1994 in Gaming and July 8th, 2014

1994: One of Video Game's Best Years

(Much Longer Post at my gaming blog)

This year is the 20th Anniversary of 1994, one of the greatest years in gaming.  When it comes to film buffs, there is a popular discussion "game" they like to play where they argue for the greatest year in movies ever.  When it comes to gaming, a few years stick out.  Good years for launching new franchises in the United States include 1987, with Zelda, Contra, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy all showing up.  In 1996, polygonal games finally came into their own with Tomb Raider, Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot.  In 1994 it was a great year for redefining genres, making hugely popular sequels, and launching franchises that would become billion dollar makers.

Let's look at a list of tech:  Sega went crazy and released the portable Sega Genesis, known as the Nomad, but also the Sega 32x, and a few months after that the Sega Saturn, all in one year.  They did also create the first non-physical game distribution network by a major player in games: The Sega Channel.  It used cable boxes to send Genesis games to players.  The failed Neo Geo CD and NEC PC-FX were also released, and at the very end of the year, the Sony Playstation came to Japan.

There are 3 big releases that can put this year in the history books by themselves.  A new company renamed to Blizzard released Warcraft.  Warcraft took the pioneering real time strategy genre and bought it to mainstream with a story, city building elements and Artificial Intelligence good enough to let a player multi-task their war.  Final Fantasy 6 was released and expanded what game telling could be.  It brought to the forefront issues that were before censored out of non-PC games.  It expanded what RPG's could be by adding mini-games, genre-bending additions of real time strategy, Fighting games, rhythm games and even added an opera.  It took place in a Victorian Steam-punk world before steam-punk was on the radar by a decade.  And finally we come to game 3, Super Metroid.  A game widely regarded as in the contention for greatest game of all time.  The attention to detail, the animation quality, and even shocking players with spoken dialogue.

Even my longer blog post is shorter than I wanted, but I cut it down.  To finish this off, I'll list some games that came out or came to North America in 1994: Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat 2(SNES uncensored, a BIG deal in gaming history), Tekken, Daytona USA, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo(Akuma introduced), System Shock, Doom 2, Sonic and Knuckles, Epic's first hit Jazz Jackrabbit(they make Unreal and Gears of War), Bungee made their first FPS named Marathon(they go on to make Halo and Destiny), Earthworm Jim, Earthbound, The Elder Scrolls; Arena, Breath of Fire 2, Lunar Eternal Blue, Robotrek, Shadowrun(Genesis)



July 8th, 2014

When I was younger I could drink goatmilk fresh from the goat.  A little later I stopped being able to do it because of the flavor, its weird how things like that change.  I'm meaning from age 4 to 6, it was that fast.  Anyway, I was reintroduced to goatmilk through the use of goat cheese at the first restaurant I worked in and also a goat milk gouda I imported once(I imported sheep's milk gouda too.. it wasn't great).  I've found that I like mixing it about 25% whip cream and 75% goat milk, it makes a savory sort of cream cheesey spread for grilled bread that is really good.  I'll be making some of this Wednesday night and topping it with some salsa.

The beginning to Final Fantasy 6 is just as great as the first time I played it.  Unlike 4, 7, 10 and 13, the game doesn't start on a big exciting, high energy spectacle... it starts with a somber trek through the snow to a sleepy coal powered town.  It was well after my first play throughs that I realized that the game was "steampunk", as in the mid-90's the term Steampunk had not yet reached mainstream as it has now.  I'm realizing now just how somber the game is all around, and that kind of fits the theme of being a industrial revolution Victorian society.  The instruments chosen to make the soundtrack are very classical as well, the drums are hugely bombastic, when horrible things happen the pipe organ comes out, every time I play this game I come across new things to appreciate.  I am appreciating things like fully spelled out words and non-broken sentences in the translation, but it still irks me to read "son of a sandworm" instead of "son of a submariner".  Having a portrait of Kefka to see while he speaks does help put emphasis on his madness from the start, and is a nice touch.

ACDC... yes, again!  Actual news this time though.  Lately it takes ACDC a long time to get an album out.  The last couple met delays of a couple of years because of publishers and all that(ACDC doesn't let the studios jerk them around).  So when they announced they were making an album this year with Malcolm in the hospital, I took the news with a grain of salt.  Johnson often says things to just keep the band in the news, as he said they'd have a record out by 2010 after the Black Ice tour was over.  He now says the album is done, recorded, and off to the mixers.  It will be interesting to hear what ACDC sounds like with less Malcolm influence, as he's been the base song writer and musical backbone for the band since the beginning.  I'm interested in who the producer on the album is, since ACDC is greatly influenced by their producer.  I would not mind another Brendan O'brien album, but ACDC rarely works with the same producers twice in a row.