Lol, we did a show about ripoffs in gaming for Xleague, and found some utterly horrific clones that went under the eyes of publishers just because they weren't American.
The Karate Champ one is a prime example, World Karate Champ had been out in the UK for years under the name International Karate, and noone batted an eyelid.
Check out Frank Bruno's Boxing too, see how much that rips off Punch-Out!!! again, not a peep from Nintendo!
And not a single "girls love to play with joysticks" joke Jeremiah, such a wasted opportunity ^_-
That story about Lara Croft originally being a male character but CORE changed him to avoid comparisons with Indiana Jones. For years i've been trying to find out if the original premise was actually supposed to be a 3D Rick Dangerous game (which would kinda fit) but theres no info anywhere.
BTW, can you give me a shout sometime Mr. Black, been meaning to have a word for ages!
I think theres still mascots around today, they're just more human-like now, take Master Chief and Kratos for instance. Even even the newest one, a murderous Russian immagrant, who'd have thunk?
Oh, you alsk spelt Alex Kidd wrong, he's made a kind of comeback recently.
I suppose so, but you could also just consider them as a changing wave of mascots (flavor of the month even). But you do see a lot of new mascots on cell phone games nowadays, maybe thats where they've gone!
I did come up with an idea for a flash animation we were going to do online ages ago about a made up ex-gaming mascot called "Jynx the Lynx", who was lined up to be a massive franchise in the early 90's, but game just completly bombed, so he was axed,
The episodes were about him desperatly trying to get back in the limelight, but putting constantly putting his foot in it the moment he got a break :D
Is there any chance on following it up with one on Gunpey Yokoi at all? I know you've mentioned him in other videos before, but I feel he's just as much responsible for Nintendo's success as much as Shigsy is. They've just seemed to have whitewashed his credits because of the Virtual Boy mishap.
I've always thought of arcades as the cinema/movie theatres of the video game industry, you played a game in the arcade, loved it, then waited 18 months hoping for a half decent conversion for your computer/console.
And they're like that now, they let you do what you can't (or can't afford to do) at home, noone owns a 5000 inch screen after all ^_^
Oh, BTW have you ever thought on doing a feature on "Whatever happened to Virtual Reality?" another concept being hailed as the future of gaming (ans er... medical science) but crawled into a corner and died quietly. That's be an awesome addition what with all the FPS's being big lately.
Will do, though I remember seeing stacks of them in a clearance sale in Woolworths and not buying one. Something i've been kicking myself over for years.
I'd also love to but a Pippen someday too. Just something about failed consoles, just because they failed, dosn't mean they had bad games releasd on them.
I'm trying to find the Commodore 64 Games Console at the moment, the C64GS can't find one anywhere, not because they're rare of essentially valuable, just noone bothered buying one.
Just they're short lived venture into the gaming market possibly to compete with another computer company, Amstrad and their piece of crap console, the GX4000.
I think really that Nintendo seeing how much the Sega/Mega CD screwed Sega up, gave them cold feet about releasing a CD system. That and being overly neurotic about people pirating their systems, main reason why they stuck to carts with the N64.
I loved Howard Lincoln's stern words in 1992 that Night Trap would never be released on a Nintendo console, kinda ironic seeing they didn't have technology that could play Night Trap anyway for another ten years.
Guru Larry - ScrewAttack.com
& Presenter on the European video game channel XLEAGUE.TV
The problem with Sega is they keep turning 3D Sonic games into uncontrollable, glitchy Rollercoaster sims, when they should be somewhere between Tony Hawks and Prince of Persia in gameplay.
But they've really damaged the Hedgehog's reputation, they should give him a rest for a while (like they did in the Saturn years) and resseurect their original mascot, Alex Kidd!!!
I'm going to have to disagree with him saying there were no decent games at all on the Sega CD, Sonic CD, Final Fight CD and Snatcher are all time faves amongst gamers on the system. And while it did have what ammounts to second-hand shovel ware like Night Trap and Sherlock Holmes from abandoned VHS/CD consoles, it wasn't as bad as people make it out to be.
Can I be smug and say I managed to buy an Official UK Turbographx 16 a few years ago? Dosn't sound interesting until you learn that the system was never released here.
NEC sold about 100 prototypes/beta machines to Telegames, but for some reason never really pushed it, possibly as the MD was already established here and the SNES was on the horizon.
It's almost exactly the same as the US one, even being only compatible with US games, only difference is they dropped the "16" bit, so it's just "Turbographx".
Definetly, I do the same for a living and I don't think too many people realise the ammount of footage you need to create to make a short video thats so well and tightly edited.
I really enjoy them, kudos to you and your passionate hard work Sir!
Guru Larry - ScrewAttack.com
& Presenter on the European video game channel XLEAGUE.TV
I liked Codemasters/Camerica/Galoob's way around the copyright by using an official cart to bypass the code to play their games (The Aladdin Game Enhancer).
Since they wern't stealing anything they couldn't be sued. They only really died because they had legitimatly cracked it too late in the NES's life.
Guru Larry - ScrewAttack.com
& Presenter on the European video game channel XLEAGUE.TV
It's kinda ironic to an extent that the same thing is happening with the Wii at the moment, for every Mario Galaxy, theres a ton of shovelware crap from other publishers trying to jump on the minigame bandwagon.
But a common misconception is it was only Atari US that imploded in the gaming crash, Atari Europe was still chugging along rather comfortably putting out arcade games as while the VCS died, they could fall back onto other systems that were emerging like the ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, Commodore 64 and the Amstrad CPC. Kinda what Sega did years later.
Guru Larry - ScrewAttack.com
& Presenter on the European video game channel XLEAGUE.TV
Maxwell was a real piece of shit though, he embezzeled millions of peoples retirements funds into his failing Mirror group and lost everything, also extremly interesting read on how he died, just found his body one day floating in the Atlantic Ocean.
Gotta feel sorry for Alexy Pajitnov, didn't make a penny from Tetris (until recently), went to the US to set up his own puzzle game company which went bust, and now makes "Casual Games" for Microsoft.
Maxwell was absolutely livid about losing out on the rights, he fired his son who was hear od Mirrorsoft and started blackmailing the Russian government into giving him the rights OR ELSE!!!
I think he did gain some rights, possibly buying what little rights Stien had for pennies.
Nintendo also owns a video diary (a week of footage from the flight there to leaving for Japan) of the whole deal as they didn't 100% trust the Soviets, which I only know as clips have been shown ina BBC documentary about the whole case.
But the whole thing would make a great movie tho, people laugh if you pitched a Tetris movie, but it would be pretty good.
Guru Larry - ScrewAttack.com
& Presenter on the European video game channel XLEAGUE.TV
The Master System was anything but a failure, while Nintendo did have it by the neck in the US, Sega had obliterated the NES in Europe and parts of Asia, I grew up in the UK and only one chemist chain store sold NESes. Infact it was partially Nintendo's fault, snubbing Woolworths in the UK was an absolute catastrophy for them.
Guru Larry - Screwattack.com
& Presenter on European Video Game channel XLEAGUE.TV
I remember that, we had quite a few clones of the Intellevision over here, the Granstand being the most famous. Imagine a store doing that nowadays though? Nice Wal-Mart PS3 with a side of Lawsuit!
Oh, I was thinking about the "what if.." scenario and one of the reasons the 7800 bombed (bar the rivalry with Nintendo) was that people no longer trusted the brand, they'd been burnt twice before. That and they were just the exact same games as you said.
So What I think would have happened was that Sega would have won the 8-Bit war, as no Nintendo, no licensing problem.
Nintendo would have come back with the SNES in 1991, while they wouldn't have been as popular, they'd have built their reputation by now, so we'd probably be where we are today still. Sega would still hae screwed themselves over by releasing too many consoles at one time.
If it took MS 5 years to get to this position in the Console war today, Nintendo could easily have done it in 16.
I think you'd be right, Atari had a knack of producing new consoles and then not release them for years.
BTW odd question, Did Mattel make a version of the NES in the US? They did over here, you could buy a "Mattel Version" and a "NES version" Nintendo. I had a Mattel one, which was not as good in the long run, the NES version could play games from any region. Mattel one could only play games from the UK and Canada bizarrely.
Also makes you think "What if Atari had gone ahead with the Nintendo Deal?" Would we be playing the Atari Entertainment System, would Atari still be around in their original guise today, or even more, would Atari have just sat on the rights and instead concentrated on the 7800 and thus muscled out a possible competetor.
But it all turned out well in the end, until Nintendo got in shit with the US government for having a bully like monopoly on the industry.
Arcades could still be resseurected, if they could revive them like they did with cinema when home video almost killed it. by giving the user an expierence they can't have at home. (though you could say thats why "gimicky" arcade games like DDR do well) But the possibility of releasing games in arcades before home could be viable.
But one thing that arcades should have embrased was online arcade games, esepcially when broadband was too expensive for most people. Atari had a quick stab at it with dial up games, which was stupid, and Sega did pretty well with online Virtua fighter games in Japan. (also Half-Life 2 arcade) but in whole a missed opportunity.
Then again, maybe thats what LAN/Cyber Cafe's became.
Guru Larry - ScrewAttack.com
& Presenter on the European video game channel XLEAGUE.TV
Play Value - Mine!...Gaming and Copyright
Lol, we did a show about ripoffs in gaming for Xleague, and found some utterly horrific clones that went under the eyes of publishers just because they weren't American.
The Karate Champ one is a prime example, World Karate Champ had been out in the UK for years under the name International Karate, and noone batted an eyelid.
Check out Frank Bruno's Boxing too, see how much that rips off Punch-Out!!! again, not a peep from Nintendo!
Play Value - Women In Gaming
And not a single "girls love to play with joysticks" joke Jeremiah, such a wasted opportunity ^_-
That story about Lara Croft originally being a male character but CORE changed him to avoid comparisons with Indiana Jones. For years i've been trying to find out if the original premise was actually supposed to be a 3D Rick Dangerous game (which would kinda fit) but theres no info anywhere.
BTW, can you give me a shout sometime Mr. Black, been meaning to have a word for ages!
Play Value - Gaming Mascots
I think theres still mascots around today, they're just more human-like now, take Master Chief and Kratos for instance. Even even the newest one, a murderous Russian immagrant, who'd have thunk?
Oh, you alsk spelt Alex Kidd wrong, he's made a kind of comeback recently.
Play Value - Gaming Mascots
I suppose so, but you could also just consider them as a changing wave of mascots (flavor of the month even). But you do see a lot of new mascots on cell phone games nowadays, maybe thats where they've gone!
I did come up with an idea for a flash animation we were going to do online ages ago about a made up ex-gaming mascot called "Jynx the Lynx", who was lined up to be a massive franchise in the early 90's, but game just completly bombed, so he was axed, The episodes were about him desperatly trying to get back in the limelight, but putting constantly putting his foot in it the moment he got a break :D
How you been BTW dude, not spoken in ages!
Play Value - Shigeru Miyamoto
Great documentary there!!!
Is there any chance on following it up with one on Gunpey Yokoi at all? I know you've mentioned him in other videos before, but I feel he's just as much responsible for Nintendo's success as much as Shigsy is. They've just seemed to have whitewashed his credits because of the Virtual Boy mishap.
Play Value - Shigeru Miyamoto
If Mario is a Carpenter, how come he's never been credited on any of their albums? ^_-
Play Value - Return of the Arcade
I've always thought of arcades as the cinema/movie theatres of the video game industry, you played a game in the arcade, loved it, then waited 18 months hoping for a half decent conversion for your computer/console.
And they're like that now, they let you do what you can't (or can't afford to do) at home, noone owns a 5000 inch screen after all ^_^
Oh, BTW have you ever thought on doing a feature on "Whatever happened to Virtual Reality?" another concept being hailed as the future of gaming (ans er... medical science) but crawled into a corner and died quietly. That's be an awesome addition what with all the FPS's being big lately.
Play Value - Commodore 64
Will do, though I remember seeing stacks of them in a clearance sale in Woolworths and not buying one. Something i've been kicking myself over for years.
I'd also love to but a Pippen someday too. Just something about failed consoles, just because they failed, dosn't mean they had bad games releasd on them.
Play Value - Commodore 64
Very Nice!
I'm trying to find the Commodore 64 Games Console at the moment, the C64GS can't find one anywhere, not because they're rare of essentially valuable, just noone bothered buying one.
Just they're short lived venture into the gaming market possibly to compete with another computer company, Amstrad and their piece of crap console, the GX4000.
Play Value - Controversy!
I think really that Nintendo seeing how much the Sega/Mega CD screwed Sega up, gave them cold feet about releasing a CD system. That and being overly neurotic about people pirating their systems, main reason why they stuck to carts with the N64.
Play Value - Controversy!
I loved Howard Lincoln's stern words in 1992 that Night Trap would never be released on a Nintendo console, kinda ironic seeing they didn't have technology that could play Night Trap anyway for another ten years.
Guru Larry - ScrewAttack.com & Presenter on the European video game channel XLEAGUE.TV
Play Value - SEGA Vs. Nintendo
The problem with Sega is they keep turning 3D Sonic games into uncontrollable, glitchy Rollercoaster sims, when they should be somewhere between Tony Hawks and Prince of Persia in gameplay.
But they've really damaged the Hedgehog's reputation, they should give him a rest for a while (like they did in the Saturn years) and resseurect their original mascot, Alex Kidd!!!
Play Value - SEGA Vs. Nintendo
Oh definetly, i'd go as far as to say that Sonic CD was the greatest 2D Sonic game ever made (well between that and Sonic 2)
Play Value - SEGA Vs. Nintendo
I'm going to have to disagree with him saying there were no decent games at all on the Sega CD, Sonic CD, Final Fight CD and Snatcher are all time faves amongst gamers on the system. And while it did have what ammounts to second-hand shovel ware like Night Trap and Sherlock Holmes from abandoned VHS/CD consoles, it wasn't as bad as people make it out to be.
Play Value - Failed Consoles - Part Two
Can I be smug and say I managed to buy an Official UK Turbographx 16 a few years ago? Dosn't sound interesting until you learn that the system was never released here.
NEC sold about 100 prototypes/beta machines to Telegames, but for some reason never really pushed it, possibly as the MD was already established here and the SNES was on the horizon.
It's almost exactly the same as the US one, even being only compatible with US games, only difference is they dropped the "16" bit, so it's just "Turbographx".
Play Value - Atari vs. Nintendo
Definetly, I do the same for a living and I don't think too many people realise the ammount of footage you need to create to make a short video thats so well and tightly edited.
I really enjoy them, kudos to you and your passionate hard work Sir!
Guru Larry - ScrewAttack.com & Presenter on the European video game channel XLEAGUE.TV
Play Value - Atari vs. Nintendo
I liked Codemasters/Camerica/Galoob's way around the copyright by using an official cart to bypass the code to play their games (The Aladdin Game Enhancer).
Since they wern't stealing anything they couldn't be sued. They only really died because they had legitimatly cracked it too late in the NES's life.
Guru Larry - ScrewAttack.com & Presenter on the European video game channel XLEAGUE.TV
Play Value - The Fall of Atari
It's kinda ironic to an extent that the same thing is happening with the Wii at the moment, for every Mario Galaxy, theres a ton of shovelware crap from other publishers trying to jump on the minigame bandwagon.
But a common misconception is it was only Atari US that imploded in the gaming crash, Atari Europe was still chugging along rather comfortably putting out arcade games as while the VCS died, they could fall back onto other systems that were emerging like the ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, Commodore 64 and the Amstrad CPC. Kinda what Sega did years later.
Guru Larry - ScrewAttack.com & Presenter on the European video game channel XLEAGUE.TV
Play Value - Tetris: Splitting the Iron Curtain
Maxwell was a real piece of shit though, he embezzeled millions of peoples retirements funds into his failing Mirror group and lost everything, also extremly interesting read on how he died, just found his body one day floating in the Atlantic Ocean.
Gotta feel sorry for Alexy Pajitnov, didn't make a penny from Tetris (until recently), went to the US to set up his own puzzle game company which went bust, and now makes "Casual Games" for Microsoft.
Play Value - Tetris: Splitting the Iron Curtain
Maxwell was absolutely livid about losing out on the rights, he fired his son who was hear od Mirrorsoft and started blackmailing the Russian government into giving him the rights OR ELSE!!!
I think he did gain some rights, possibly buying what little rights Stien had for pennies.
Nintendo also owns a video diary (a week of footage from the flight there to leaving for Japan) of the whole deal as they didn't 100% trust the Soviets, which I only know as clips have been shown ina BBC documentary about the whole case.
But the whole thing would make a great movie tho, people laugh if you pitched a Tetris movie, but it would be pretty good.
Guru Larry - ScrewAttack.com & Presenter on the European video game channel XLEAGUE.TV
Play Value - Failed Consoles - Part One
The Master System was anything but a failure, while Nintendo did have it by the neck in the US, Sega had obliterated the NES in Europe and parts of Asia, I grew up in the UK and only one chemist chain store sold NESes. Infact it was partially Nintendo's fault, snubbing Woolworths in the UK was an absolute catastrophy for them.
Guru Larry - Screwattack.com & Presenter on European Video Game channel XLEAGUE.TV
Play Value - Rise of Nintendo
I remember that, we had quite a few clones of the Intellevision over here, the Granstand being the most famous. Imagine a store doing that nowadays though? Nice Wal-Mart PS3 with a side of Lawsuit!
Oh, I was thinking about the "what if.." scenario and one of the reasons the 7800 bombed (bar the rivalry with Nintendo) was that people no longer trusted the brand, they'd been burnt twice before. That and they were just the exact same games as you said.
So What I think would have happened was that Sega would have won the 8-Bit war, as no Nintendo, no licensing problem. Nintendo would have come back with the SNES in 1991, while they wouldn't have been as popular, they'd have built their reputation by now, so we'd probably be where we are today still. Sega would still hae screwed themselves over by releasing too many consoles at one time.
If it took MS 5 years to get to this position in the Console war today, Nintendo could easily have done it in 16.
Play Value - Rise of Nintendo
I think you'd be right, Atari had a knack of producing new consoles and then not release them for years.
BTW odd question, Did Mattel make a version of the NES in the US? They did over here, you could buy a "Mattel Version" and a "NES version" Nintendo. I had a Mattel one, which was not as good in the long run, the NES version could play games from any region. Mattel one could only play games from the UK and Canada bizarrely.
Play Value - Rise of Nintendo
Tis a nice story!
Also makes you think "What if Atari had gone ahead with the Nintendo Deal?" Would we be playing the Atari Entertainment System, would Atari still be around in their original guise today, or even more, would Atari have just sat on the rights and instead concentrated on the 7800 and thus muscled out a possible competetor.
But it all turned out well in the end, until Nintendo got in shit with the US government for having a bully like monopoly on the industry.
Play Value - The Death of Arcades
Awesome, defiently look forward to it, I'm really enjoying the series.
Play Value - The Death of Arcades
Arcades could still be resseurected, if they could revive them like they did with cinema when home video almost killed it. by giving the user an expierence they can't have at home. (though you could say thats why "gimicky" arcade games like DDR do well) But the possibility of releasing games in arcades before home could be viable.
But one thing that arcades should have embrased was online arcade games, esepcially when broadband was too expensive for most people. Atari had a quick stab at it with dial up games, which was stupid, and Sega did pretty well with online Virtua fighter games in Japan. (also Half-Life 2 arcade) but in whole a missed opportunity.
Then again, maybe thats what LAN/Cyber Cafe's became.
Guru Larry - ScrewAttack.com & Presenter on the European video game channel XLEAGUE.TV