As in other areas of computing, 1994 saw a huge transition in the video game industry. Among the consoles vying for top spot were the Panasonic 3DO, the Super Nintendo, Sega's Mega Drive, Amiga CD32 and the Atari Jaguar. Most of them are history now, since the Amiga 32, Panasonic 3DO and Amiga CD32 - which all promised to be the future of gaming - never broke the dominance of Nintendo or Sega. It was an innocent year for gameplayers, unaware for the most part that Sony was about to change the industry forever. Sony spent much of 1994 eyeing the market carefully, seeing the mistakes others had made, and was about to unleash the mighty PlayStation. The target audience, however, had been stung with "super consoles" before and nobody could have predicted the huge success and impact the PlayStation would have - least of all Nintendo, which had the console market more or less sewn up. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) was still the console to have and it had some super games, literally. Titles such as Super Metroid, Super Bomberman and the super Super Mario Kart were the best around in the early part of the year, and many people were still enjoying Super Mario Brothers. Sega was doing okay, but about to hit a brick wall. Sonic the Hedgehog was already in his third adventure. Despite bringing out the Mega 32x add-on for the Mega Drive, Sega was heading for hard times.
PC games half a decade ago obviously did not make the same demands on processing power, but they still liked to utilise everything which was available. A 386SX 16MHz PC with 2MB RAM would run most games and a 486DX was a dream machine. There was no need for 3D video accelerators and most PCs didn't come with a sound card, so unless it was purchased and installed separately, all the gamer heard were a few bips and squeaks, if he/ she was lucky.
CD-Roms were far from ubiquitous. Most games didn't need them, but installing a game took an age, as it had to be loaded onto the PC with a multitude of diskettes. Some games, however, were released on both diskette and CD-format. In soccer games, the CD version was able to offer commentary from the likes of Tony Gubba, and in adventure games you could now listen to the dialogue instead of reading it. These kinds of extras made for a whole new gaming experience and compelled PC owners to buy CD-Rom drives. Almost every PC game ran only in DOS, but unless you were a wizard at configuring extended and expanded memory in DOS, a lot of them never ran at all. Playing multiplayer games via modem was almost unheard of - and playing them over the Internet was pie in the sky.
While there have been tremendous changes in the last five years, the old cliche applies, and a lot of things remain the same. On a positive note, game prices haven't changes much and if anything are lower now. Back then Gabriel Knight on PC cost £42.99 and Wolf3D on the SNES would have set you back £52.99. Five years ago, the biggest hits were Zelda 3, Sim City 2000 and Doom. This year, some of the biggest games are Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Sim City 3000 and later in the year Quake III Arena will continue the Doom theme. Even in 1994, Zelda 3 et al were sequels. Of course the games have improved tremendously but in another five years, will we be playing Sim City 4000? Since 1994, there has been only one new major game icon to take the world by storm - namely Lara Croft of Tomb Raider. But who knows what the next five years will bring? Sega will try to resurrect its fortunes with the Dreamcast (to be released before Christmas in Ireland), Sony is working on its new console and the Nintendo 2000 will no doubt surface as well. Hopefully there will be a few surprises in store too.
games@irish-times.ie