What game defined the machine?
Community Forums/Technical Discourse/What game defined the machine?
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| If someone asked you to name a game which defined a particular machine thus putting said machine on the map which would it be? Here's my view: C64 There are so many good titles I can't really nail down a game which defines the C64. Maniac Mansion could well be one of them though. Spectrum If you mention the speccy to me I think of Back to skool, Manic Miner but Knight Lore is such a defining moment for that machine. Amiga It's Defender of the Crown for me. The jaw dropping graphics set out to show what could be done. However Lemmings could well be the ultimate game changer and is strongly linked to the Amiga. BBC Model B Elite anyone? That's the only real game that defines this machine. Playstation It can only be the release title Ridge Racer. However Wipeout was also a game firmly imprinted in the the land of the Playstation. Snes Super Mario World would have to be the game to define this console. Megadrive Another machine with an obvious choice - Sonic the Hedgehog. Atari VCS Adventure hands down. What's your choice? There are many other consoles/systems to choose from too which I have not mentioned. Game Boy, MSX, Saturn, Nes .. |
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| 90's PC - Doom and Quake |
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| Playstation = final fantasy 7/8/9, Rageracer, GTA |
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| Apple ][: Wolfenstein. Xbox 360: Gears Of War. Xbox One: I'd love to say Gears of War 4, but that would be overrating Gears 4. I'm afraid the defining game for the Xbox One hasn't been made yet. PS4: Uncharted 4. 90's PC: Doom, yes, no doubt. And at the end of the 1990s, Half-Life (which used an enhanced Quake engine.) |
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| C64 Straight off the cuff here, otherwise I could be listing games all night. Paradroid, Mercenary, Enigma Force, Wizball, Parallax, Uridium, Monty on the Run, Thing on a Spring. I even liked Rambo - I know, I'm sorry. Oh, and Hypersports. What a cracking conversion from the arcade game that was. Spectrum I played a bit on a mates Spectrum but never had my own. I can't say I ever played an arcade game on that platform that ever impressed me, as I was no fan of the computer, being a die-hard C64 lover. I'm giving the thumbs up to The Hobbit, though. I did play a lot of that on Sunday afternoons for several weeks one year. Amiga Lots of contenders here. Really hard to make a call. I'd go with the ones that immediately come to mind. Kick Off. Speedball II. Xenon II. Bloodwych. Damocles. I seem to remember having a fair bit of fun with Shoot-em-up construction kit, too. But I do remember it being a very lazy port of the C64 version. BBC Model B Elite. Hands down. Nothing else could touch it. Not even close. Playstation I'd be tempted to say Ridge Racer here, too. Or possibly the second one, Revolution. But I was a huge fan of Wipeout 2097 - not the original. Oh, and Doom. But then you have the original Destruction Derby. My god, it's so hard for this console. Snes Can't comment. Never owned or played on one. Megadrive I had a MegaCD for a while and I think the name of the game was Thunderhawk. A Core Design game, if I remember rightly. I was well impressed with that. And Mortal Kombat II, now that I think about it. Played those more than anything else on that platform. Atari VCS Tough one this as I never owned a VCS myself, but did play a few times at a mates house on this. None of the games struck me as that memorable. Maybe River Raid... Vic 20 Not one of the original categories, but I'm old enough to have owned one and it was my first computer, so tough! Envahi - I still play this even now. I'm going to do a remake one day. Revenge of the Quadra. Matrix. Myriad. Arcadia. Defender - Anirog's 16k version. Omega Race on cartridge. I played a lot of Voodoo Castle too - as I was stuck right near the end for weeks. And an honorable mention to Radar Rat Race - even if it was a reskin of game to prevent being sued. It was still good fun. |
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| ATARI VCS - sadly it would have to be Pac Man. That showed just how outclassed the machine had become in a short time. Though my personal vote goes for the Asteroids port which was mediocre. Amiga - the Star Was walker demo, jaw dropping at the time. Shadow of the Beast for graphics in a game (forget the gameplay). |
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| I would say 'Donkey Kong country' defined the snes. Never owned one or played it. but everyone knew about it when it came out and i'm sure jumped sales a bit. |
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| I seem to recall Loderunner was a big thing for the Vic20 back in the day. This was also when Brøderbund was considered a top tier game developer. <edit> in fact I think you could make a convincing case that Brøderbund defined the Vic20 with titles such as Choplifter, Lode Runner and Prince of Persia |
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| Also Sega Genesis has got to be Sonic the Hedgehog. |
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| C64 - Last Ninja series. Spectrum - no idea Amiga - Chaos Engine maybe? Or Moonstone? Those were games that came out on Amiga first and they really shone on it. BBC Model B - Eh..? Playstation - Wipeout? Tomb Raider? Tekken? No wait... FF7! Snes - Super Mario World or maybe Zelda: Link to the Past Megadrive - Sonic Atari VCS and Vic 20 - No idea |
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| If someone asked you to name a game which defined a particular machine thus putting said machine on the map which would it be? For this there can be no clear cut answer; there are just way too many. And opinions would vary wildly based on each individuals experience of the hardware. If anything, it would be down to what games were all time best sellers for that machine, or those that pushed new boundaries on it's limited hardware. Here's my take on the one most notable for each machine. Commodore C64 - Last Ninja, Uridium. Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Jetpac, Miner Willy series (MM,JSW etc), Ant Attack, Knight Lore, Alien 8, Skool Daze, The Hobbit. Commodore Amiga - Gods, Chaos Engine, Worms, Lemmings, Another World. Acorn BBC Model B - Repton series, Elite. Sony Playstation - Resident Evil. SNES - Mario series, Donky Kong series Sega Megadrive - Sonic series Atari VCS (2600) - Pitfall, PacMan. XBox - Halo series. |
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| So many good games and some systems I have no clue on, but I'll just pick one game for each. PC - Doom. Spectrum - Manic Miner. Amiga - Defender of the Crown. Atari ST - Dungeon Master. BBC Model B - Elite. Archimedes - Zarch. Playstation - Wipeout. Snes - Mario Kart. Megadrive - Sonic the Hedgehog. Atari VCS - Pitfall. |
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| I can't choose one game. Amiga - NewZealand story / Magic Pockets. SNES - Super Mario Kart / Street Fighter. |
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| Amiga, populous II or powermonger..... Powermonger. Speccy, jetsetwilly. Now available for LAN play, that's spanning the decades if ever a game can hold that accolade. |
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| Oric/Atmos - The Hobbit, wouldn't like the best (well the one I owned) 8 bit system to be overlooked :) Have fun cps |
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| Just to validate some opinions here... Atari 2600 - Spy Vs. Spy Spectrum - Jet Set Willy C64 - Boulder dash Nes - Mario Sega Megadrive - Sonic Snes - Super Mario + StreeFighter (have to mention both) Amiga - Turrican (this was difficult) PC- Doom Playstation - Final Fantasy VII Playstation 2 - Tekken Playstation 3 - GTA IV -Henri Ps. Honorable mention for Manic Miner |
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| I'd like to mention an alternative title for PC.... ' Wing Commander ' (1 and 2) - of course not as defining as doom but a break through title that put the PC on the map compared to other systems at the time.... |
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| Wait, what? Spy v Spy came out on the VCS?!?!?! |
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| @Xerra: According to Atari Mania there was a game called Spy Vs Spy for the Atari VCS 2600 made in 1983 and was part of a 4-in-1 cartridge. It has no resemblance to the Spy Vs. Spy version release for the C64 or the other conversion to 8 bit computers. |
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| MSX Antarctic Adventure (full colour [pseudo] 3D in 1984!) Amiga Gods Saturn Sega Rally Championship Dreamcast Shenmue 1 / 2 |
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| Comodore 64 : Bubble bobble - Turrican NES : Megaman 2 - Metroid 1 - Zelda 1 (thoose was start from big legacies) SNes : Super Metroid - Zelda N64 : Zelda OOC - Goldeneye - Mario 64 GameCube : WindWaker (yep, I think the Zelda serie is more representative of Nintendo than any Mario) Sega Master System : Wonderboy - Alex Kid (easy one, this game was sold with the console) Megadrive : Sonic the hedgehog (wether or not I hate this game, I must admit it's a cult game) Playstation : FF VII - Metal Gear - Spiro Then for me, gaming on PC really started in the end of the 90's, with big games (that are actually the most emblematic PC games for me) : StarCraft - Diablo 2 - Half Life Pc games nowdays : - Borderlands Saga - FarCry saga - Diablo 3 - and tons of brilliant indie games like World Of Goo, Limbo etc ... |
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| As Matty mentioned, Wing Commander for the PC - at least in terms of starting the 'arms race' for better video cards and processing power. Back then you needed a 486DX to run it smoothly - which was quite a big jump from the 386's most people used. |
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| I was never impressed with that game. It just seemed like a game on rails. Doom did it without a hardware upgrade. |
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| BBC Model B - Exile: a platform adventure game with a huge world (for the time) and a nice newtonian physics model. Lots of cool stuff to do with a real sense of exploration. One of the very few BBC games that started there and got ported to C64, Atari ST and Amiga. It was marketed like Elite was at the time - big fancy box, novella, etc. but didn't really get the mind share of Elite. Technically massively impressive, though. |
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| Doom for the PC was starting point for PC gaming from my point of view. Before that I just looked at PC's as some boring office-based machines for creating bar charts and wordpress documents. Doom was the title to push things forward and drag me kicking and screaming from the dying corpse that my Amiga was turning into. Yes the PC looked awful and felt really clunky but it was the only path to turn to once the Amiga lost its way. |
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| The years of the Amiga dying were heartbreaking. I remember building my first PC in 1998, with the help of a friend, and thinking it's the end of an era as I put my A1200 in the shed. I left home and forgot it was even there and it got thrown out a few years later when the family moved away, without me even knowing about it until much later. It was a sad day when I got told about it. |
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| Love these nostalgic threads. :) My first "PC" was a C64 (unpacking first apartment in 1989, C64 in corner by TV and stereo)...  And then a Tandy 1000 SX (no HDD, no math coprocessor, CGA)...  And then my first *real* PC in 1993 (486 DX2/66) ...   I added 16MB RAM for only $624.00!...  ...along with a Colorado Tape Backup (above for $319.00) which I still use...  And then a 17" ViewSonic monitor after getting SoundBlaster multimedia (CD-ROM, sound card and speakers)...   along with upgrading to DOS 6.22 and Win95...  ++++++++++ This was all for AutoCAD/MicroStation, but Wolfenstein 3D and then DOOM is what really got me thinking that a PC could be more than just an awesome production tool! But the one that *really* hooked me was...   |
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| Amstrad CPC464 Target Renegade Spectrum Chaos War Of Wizards Xbox 360 Dead Rising Amiga Lemmings Playstation 3 GTA IV Megadrive Streets Of Rage 2 |
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| @MarkG - thanks for those pics. A little window into the 90s. I'd never go back to CRTs and floppies, but still get a tremendous surge of fondness from seeing them set up on a desk looking totally normal, but totally antiquated. Absolutely do not miss having an electron gun firing at my face for 10 hours a day. |
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| C64 - Treasure Island and fireAnt Amiga - The settlers |
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| Ah yes, The Settlers On the Amiga, infact yes, better than Lemmings. :) Just seeing those gfx makes me very nostalgic. I just loved the road system in that game. |
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| Amiga = Sensible Soccer (World of) or Cannon Fodder: Amstrad CPC = Roland games ;) @The Settlers... I still can hear the "Yippee" in my head! |
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| Ooo Sensible Soccer - good call...As was Lemmings from some people...Lemmings was always an Amiga game in my eyes...I always thought Lemmings and Battle Chess was also a couple of Amiga classics. |
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| It's hard to pick any one game to be the presentive for Amiga as there were so many equally great games. Absolutely loved SWOS. There was even a chance to be selected as a manager for national team where you could hand pick your players from clubs around the world. How cool was that :-). For some reason I thought Settlers was popular in Germany and Scandinavia only (I believe the developer Blue Byte was German and the original name was Die Siedler), but I guess in Britain too. -Henri |
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