time before seeing the doctor, or in the back of a car during a long journey. Whatever the situation, filling these waits suddenly got a lot better as handheld consoles grew in popularity. Of course, handheld videogames weren’t an invention of the Nineties, not by a long shot. Whether you want to cite the MB Microvision or the popularity of standalone devices like Tiger Electronics’ games or Nintendo’s Game & Watch series, it’s clear that players could enjoy gaming on the go throughout the Eighties. The big difference was that while handheld gaming had been around for a while, handheld consoles as we have come to know them today…

Whichever way you look at it, the Nineties was rife with technological advances for the games industry as a whole, and while some might point to the PlayStation, 3D graphics in general or the burgeoning internet as some of the biggest leaps, the PC was at the forefront of this sudden shift in opportunities for gaming. The start of the decade looked completely different by the end, with well-known names like Commodore, Sinclair and Amstrad being the recognisable manufacturers only to be cast aside in favour of the behemoth that was Windows and PC gaming. “The PC was definitely not the hardware platform of choice for game-makers or players,” explains Louis Castle, one of the founders of Westwood Studios and a developer that defined a large part of PC gaming…

If you stepped into an arcade in 1991, you couldn’t help but notice that beat-’em-ups were in vogue, particularly licensed ones like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time and The Simpsons by Konami, as well as Sega’s Spider-Man: The Video Game. However, it was the monster success of Street Fighter II’s one-on-one fisticuffs that helped to reverse a trend of arcade decline. Street Fighter director Takashi Nishiyama’s own spiritual successor, SNK’s Fatal Fury, helped to drive the fighting game boom. In tech terms, the console manufacturers were each touting their ambitious CD-ROM plans. Nintendo worked with Sony to develop a SNES-compatible system, only to announce a deal that it had secretly signed with Philips in the summer. NEC bolstered its existing PC Engine CD-ROM drive with the Super System…

The arcade fighting game boom reached its apex this year, with Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Mortal Kombat II going head to head. Tekken challenged Virtua Fighter 2 in the 3D arena, with the likes of Art Of Fighting 2, Samurai Shodown II, Darkstalkers, The King Of Fighters ‘94, Killer Instinct, Primal Rage and X-Men: Children Of The Atom all thrilling fight fans. Cruis’n USA and Virtua Cop also pushed 3D arcade games forward in the racing and lightgun genres respectively. This year marked the introduction of widespread videogame age ratings, administered by the ESRB in North America and various national bodies in Europe. SNES hits included Final Fantasy VI and, in Japan, Earthbound, while Mega Drive players got to enjoy Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, Contra: Hard Corps…

The PlayStation went from strength to strength in 1997, with original games like Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee and space combat sim Colony Wars mingling with blockbuster sequels like Formula 1 97, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and Tomb Raider II. These major releases were bolstered by cult favourites like the platformer Klonoa: Door To Phantomile, Mega Man Legends, Einhander, Kurushi and Breath Of Fire III, as well as budget re-releases of older favourites via the newly introduced Platinum range. Not to be outdone, the Nintendo 64 was home to hot sequels like Star Fox 64 and Yoshi’s Story, as well as memorable original games like the first-person shooter Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, the adventure kart racer Diddy Kong Racing and the demolition action game Blast Corps. Though the Saturn received fine…

THIS GAME HAS WORKED 140 DAYS WITHOUT AN ACCIDENT If you ever imitated another child’s bad behaviour when you were young, you were almost certainly asked: “If your friend jumped off a cliff, would you do that too?” Of course, if you were like us you’d claim that you would in order to remain logically consistent, an act of dishonesty which only further frustrated the adult and saw us frogmarched to the nearest cliff. But if you were a lemming, that statement wouldn’t be a lie – those guys just love chucking themselves off objects. They also love wandering into jets of flame, drowning, and generally doing very un-clever things. Not real lemmings, mind – their suicidal urges are something of a misconception – but the critters found in DMA…

How did you end up working on the PC port of Lemmings? Well, Dave Jones and I were working on Spectrum games together before he started DMA Design and bought his Amiga, so I graduated from the Spectrum to the PC (the processors are similar) and did PC ports for DMA, so it became my machine. When Lemmings came around, I did the original demo on the PC but I had my finals at university to do before I could give the game my full attention, so Dave started the game and I returned (having finished my finals) and got going on the PC port. What technical challenges did you face? Well there were a few. A lack of PC hardware support: the Amiga had a blitter, I had a…

Had you played Lemmings before starting work on the conversion? If so, what did you think of the game? I had played it (PC version, I think) and I enjoyed the game, although I wasn’t addicted. My friend’s granny used to play it apparently! It’s one of the first crossover casual games. When I was developing, I didn’t have time or the eyesight to play games in my spare time as I didn’t have much. However when we had the contract we used to play it a lot. What were the major challenges Probe faced in converting Lemmings to Master System/Game Gear? Firstly, how to build a destructible/buildable landscape with a character-based screen system with a limited number of characters, that was interesting. Secondly, how to get that mouse feel…

If videogame characters could attend their own award shows, which ones do you think would get the full A-list, red carpet treatment? It’s a strange question, but if you indulge us and give it a little thought, you’ll probably conclude that there aren’t too many. Pac-Man would definitely be there: probably to collect a lifetime achievement award, and Mario wouldn’t be far behind. Lara Croft would be the favourite of the paparazzi, and Pikachu would be there to give some of the most insightful interviews of all. Sonic The Hedgehog would certainly join all of them, too – and he’d almost certainly be the one making the evening news because of some attention-grabbing antics. Sonic was designed to steal the show from day one. Sega wanted a character to take…

HEAVEN MOMENT REEL GOOD TIME SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2 The slot reels in the background of Casino Night Zone could so easily have just been a bit of background detail, but the fact that you could use them to gamble for more rings really added something to the stage – as did the fact that you had to play pinball with Sonic to do so. HEAVEN MOMENT FALSE FINISH SONIC GENERATIONS Just as in Sonic The Hedgehog (2006), Crisis City Act 1 takes place during an ongoing disaster. Right as you think you’ve escaped the apocalyptic city, the traditional end post gets swept up by a tornado and flies away, forcing you to push just a little further through the devastation to finish. HEAVEN MOMENT BURNING BRIDGE SONIC MANIA When…

Though the console war’s attack ads were most prominent on the other side of the Atlantic, the battle was brought to life in vivid detail on the letters pages of the UK’s games magazines. Even as early as 1991, well before the SNES officially arrived on these shores, you could find art of Sega and Nintendo heroes hitting, shooting and generally maiming one another – with the focus naturally being on figureheads Sonic and Mario. Here are some of the contributions received by Sega Power and Total! back in the early Nineties……

The battle between Nintendo and Sega didn’t just coincide with the introduction of 16-bit consoles, but also handheld systems. Nintendo launched the Game Boy in 1989, featuring an economical design with a four-shade greyscale screen that made it look considerably less impressive than its initial rival, Atari’s full colour Lynx. However, that design made the Game Boy cheaper to buy and thanks to its superior battery life, cheaper to run. Sega jumped into the market in 1990, repurposing its 8-bit Master System console for the job. The Game Gear faced many of the same problems as the Lynx, such as a high price and poor battery life, but its technology wasn’t as impressive. However, Sega could at least guarantee a steady supply of software. “I actually loved the Game Gear,…

DOOM II: HELL ON EARTH RELEASED: 1994 id Software’s sequel not only featured a vastly improved multiplayer experience, but it also added more ambitious levels that were far larger in design and scope than Doom’s and greatly rewarded exploration. Other additions included new enemies (plus the return of many favourites) and the Super Shotgun (essentially a meaty double-barrelled shotgun). DOOM 64 RELEASED: 1997 This N64 exclusive was developed by Midway Games and is set after Final Doom. It features a brand-new weapon, a laser called the Unmaker, along with 32 exclusive levels and two new monsters, the Nightmare Imp and Mother Demon. A remastered version arrived in 2020. DOOM 3 RELEASED: 2004 There was a ten-year wait for id Software’s third Doom game so John Carmack and his team could…

DUKE NUKEM 3D Arguably the most notorious of Doom clones, 3D Realms brought a bigger personality to the Doom experience. This meant a recognisable and humorous character, over-the-top weaponry and a few moments very deserving of its 18 rating. Famously, the series didn’t end up at the heights that started with this FPS, but back when it was released it was one of the better ‘clones’. STAR WARS: DARK FORCES It’s true that no one could overlook the inspiration that Dark Forces came from, but there were numerous additions that really pushed the FPS forward for the time. Greater emphasis on environmental puzzles, the ability to jump and swim, and even graphical enhancements all helped LucasArts’ shooter stand on its own – though it was still tarred with the ‘Doom…

» MANUFACTURER: Sony » YEAR: 1994 » COST: £299 (launch), £15+ (today, unboxed), £60+ (boxed) They say that practice makes perfect, but sometimes you just get things right at the first attempt – and that’s exactly what Sony did with the original PlayStation. Where previous 32-bit consoles had failed to wrest control of the console market from Sega and Nintendo, Sony’s machine was competitive in every regard. It was cheaper than Sega’s Saturn, as well as easier to develop 3D games for. It was out sooner than the Nintendo 64, and its CD releases were cheaper than ROM cartridges. Plus, it had high-quality games which drew players in, from Namco arcade conversions to original properties like WipEout and Twisted Metal. Over time, cinematic experiences like Resident Evil, Final Fantasy VII…

As you may recall, the entire flashback sequence where Cloud remembers the events in Nibelheim that led to Sephiroth’s transformation into a twisted enemy turns out to be a bit different. Later, we learn that Cloud confused himself with Zack, his superior in the army. Ever since then, Zack has remained a popular figure among Final Fantasy fans, which led to the spin-off Crisis Core. His role in Cloud’s story makes him a unique element in FFVII’s tangled web. “Zack is the vessel onto which Cloud twistedly projects his complexes towards SOLDIER [Shinra’s elite fighting force],” Kitase tells us. “He was created by the scenario writer, [Kazushige Nojima], as he was trying to build up the mystery surrounding Cloud’s past, and we did not originally think of Zack as a…

It’s easy to think of fighting games as niche these days; dominated by the few willing to pour over frames while casuals whip out a Mortal Kombat to button-mash. In the Nineties, though? Fighting games were the reigning king of both arcades and consoles. That popularity would arguably be its undoing by the start of the millennium thanks to oversaturation – but the Nineties was a staggeringly prosperous decade for fight fans and the developers pushing out half a dozen ways to virtually batter your buddies. While the concept of fighting games can be traced to 1976’s Heavyweight Champ, it was the decade that followed which laid the groundwork for the genre’s takeoff. 1984 saw Technos Japan’s Karate Champ, which brought one-on-one fighting to the forefront, with a Player Vs…

David Doak smiles rather proudly when we ask him about the legacy of his innovative work on mission design and enemy AI for GoldenEye. “My favourite moment was meeting the original Valve guys at ECTS, a UK trade show, in 1998 and them joking that GoldenEye had forced them to redo a bunch of stuff on Half-Life. They went on to do all right.” When David joined the team in late 1995, plenty of the basic gameplay was in place. The controls were responsive, the core loop of ‘encounter enemy, shoot them, move to next’ worked efficiently and the audio and visuals gave solid feedback. “The obvious issue was that levels were fairly barebones,” he explains. “They had been constructed to test gameplay, though even at this stage, there were…

Like all great things, Pokémon was an idea born from mud and dirt. The brainchild of one Satoshi Tajiri, he spent his Tokyo childhood chasing bugs in Machida parks, fascinated by the idea of collecting and cataloguing as many insects as he could. The other kids at school ribbed him for his obsession with creepy crawlies, calling him ‘Dr Bug’ – but ultimately, Tajiri had the last laugh. As he grew up and swapped his bug-catching nets for computers, Tokyo’s once luscious parks were replaced by concrete, and the bug-filled habitats Tajiri explored in his youth were paved over. Tajiri vowed to recreate his childhood passion for a new generation, channelling his youth into an ambitious creature-collecting videogame. Its name? Pocket Monsters. While Tajiri might not be a household name,…

GAME GEAR 1990 Sega’s first handheld console didn’t boast loads of exclusive classics, but it was a good way to play popular games on the go. It sold millions of units, but was a distant second to the Game Boy. WATARA SUPERVISION 1992 This handheld tried to emulate the success of the Game Boy with its low price and modest hardware, but the software library lacked both the quality and big names of Nintendo’s console. PLAYDIA 1994 Bandai’s console used a CD-ROM and boasted some impressive anime licensed games, almost all of which were edutainment-focused with a bit of FMV. As you can imagine, it wasn’t great. PIPPIN 1996 Apple and Bandai teamed up to create this console – another CD-ROM format with some lofty multimedia goals. Much of its…

“Hiya, welcome to Bad Influence!, the only place you’ll be able to see moving screenshots of the very latest games.” This was Andy Crane’s opening line on the first episode of ITV’s Bad Influence!, and it summed up the novelty of seeing videogames on television. After years of making do with static images in magazines, now gamers could see previews of upcoming releases in motion – and it was revelatory. Particularly so with regards to early 3D games like Star Fox and Super Mario 64, which looked blocky and flat in magazine screenshots, but were breathtaking when seen in full flow on TV. Violet Berlin wrote and presented the first regular videogame reviews on UK TV in around 1991, as part of the Cool Cube youth magazine show on the…

STUN RUNNER Lynx Frankly, it feels like it shouldn’t have been possible to authentically replicate this arcade game on a handheld, but the sprite-scaling capabilities of Atari’s powerful system gave a convincing enough sense of 3D to pull it off. Shooting through tunnels at an incredible pace feels even more amazing when it’s on a system you can put in your bag. SHINOBI II: THE SILENT FURY Game Gear Joe Musashi’s first handheld outing was very good, but the sequel was even better as Sega’s ninja master sought to rescue his fellow ninjas from their captors. Each one has different abilities, expanding not only your combat possibilities but the areas you can reach. It looks great and the level design is top notch. THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK'S AWAKENING Game…

There is rarely space to talk about operating systems in a multiformat gaming publication such as this. But there’s something about Windows 95 that rattles those nostalgia bones: whether it’s the familiar logo and startup sounds, that horrible teal desktop background or just all those hours spent on Minesweeper: Win 95 was the starting point for a generation of people just entering the digital age. But it did a lot for gaming, too. While Microsoft was still pushing the business nature of its software, there were still some dedicated gamers within the company that saw it necessary to improve the platform for game developers and users. This took the form of DirectX, and while this API wasn’t initially anything to dethrone OpenGL (which Quake ran on), it would receive continued…

Could videogames be harming kids? People genuinely started to ask this question, thanks to the rise of games that combined violent themes with digitised images of real people, such as the arcade hits Lethal Enforcers and Mortal Kombat. That bloody brawler had plenty of competition from Art Of Fighting, Fatal Fury II and World Heroes as the fighting genre continued to heat up. 1992 was a banner year for fans of point-and-click adventures, thanks to games like Dune, Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis, Lure Of The Temptress and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge. Other home computer hits this year included the shoot-’em-up Apidya, Pinball Dreams and the mighty Sensible Soccer. The next-generation Amiga 1200 was also introduced this year (while the ZX Spectrum was officially retired), but by…

As the NES was retired in the West, the PlayStation and Saturn made their way to international audiences this year, and brought with them plenty of fantastic new 3D games. Sony’s machine gave us Jumping Flash!, Destruction Derby, Battle Arena Toshinden and Twisted Metal, while Sega gave us Bug!, Clockwork Knight 2 and some amazing arcade conversions. Though less fashionable, great-looking 2D games like Rapid Reload and Astal also appeared on the PlayStation and Saturn respectively. The arcades provided a steady supply of 3D games too, many of which would make their way to the new consoles – Fighting Vipers, Sega Rally Championship and Virtua Cop 2 to name a few. Plenty more didn’t though, or at least not for many years, such as Gunblade NY, Rave Racer and Virtua…

It’s said that 1998 is one of gaming’s best years ever, and it was definitely packed with fantastic releases – just look at PlayStation games like Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, Parasite Eve, Spyro The Dragon, Colin McRae Rally, Tomb Raider III and R4: Ridge Racer Type 4. Any of them could easily sit in the column to the left in some years, and that’s saying nothing of impressive arcade conversions like Tekken 3 and Beatmania. Nintendo 64 fans got to enjoy games like 1080º Snowboarding, Turok 2: Seeds Of Evil, F-Zero X, Mario Party and International Superstar Soccer ’98. On the PC, the classic adventure Grim Fandango, the tank combat revival Battlezone and first-person shooter Unreal all impressed. The Saturn was even able to go out on a high with…

The walking animation for Lemmings was the product of a self-imposed restriction of 8x8 pixels. Do you think this particular approach is useful in aiding creativity? Actually, it wasn't a self-imposed limitation; it was purely technical. In the old days, you always wanted to draw things using the power of two sizes (8, 16, 32, 64 and so on), so the next size down from 16x16 was 8x8. So it was to fit within ‘standard’ limitations that started all this – as was normal then. As it happened, only the width mattered on the Amiga, so the resulting size of 8x10 was fine as well. What was the most difficult aspect of creating Lemmings? There were a few issues. Making the lemmings walk and move exactly, binding feet to ground…

How did you originally go about composing the music for Lemmings? Firstly, I had the basic premise of adapting well-known hummable folk tunes, to replace existing tracks that were problematic in terms of copyright, like the theme from Batman for instance. Secondly, I was a dab hand at Karsten Obarski's Soundtracker and the follow-up called NoiseTracker, but I was told to write the music in a supplied tracker program – Linel's Sound FX, if I recall correctly. Thirdly, there were tight restrictions in terms of memory, permitted musical effects within the editor (i.e. none) and only three channels so that there was always one channel free for sound effects. Brian Johnston had composed all of the music at that point, but they'd removed several of them for legal reasons. Some…

Although the Game Boy launched in Japan and the US in 1989, and even though its final revisions were discontinued in 2003, Nintendo’s beloved handheld console was quintessentially a Nineties phenomenon. In Europe, it arrived in 1990 boasting a pair of stand-out launch titles, Super Mario Land and Tetris. Super Mario Land may have had far fewer levels than the NES Super Mario Bros titles and was depicted in monochrome line art visuals, but the handheld platformer otherwise replicated the gameplay and mechanics beloved by fans of the originals – so much so that it sold over 18 million copies. Set in a new environment called Sarasaland, rather than the Mushroom Kingdom, Super Mario Land tasked players with rescuing Princess Daisy by traversing platforming and – in a flex of…

Sonic is a character that is rarely caught standing still, both in a literal and conceptual sense. That’s always been the case, too – just check out the original story comic that ran in Japan’s Mega Drive Fan magazine, which is full of oddball concepts from the game’s development period. Sonic comes across very differently there, sporting some wild-looking fangs and acting as the frontman of a rock band, but it makes a lot of sense if you still think of Sonic as the “hedgehog with attitude” that he was always said to be. Really, from the moment that he turned to you with a scowl and started tapping his foot if you left the controller alone, that’s what he always was. But we’ve had different interpretations of just what…

Everyone with even the slightest knowledge of the history of videogames knows about the great console war. By now it’s pretty much accepted folklore that Sega, the plucky upstart with its exciting new mascot and lax stance on bitmapped bloodshed, strolled up to the arrogant giant Nintendo and gave it a big old smack in the mouth, loosening the Mario maker’s monopolistic grip on the console market forever. But that’s just the surface story. Few accounts of the period venture beyond North America, despite the fact that gaming in the late Eighties and early Nineties was far from a global business – the major markets around the world each had their own distinct regional character and preferences. By examining how the well-known American story compares to how the combatants fared…

» MANUFACTURER: Sega » YEAR: 1994 » COST: £399 (UK launch), £100+ (UK today - unboxed), £140+ (UK today - boxed) Sega had the pick of the pack when following up the Mega Drive – the company was offered both the 3DO technology and the Silicon Graphics Inc architecture that powered the Nintendo 64, as well as the chance to collaborate with Sony. Instead, the company went down its own path, placing its faith in its own hardware engineers. The result was the Saturn, a complex piece of hardware featuring two processors, two video chips and a custom sound chip. While this unusual arrangement delivered a high level of theoretical performance, it came with real downsides as the hardware was expensive, and programmers struggled to grasp its idiosyncrasies. Despite some…

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES ■ What’s that shadow on the floor for? Oh, it’s just a gargantuan sword hanging above you, ready to plummet down on your head. And remember: in the Greek tale it was just the one sword. In Tomb Raider, it’s about a dozen. DROWNING ■ Most of the time, you’re panicking as you try desperately to get Lara up and out of the water, back into the welcoming lung-filling embrace of breathable air. If you don’t make it, you feel truly awful – even years later, it’s still a seriously uncomfortable sight to behold. IMPALEMENT ■ It’s one thing to fall way too far and snap poor Lara’s neck, as we all did a million times in Tomb Raider, but there’s something that much more shocking…

ADVENT CHILDREN This cinematic direct follow-up to the Final Fantasy VII story hits and misses in equal measure. The action sequences are genuinely well-done and creative but the story quality nosedives when you realise it’s all a big contrivance to resurrect Sephiroth and undermine the original adventure. CRISIS CORE This Zack Fair-starring prequel was one of the essential purchases of the PSP’s library. Its action-oriented design proved ahead of its time, considering the direction future Final Fantasy titles have taken. Less popular was the inclusion of the character Genesis, a poetry-reciting edgelord played by the Japanese musician GACKT. DIRGE OF CERBERUS There’s a universe where a Vincent Valentine-focused third-person shooter would have worked well. Sadly, it’s not the one we live in. Despite the derision, Dirge Of Cerberus had a…

» MANUFACTURER: Nintendo » YEAR: 1996 » COST: £249.99 (launch), £60+ (today, unboxed,) £120+ (today, boxed) When home consoles were ready for the leap to 3D gaming, the engineers at Silicon Graphics felt that they had the right technology to make it work. The company approached Sega with a console design, but the company’s Japanese engineers were not convinced by the product and opted for their own design, resulting in the complex and over-engineered Saturn. SGI found a much more receptive partner in Sega’s arch rival, Nintendo – however, Nintendo would not make it to market until the middle of 1996, giving Sega and more importantly Sony a large head start in the market. The raw power of the N64, in combination with the development talent Nintendo had access to,…

JAMES BOND ■ GoldenEye’s protagonist is tasked with preventing Janus from firing the GoldenEye satellite. Pierce Brosman plays the iconic role and would do for a further three films. GENERAL ARKADY OURUMOV ■ The rogue Russian general is a thorn in Bond’s side for most of the Arkhangelsk missions. He’s played by Gottfried John. NATALYA SIMONOVA ■ This programmer ends up accompanying Bond on several missions after they encounter each other as prisoners. Izabella Scorupco depicts her in the film. BORIS GRISHENKO ■ “Invincible” computer hacker Boris trips an alarm in Bond’s first encounter with him and then pulls a gun on the secret agent. He’s played by Alan Cumming. ALEC TREVELYAN ■ You first meet 006 during the second mission but see him executed by Colonel Ourumov. Bond soon…

SNIPER RIFLE ■ It’s certainly not the easiest gun to use, but it does have amazing range, allowing you to kill from a safe distance, without fear of being shot. ROCKET LAUNCHER ■ The great thing about this piece of metal is that you don’t need to be super-accurate. Just make sure to get them in the blast radius. GOLDEN GUN ■ It’s only available in the story mode via cheats, but it was available to use in multiplier mode. It’s highly coveted because it can kill with a single shot. KLOBB ■ Named after Nintendo’s Ken Lobb, this wonderfully pathetic piece of hardware is only really worth using when paired. It’s such an iconic gun we had to include it. DD44 DOSTOVEI ■ It’s not quite as accurate as…

» MANUFACTURER: Sega » YEAR: 1998 » COST: £199 (launch), £70`+ (today) If your back’s up against the wall you need to pull off something spectacular, and in hardware terms, Sega pulled that off with its successor to the Saturn. The Dreamcast was everything its failed predecessor hadn’t been – the sleek white box was aesthetically pleasing, the internal hardware was both powerful and easy to develop for, and the price was attractive. For PAL gamers, the capability to output a 60Hz signal brought an end to years of second-rate releases. Multiplayer fans were well catered for, too, with four controller ports and a built-in modem for online gaming (so long as you were willing to pay the phone bill for dial-up access). Thanks to its past woes, Sega didn’t…

SPLINTER CELL ■ While there were no direct elements taken from Metal Gear Solid into Splinter Cell, Kojima’s work was an influence on Francois Coulon in his approach to directing the Ubisoft stealth series. Following the same desire for a cinematic experience and keeping the player in-game was critical. UNDETECTED ■ One of Antonio Freyre’s games, Undetected wears its Metal Gear Solid inspiration on its sleeve from its top-down camera perspective to item picks-up and character movement. That’s not to say that it’s a game without its own interesting ideas or elements, of course, but fans of Kojima’s work will want to check this out. UNMETAL ■ While the art style is more in line with the original Metal Gear games rather than the 3D Solid versions, UnMetal plays with…