PAL PlayStation At 18

[Rogue Trooper]

September 29 1995September 29 1996

Nintendo releases the Nintendo 64 video game system in North America. Price is US$199.95.

I can still remember spending an age trying to get hold of Silica Shop as phones that busy with folks ordering Playstations and securing my launch console along with Ridge Racer and Toh Shin Den and being just blown away, visually by the pair and then there was that T-Rex demo. on the sampler disc.

The PSone was 1st platform i played Xcom on (picked up Amiga version a while after) so i owe it a great deal.

[TL]

September 29 1995

The day gaming started to die 

[DreamcastRIP]

September 29 1995

The day gaming started to die  :21:

I'd say it was the day that gaming started looking a little sickly and that the patient only slipped into a coma the day PS2 launched! 

[Rogue Trooper]

September 29 1995

The day gaming started to die 

[TL]

I think you misunderstand what I mean, so I will just quote what I put on RG:

For me this machine signalled the beginning of the end for gaming as I knew it. The first of many soulless machines totally devoid of personality made by a corporate giant who was even more soulless and lacking in personality. It was a sad day when Sony (and later Microsoft) entered the games industry pushing out innovative companies like Sega and Atari, who were full of individuality, leaving only Nintendo with any legacy in the games industry.

The PS1 also quickened the arrival of the boring franchises we still see dominating the games industry today.

[Rogue Trooper]

I think you misunderstand what I mean, so I will just quote what I put on RG:

For me this machine signalled the beginning of the end for gaming as I knew it. The first of many soulless machines totally devoid of personality made by a corporate giant who was even more soulless and lacking in personality. It was a sad day when Sony (and later Microsoft) entered the games industry pushing out innovative companies like Sega and Atari, who were full of individuality, leaving only Nintendo with any legacy in the games industry.

The PS1 also quickened the arrival of the boring franchises we still see dominating the games industry today.

Define 'soulless' though? for me, the industry's love affair with the 'interactive movie', which seemed to be the holy grail back when magazines were putting the CD-i on front cover, is when things started to go very, very wrong.Millions poured into producing empty vessels of gaming, watch video sequence, few button presses, another video sequence etc etc.

what i had thought was once consigned to history alonmg with Dragon's bloody Lair, was suddenly the future and who was happy to pour resources into that? Sega for a start.Now look at the industry, something as wonderous as Far Cry 3, ruined by having a sodding QTE fight at the end-destroyed any notion of me finishing the game.

you had corporate giants like sega who were much like a hydra, beast with many heads (Sega:Europe, USA+Japan) all seeming to be at war with each other at times, how was that good for them or the consumer? and as for sequels..hello? just how much did they milk Sonic on MD/G.G/MS etc? Sonic CD was massive let down, Sonic in a MK clone (Sonic Drift).

As for Atari:yeah, like they were the gamers friend during the Lynx+Jaguar era, happy to have updates of classic franchises churned out that lacked an ounce of soul that made the original's special in the 1st place.


Sega's innovation's? what like put out an expensive add-on that can out-do the SNES in Mode 7 stuff but instead don't use a fraction of the potential for you know, honest to god games, just pump out make my video shit instead?

Sega's own internal conflicts and desperation to retain market share, along with utter arrogance that no-one could touch them in terms of 32 Bit hardware, pushed them out, as we've discussed many a time on here.


E.A were churning out sequels long before PS era and as we've mentioned on here, all Playstation did in good few cases was see a game in development switch from 3DO to PS1+saturn, so had PS1 not arrived and it was just 3DO/Saturn, you can bet they'd have still stopped 3DO development in favour of the Saturn version.

I loved E.A's output during the 16 Bit era, my interest peaked during the 32 Bit era.

Konami, Silent Hill and MGS aside (niether of which had a sequel until PS2!) were for myself a much more vibrant developer in the 16 Bit era than they were during the 32 Bit era.

The industry was always heading way it was, advent of RISC chips, CD storage etc, did'nt matter who made the hardware, results would have turned out the way they did.


Sony lacked the experience of Sega, CBM, Atari etc, but they made steps to ensure they had the right developers on board (Psygnosis, Capcom etc) they were'nt going around saying we don't need you, we're big enough to go on our own (unlike Sega), but by god by end of the Playstation 1 era they'd joined the ranks of crass arrogance that saw the downfall of Atari+Sega that's for sure.....

PS2 just fuelled that arrogance and PS3 cost them dear and now it's MS's turn to realise you cannot think your untouchable just because you win 1 hardware generation and your trying to tell customers you know best.

MS only entered console gaming over fears PS2 would take total market share in terms of the 1-stop content box in the living room and Sony only entered as they did after Nintendo did the dirty on them with the SNES CD drive deal, so in reality, moment they annouced deal with Phillips for CD drive is the day the shot was fired and gaming 'died' for many of you....

[TL]

Soulless - has no soul. An ugly grey box made by faceless people who worked for a faceless corporate entity and features endless generic games, most of which have aged terribly.

I don't really care about any of the other stuff you said to be honest.

Atari and Sega had personality, you knew the people behind every project whether it be a success or a failure. It was a rollercoaster of emotion, excitement and sadness but always thrilling.

Sony will never invoke that amount of emotion in me ever. Not even close.

[Carlos]

Some very interesting points of view here,  Laird would your opinion of The PS have been any more favourable, even slightly if the Net Yaroze were less expensive?

I personally love the Playstation, but think they dropped the ball by making the development tools so dear.

Thanks for all your comments though. 

[Rogue Trooper]

Soulless - has no soul. An ugly grey box made by faceless people who worked for a faceless corporate entity and features endless generic games, most of which have aged terribly.

I don't really care about any of the other stuff you said to be honest.

Atari and Sega had personality, you knew the people behind every project whether it be a success or a failure. It was a rollercoaster of emotion, excitement and sadness but always thrilling.

Sony will never invoke that amount of emotion in me ever. Not even close.

[TL]

I don't care, as in none of that really bothered me or concerned me to such a degree it put me off. There is no debate about it to be had from my point of view. You hated those things and I didn't.

From the points you have made it's clear we don't agree on any of it so it's best to just forget about it and move on rather than argue about it.

Agree to disagree.

[Rogue Trooper]

I don't care, as in none of that really bothered me or concerned me to such a degree it put me off. There is no debate about it to be had from my point of view. You hated those things and I didn't.

From the points you have made it's clear we don't agree on any of it so it's best to just forget about it and move on rather than argue about it.

Agree to disagree.

Where's the conflict here?

We both, as gamers lived through the 32 Bit era, i ended up buying and enjoying games on Saturn, Jaguar and Playstation have posted much on all 3 formats on here as everyone knows.

Plus there's no getting away from the fact that as Core Design proved with Tomb Raider on Jag CD and E.A with Soviet Strike, those games would have appeared on a format, be it Sony or otherwise.

It's nothing to do with personal perference, in terms of platforms, much more about the entire way industry was changing at that time.You had likes of Hideo K.who'd had game concepts in his head for years and was just waiting for technology to catch up, so he could implement them.

All i 'hated' was spending large sums of money on hardware and software that dissapointed, which i still do now-only difference is i've more income than i did all those years back.

But......

Whatever.

[TL]

There is no conflict here, just differing opinions and that is all it is.

And it is personal preference in many ways, for example you just mentioned Hideo Kojima - I can't stand any of his games, especially Metal Gear Solid.

I had far more fun with the Jaguar, Mega CD and Saturn than I ever did with the PS1. You didn't, fair enough. Like I said each to their own. 

(I am splitting this off to so as not to derail Carl's topic further)

[Rogue Trooper]

There is no conflict here, just differing opinions and that is all it is.

And it is personal preference in many ways, for example you just mentioned Hideo Kojima - I can't stand any of his games, especially Metal Gear Solid.

I had far more fun with the Jaguar, Mega CD and Saturn than I ever did with the PS1. You didn't, fair enough. Like I said each to their own. 

(I am splitting this off to so as not to derail Carl's topic further)

Hideo is very hit and miss (and full of shit-MGS3 was to be his last MGS game, then MGS 4 etc), i loved MGS, 2 was utter, utter garbage (but i won't repeat my comments on that), MGS 3 was flawed genius, MGS 4 is ok, not tried eith Acid game on PSP, Port.Op's was good, Peace walker fantastic. (oh and i find MCD Snatcher to be hideously over-rated)

But point about mentioning him was he'd had the concepts for MGS since the MSX/NES days, but he just had to wait until home consoles were 32 Bit Risc based CD machines and then could make those ideas a reality, MGS was not born because of Playstation per say, it's conception took place many years before.

Same with Alien Trilogy:Probe started it as a MCD game, realised technology was'nt going to do it justice so waited...

Tomb Raider (A series i've tried on PS1, then DC, then PSP, then PS2, then PS3 and now have loan of latest on 360) might well have been a different game had the Jag CD been a different story, but Core were at the time very much fans of the Saturn, as you'll know by interviews i lent you/quotes posted up on here.Game would have appeared on Saturn+Pc even if PS had never appeared.

I've always found games far too frustrating to be enjoyable, but they were big sellers, hence they kept getting sequels.

The MCD owning years? seriousily were bloody frustrating-I bought it on day 1, had to wait ages for releases and just when it seemed Sega were finally grasping the concept of how to enhance cart games (a la 3D sections of Batman Returns), they released another load of FMV shit.Had they gone the route of Batman Returns, Eternal Champions SE etc rather than FMV rubbish, MCD might be more fondly remembered.

It was'nt enough to leave it upto likes of Core, Virgin etc to tap into hardware's potential, Sega should have supported it far better in terms of using the hardware, instead we often saw cart games out-performing the CD versions, which was'nt why i'd blown my savings on a MCD.

 
As a long term gamer, i'm sorry but i cannot single out just 1 company for screwing shit up, in terms of the industry-Each and everyone has grown as arrogant as those before it.

[davyk]

The PS1, while host to a lot of stuff I loathe , and for me represents chav gaming at its worst, actually plays host to quite a few interesting games.

Kurushi (developed by Sony in-house), Vib Ribbon, Devil Dice, Mr Domino, One Piece Mansion, Landmaker, Bishi Bashi Special, Power Diggerz, Puchi Carat (with paddle controller) are just a few I could mention that deserve some attention.

Shmup-wise it also has a stonking version of Gradius - Gradius Gaiden is pretty special. R-Type Delta has aged quite well too for its use of 3D. PS1 In The hunt (kind of Metal Slug in a submarine) is glorious too and by all accounts more solid that the Saturn effort (as is DoDonPachi - at least when not played in TATE mode). The ports of the Parodius games have some exclusive features and it's a lot better at 2D shmups than it is given credit for all told (though I still prefer the Saturn),

It got a couple of excellent Castlevania Games (I actually prefer Chronicles to SOTN as its a nice remake of the Sharp computer version - an earlier game in the linear style which to me is the way that series should have stayed. The PS1 version has a TT mode to unlock too).

Metal Slug X is a nice port with some bonuses on the disc worth a look. Q-Bert got an excellent remake done too.

More traditionally - the later racing games like R4 and Wipeout 3SE have aged rather well and feature linkup modes that are unique to that gen,

Tempest X3 is different from T2K which is all good if you are a fan and I can remember Yak posting about it being an interesting variation on the original - albeit with some slip-ups.

The controller is so-so but there are plenty of reasons to own a PS1.

[Rogue Trooper]

It had Strider 1+2, Blood Omen:Legacy Of Kain, Bubble Bobble pack, Einhander, Xenogears, Parasite Eve, warzone 2100 (Pumpkin Studios were bringing to DC, but closed before work really got going, sob), Silent Hill (Import ver.none of the censorship gubbins), Colony Wars (at last a console Space Opera shooter like PC's had), Capcom Generations, , Xcom, C+C, C+C Red Alert, Overboard......


And i bloody loved it for it.

It also had:Plastic lens holder warping, skipping FMV etc.

Which i was not  so keen on...