The most popular games of his time, part 2: 1980s
In the first part of the cycle, we talked about the most popular games of our time about such hits as Pong, the first racing game Astro Race, the grandfather of the “tanchiki” on Dendy - the arcade machine Tank, the space shooter Space Invaders and the training Oregon Trail.
It is the time of the 1980s, when new consoles came on the scene, saving the gaming industry from the crisis, and with them - a lot of interesting games. We are talking about Super Mario, Megaman, Pac Man, Prince of Persia and other games. And about "Tetris", of course.
In the 1980s, advertising in the video game industry was aggressive.
In 1980, the Japanese company Namco starts selling the PUCK MAN gaming machine. He later goes to the United States under the name Pac-Man. In English, PUCK would immediately be altered into another word.
')
No violence, as in the popular games of the 1970s. Only ghosts and cherries. Now the arcade machine is suitable for children. The developer Toru Ivatani just counted on expanding the audience. The game was ported to home game consoles, for example, on the Atari 2600. Ivatani worked on the game for a year and a half.
The Pac-Man submachine gun was sold in the amount of 350,000 copies, various fakes and games appeared, just like racing in a maze. Even the next game on the list - Donkey Kong from Nintendo - is a labyrinth, although it is more likely a platformer.
In 2015, the Pixels film was shot, in which the three-dimensional Pac-Man, along with other characters from the old games, attacked Earth.
Want to play? Go to Google, for example, here . You can accidentally kill an hour of time, enjoying a beautiful classic eight-bit soundtrack.
In 1981 comes out one of the first games in the genre of the platformer - Donkey Kong from Nintendo. This is where Mario first appears. Although his name was Jumpman. And he was not a plumber, but a carpenter. But this is still the same Mario. In the game you need to save your girlfriend from the villain, a huge monkey. Up to this point in games, there has not yet been a hackneyed story with the rescue of a girl out of trouble .
The game from the arcade machine ported to game consoles and computers. The franchise itself was divided into two - there were sequels about Donkey Kong, and one of the best-selling Super Mario games in the entire history.
It is interesting that from the very beginning the sailor Popeye should have been in the game, and Olive should have performed as a princess. Only with Disney it was not possible to agree, therefore they invented other characters. A year after the release of the game, Disney Studio changed its mind as it saw the success of the idea, and the arcade machine Popeye was born.
In 1982, Toshiba released its first personal computer, the T100, founded the company, the publisher of games Electronic Arts, and in the USSR began to produce computers DVK. For this article, the most interesting event is Pitfall !, a game from Activision, which is often called the first platformer.
Everything was there: alligators, through whose mouths it was necessary to jump when they were closed, creepers, with the help of which it was possible to fly over reservoirs and pits, rolling barrels, dungeons, fires, snakes and ladders. In total, it was necessary to overcome 255 screens and collect all the treasures. Roughly speaking, all subsequent platformers differ only in the complexity of riddles and graphics.
Pitfall! sold in the amount of four million copies only on the Atari 2600. It was on this platform that the game became the second in sales after Pac-Man. But other than that, Pitfall! ported to other game consoles - Intellivision and ColecoVision, as well as to Commodore 64 computers and MSX machines.
If in 1983 the income of the gaming consoles industry amounted to 3.2 billion dollars, by 1985 they had fallen to 100 million. That is 32 times. Companies went bankrupt, people lost their jobs - everything, as always in similar crises in any industry. The industry began to emerge from the crisis in 1985 after the launch of the Atari 7800 consoles and the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Of the interesting games of the year was a Star Wars shooter with three-dimensional color vector graphics. In it, it was possible both to shoot at the enemy’s space vehicles and on other incomprehensible objects. The goal was to destroy all the Death Stars. The game was made according to the plot of the first part of the original trilogy.
I could not find the data on the number of copies sold, but for several years the game was ported to almost all possible gaming platforms of the time: Atari 2600, Colecovision Atari 5200, Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Acorn Electron, BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Apple II, Apple Macintosh, Commodore 64, DOS, Nintendo GameCube.
On June 6, 1984, Alexey Pajitnov introduced Tetris, this synonym for computer games in principle, one of the best-selling and most famous games in the history of the industry. In 2016, the game turned 32 years old, she managed to visit almost all gaming platforms, and based on the game they are going to make a sci-fi film .
The name of the game comes from "Tetramino" (a game with figures from four squares) and "Tennis". There are many versions of the game, including 360-degree, bulk and physical - board games.
The rights to use the game in their arcade machines first bought Atari. In parallel, Nintendo purchased the rights for the NES and Game Boy. The company Tetris Company Pajitnov registered only in 1996, to start earning on his invention.
By 2014, the mobile platforms installed the game 425 million times, sold cartridges for the Game Boy in the amount of 37 million, and besides this - another 70 million copies of the game, not counting unlicensed devices.
Super Mario Bros. Game 2 was sold in the amount of 7.5 million units, the third part of the game - in the amount of 17 million. And the first, released in 1985 for the NES game Super Mario Bros., sold more than 40 million copies.
The Mario character first appeared under the name Jumper in the 1981 game Donkey Kong. Then he was an opponent of the main character of the game Donkey Kong Jr. In addition to the game, Mario has his brother Luigi in a green suit.
This is a platformer with smooth scrolling, a huge number of obstacles, the ability to beat your head (actually, with your hand) on bricks in order to get coins and eat mushrooms. A game with which many of us associate childhood. For the New Year of 1995-1996, for example, I was presented with Dendy, and it was this game that was included.
According to Mario in 1993 three films were released at once. One of them is “Super Brothers Mario” with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo in the lead roles, and two are pornographic pictures of Super Hornio Brothers and Super Hornio Brothers II with Ron Jeremy. It was one porn movie, but so long that it had to be divided into parts. Nintendo had to buy the rights to the films so that no one ever saw them completely.
See how this game was advertised. In Russia, I do not remember these clips.
In 1986, Nintendo began the release of the series of games The Legend of Zelda - and the series continues to this day, since it is beneficial for igrodels to use the same egg-laying golden chicken for thirty years.
Gameplay in The Legend of Zelda mixed action with shooting and rubles opponents in the cabbage with the sword, PRG and puzzles. Here you need to fight, solve riddles, use items from your inventory. To distract or buy off monsters, you can use food to see something in the dark - a candle. Rings can be used to protect the character from the adversary; bracelets can be used to enhance the blows.
All games in this series have sold over 70 million copies. And 6.5 million of them fall on the very first game of 1986.
If fighting is Mortal Kombat, Tekken or Street Fighter (my personal opinion). Of these three, the first was Street Fighter, released in 1987 by Capcom for arcade machines. But the first part did not receive popularity and recognition, therefore here we will speak not about it, but about Metal Gear. And this is not a fighting game, of course.
In the history of Konami, an important place is occupied by the Metal Gear series of games developed by Hideo Kojima. The first part of the game gave a start not only to the series, but also to the genre itself - this is one of the first stealth action games in history.
The protagonist of the first part - Solid Snake. His task is to destroy a two-legged tank that can launch nuclear missiles anywhere in the world. To complete the task, you must enter the lock. Preferably unnoticed. Although you can kill here, and with various weapons, from a pistol to a grenade launcher. The hero is helped by other characters with the help of radio communications tips.
Hideo Kojima tried to write stories before working in Konami. But his stories were so long that they were reluctant to accept them. And, probably, not even everyone read. Kojima managed to realize his creative potential in games, worked out to the smallest detail. This game designer deserves a separate article, and, judging by the survey , I will write such an article soon.
The bestseller in 1988 was the game Mega Man 2. Nintendo sold half a million copies of this game, which was then included in the Top 200 games from this manufacturer.
The main character fights with the sinister Doctor Wiley, who has erected a castle with traps and wants to do something bad with the world. To defeat the evil doctor and his minions, you can shoot and jump, and sometimes fly and climb walls on special platforms - this is auxiliary equipment for Megaman developed by Dr. Light.
The first game of the Prince of Persia series was released in 1989. But at first she did not have commercial success - for the Apple II and IBM PC, it was sold in the amount of seven thousand pieces by July 1990. But after the game started selling in Japan and Europe, it gained recognition among users. By 1993, by the release of the second part, it had sold two million copies of the game for different platforms.
The game combined a platformer with puzzles, parkour, running and sword fighting. Graphics for his age was amazing. Character actions developer Jordan Mekner "removed" from his brother using rotoscoping technology. This is a cartoon technique in which a segment of the character's actions is created by delineating the frames of the footage film with real actors and scenery.
In the Prince of Persia series, not every game was a commercial success. Moreover, after the first part, Mackner failed to do something that would attract huge interest from the public. Even the 3d version of 1999 was a failure.
The history of Prince of Persia Parkour in 2003 was revived. This was done by Ubisoft with Mekner. This is not a platformer, but a three-dimensional action, albeit with a similar game process. This time, critics greeted the game Prince of Persia quite warmly. So much so that she got into several ratings of the best games of all time.
And, of course, we must not forget about the 2010 film “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” with Jake Gyllenhaal.
The 1980s were not easy for the gaming industry. The crisis of 1983-1985 almost put an end to consoles, but this did not happen thanks in large part to Nintendo and Atari. NES and its competitors have gained popularity among gamers of any age for many years.
In the games, new genres - platformers and stealth action games. The most popular were just platformers. They turned from Pitfall in a few years! with dubious graphics in Prince of Persia with realistic character movements.
It is the time of the 1980s, when new consoles came on the scene, saving the gaming industry from the crisis, and with them - a lot of interesting games. We are talking about Super Mario, Megaman, Pac Man, Prince of Persia and other games. And about "Tetris", of course.
In the 1980s, advertising in the video game industry was aggressive.
Pac-man
In 1980, the Japanese company Namco starts selling the PUCK MAN gaming machine. He later goes to the United States under the name Pac-Man. In English, PUCK would immediately be altered into another word.
')
No violence, as in the popular games of the 1970s. Only ghosts and cherries. Now the arcade machine is suitable for children. The developer Toru Ivatani just counted on expanding the audience. The game was ported to home game consoles, for example, on the Atari 2600. Ivatani worked on the game for a year and a half.
The Pac-Man submachine gun was sold in the amount of 350,000 copies, various fakes and games appeared, just like racing in a maze. Even the next game on the list - Donkey Kong from Nintendo - is a labyrinth, although it is more likely a platformer.
In 2015, the Pixels film was shot, in which the three-dimensional Pac-Man, along with other characters from the old games, attacked Earth.
Want to play? Go to Google, for example, here . You can accidentally kill an hour of time, enjoying a beautiful classic eight-bit soundtrack.
Donkey-kong
In 1981 comes out one of the first games in the genre of the platformer - Donkey Kong from Nintendo. This is where Mario first appears. Although his name was Jumpman. And he was not a plumber, but a carpenter. But this is still the same Mario. In the game you need to save your girlfriend from the villain, a huge monkey. Up to this point in games, there has not yet been a hackneyed story with the rescue of a girl out of trouble .
The game from the arcade machine ported to game consoles and computers. The franchise itself was divided into two - there were sequels about Donkey Kong, and one of the best-selling Super Mario games in the entire history.
It is interesting that from the very beginning the sailor Popeye should have been in the game, and Olive should have performed as a princess. Only with Disney it was not possible to agree, therefore they invented other characters. A year after the release of the game, Disney Studio changed its mind as it saw the success of the idea, and the arcade machine Popeye was born.
Pitfall!
In 1982, Toshiba released its first personal computer, the T100, founded the company, the publisher of games Electronic Arts, and in the USSR began to produce computers DVK. For this article, the most interesting event is Pitfall !, a game from Activision, which is often called the first platformer.
Everything was there: alligators, through whose mouths it was necessary to jump when they were closed, creepers, with the help of which it was possible to fly over reservoirs and pits, rolling barrels, dungeons, fires, snakes and ladders. In total, it was necessary to overcome 255 screens and collect all the treasures. Roughly speaking, all subsequent platformers differ only in the complexity of riddles and graphics.
Pitfall! sold in the amount of four million copies only on the Atari 2600. It was on this platform that the game became the second in sales after Pac-Man. But other than that, Pitfall! ported to other game consoles - Intellivision and ColecoVision, as well as to Commodore 64 computers and MSX machines.
Star wars
If in 1983 the income of the gaming consoles industry amounted to 3.2 billion dollars, by 1985 they had fallen to 100 million. That is 32 times. Companies went bankrupt, people lost their jobs - everything, as always in similar crises in any industry. The industry began to emerge from the crisis in 1985 after the launch of the Atari 7800 consoles and the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Of the interesting games of the year was a Star Wars shooter with three-dimensional color vector graphics. In it, it was possible both to shoot at the enemy’s space vehicles and on other incomprehensible objects. The goal was to destroy all the Death Stars. The game was made according to the plot of the first part of the original trilogy.
I could not find the data on the number of copies sold, but for several years the game was ported to almost all possible gaming platforms of the time: Atari 2600, Colecovision Atari 5200, Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Acorn Electron, BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Apple II, Apple Macintosh, Commodore 64, DOS, Nintendo GameCube.
Tetris
On June 6, 1984, Alexey Pajitnov introduced Tetris, this synonym for computer games in principle, one of the best-selling and most famous games in the history of the industry. In 2016, the game turned 32 years old, she managed to visit almost all gaming platforms, and based on the game they are going to make a sci-fi film .
The name of the game comes from "Tetramino" (a game with figures from four squares) and "Tennis". There are many versions of the game, including 360-degree, bulk and physical - board games.
The rights to use the game in their arcade machines first bought Atari. In parallel, Nintendo purchased the rights for the NES and Game Boy. The company Tetris Company Pajitnov registered only in 1996, to start earning on his invention.
By 2014, the mobile platforms installed the game 425 million times, sold cartridges for the Game Boy in the amount of 37 million, and besides this - another 70 million copies of the game, not counting unlicensed devices.
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. Game 2 was sold in the amount of 7.5 million units, the third part of the game - in the amount of 17 million. And the first, released in 1985 for the NES game Super Mario Bros., sold more than 40 million copies.
The Mario character first appeared under the name Jumper in the 1981 game Donkey Kong. Then he was an opponent of the main character of the game Donkey Kong Jr. In addition to the game, Mario has his brother Luigi in a green suit.
This is a platformer with smooth scrolling, a huge number of obstacles, the ability to beat your head (actually, with your hand) on bricks in order to get coins and eat mushrooms. A game with which many of us associate childhood. For the New Year of 1995-1996, for example, I was presented with Dendy, and it was this game that was included.
According to Mario in 1993 three films were released at once. One of them is “Super Brothers Mario” with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo in the lead roles, and two are pornographic pictures of Super Hornio Brothers and Super Hornio Brothers II with Ron Jeremy. It was one porn movie, but so long that it had to be divided into parts. Nintendo had to buy the rights to the films so that no one ever saw them completely.
See how this game was advertised. In Russia, I do not remember these clips.
The Legend of Zelda
In 1986, Nintendo began the release of the series of games The Legend of Zelda - and the series continues to this day, since it is beneficial for igrodels to use the same egg-laying golden chicken for thirty years.
Gameplay in The Legend of Zelda mixed action with shooting and rubles opponents in the cabbage with the sword, PRG and puzzles. Here you need to fight, solve riddles, use items from your inventory. To distract or buy off monsters, you can use food to see something in the dark - a candle. Rings can be used to protect the character from the adversary; bracelets can be used to enhance the blows.
All games in this series have sold over 70 million copies. And 6.5 million of them fall on the very first game of 1986.
Metal gear
If fighting is Mortal Kombat, Tekken or Street Fighter (my personal opinion). Of these three, the first was Street Fighter, released in 1987 by Capcom for arcade machines. But the first part did not receive popularity and recognition, therefore here we will speak not about it, but about Metal Gear. And this is not a fighting game, of course.
In the history of Konami, an important place is occupied by the Metal Gear series of games developed by Hideo Kojima. The first part of the game gave a start not only to the series, but also to the genre itself - this is one of the first stealth action games in history.
The protagonist of the first part - Solid Snake. His task is to destroy a two-legged tank that can launch nuclear missiles anywhere in the world. To complete the task, you must enter the lock. Preferably unnoticed. Although you can kill here, and with various weapons, from a pistol to a grenade launcher. The hero is helped by other characters with the help of radio communications tips.
Hideo Kojima tried to write stories before working in Konami. But his stories were so long that they were reluctant to accept them. And, probably, not even everyone read. Kojima managed to realize his creative potential in games, worked out to the smallest detail. This game designer deserves a separate article, and, judging by the survey , I will write such an article soon.
Mega Man 2
The bestseller in 1988 was the game Mega Man 2. Nintendo sold half a million copies of this game, which was then included in the Top 200 games from this manufacturer.
The main character fights with the sinister Doctor Wiley, who has erected a castle with traps and wants to do something bad with the world. To defeat the evil doctor and his minions, you can shoot and jump, and sometimes fly and climb walls on special platforms - this is auxiliary equipment for Megaman developed by Dr. Light.
Prince of Persia
The first game of the Prince of Persia series was released in 1989. But at first she did not have commercial success - for the Apple II and IBM PC, it was sold in the amount of seven thousand pieces by July 1990. But after the game started selling in Japan and Europe, it gained recognition among users. By 1993, by the release of the second part, it had sold two million copies of the game for different platforms.
The game combined a platformer with puzzles, parkour, running and sword fighting. Graphics for his age was amazing. Character actions developer Jordan Mekner "removed" from his brother using rotoscoping technology. This is a cartoon technique in which a segment of the character's actions is created by delineating the frames of the footage film with real actors and scenery.
In the Prince of Persia series, not every game was a commercial success. Moreover, after the first part, Mackner failed to do something that would attract huge interest from the public. Even the 3d version of 1999 was a failure.
The history of Prince of Persia Parkour in 2003 was revived. This was done by Ubisoft with Mekner. This is not a platformer, but a three-dimensional action, albeit with a similar game process. This time, critics greeted the game Prince of Persia quite warmly. So much so that she got into several ratings of the best games of all time.
And, of course, we must not forget about the 2010 film “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” with Jake Gyllenhaal.
The 1980s were not easy for the gaming industry. The crisis of 1983-1985 almost put an end to consoles, but this did not happen thanks in large part to Nintendo and Atari. NES and its competitors have gained popularity among gamers of any age for many years.
In the games, new genres - platformers and stealth action games. The most popular were just platformers. They turned from Pitfall in a few years! with dubious graphics in Prince of Persia with realistic character movements.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/399743/
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