Arcade Report - May 2007

I'd have to disagree with regard to Pac-Man since you progress to the next level once you have collected all of the "pils" not when you have avoided the ghosts for a certain length of time. Collecting is the aim, the ghosts are there to stop you achieving that aim.

Meh, I think you're defining a genre by a single game, (did anyone ever bother defining a 'collect 'em up prior?) elements of which certainly predate it. While I'm certainly not about to argue that Pac Man is the spiritual ancestor of Katamari, though it may well be, I will certainly argue that the primary game mechanic of Pac Man is collecting all the little dots. Williams' Bubbles also has the accretion element.

Whats important in my view isn't which genres appeared first in arcades, or if prototypes and experiments count. Some of the genres pioneered by arcades, and which dominated them for years are now largely irrelevant. What is important is that the vital and indispensible contribution the arcade industry provided to video games be remembered and recognized.

Left to their own devices there are a multituide (probably at least two generations worth, but certainly not most of the people frequenting this fourum) of people out there who would like to believe that the sun of video games rose with the NES and anything good and worthwhile must have been developed by Nintendo for consoles. (Not to pick on the Nintendo fanboys, but there it is, in the minds of the ignorant masses, everything is from Nintendo, so any truth to the contrary must needs erode this) They are also more than willing to believe that Axl Rose wrote 'Live and Let Die' and 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door'. Many of them are also violently opposed to any information which contradicts their ignorance. I have about as much respect for and paitence with Nintendocentrists as I do with people who fail to recognize the contributions of Blues, Jazz, and Folk music.

Arcade games aren't just some quaint historical curiosity. They are the reason why consoles exist. M***********s better recognize.

It's a fair point, well made. But hyperbole always grates. Saying what you said, like you said it is fine... but claiming that there is an arcade antecedant to every console game ever made is not. It's (and I apologise not for using the f-word)... arcade fanboyism.

Arcades were incredibly important to the development of video games. They are less so now, but still important. But there are at least several console genres or sub-genres that were never pre-empted by arcade equivalents.

I agree with Precious concerning the arcades importance to all of what we play, but the thing is, unless you educate other gamers to this fact, by either taking them to an arcade, or sharing your collection of arcade gem games with them, most people don't care about the history of games, let alone normal everyday history. That hunger for such knowledge comes with passion.

Name a genre and arcade had done it first

First Person Shooter (Wolfenstein 3d)
Real Time Strategy (Cytron Masters)
Turn Based Tactics (Final Fantasy Tactics)
Point and Click Adventures (Kings Quest / Maniac Mansion)
RPG (Rogue / Ultima)
Space Shooter (Space War - First game and it was a computer game.)
Sports Game (Tennis for Two - First game and it was closer to a console than anything else, William Higgenbothen built it on a oscillator.)
Any "Tycoon" or resource management game ever
Survival Horror (Alone In The Dark)

That's not even trying. There's way too many genres to even attempt that statement. Sure it's not fair to throw out 'point and click adventures'... but it's a genre. I held off of the 'text based adventure', but that's a genre too.

I'd have to point you to at least Operation Wolf in the arcades to counter that. Not 3D, but a first person shooter none the less.

Operation Wolf is an on-rails light gun shooter.

If we were to go ahead and call them first person shooters, then Operation Wolf would be pre-dated by the Hogan's Alley NES port which had an on rails mode (Mode B) which you shot at people in windows. Despite Hogan's Alley being an arcade title, that mode is only on the NES.

But light gun games would be an arcade first with games like Crossbow predating them both.

You have a point though. It's debatable, but we can substitute "3D First Person Shooters" in my list instead and add in "Stealth Action" which only occurred to me yesterday night.